I was scarcely satisfied of this before the sound grew indistinct
again and became a murmur of voices. The arch that framed the
sunlight widened; the sky drew nearer, breaking into vivid separate
tinctures--orange, blood-red, sapphire-blue; and at the same time the
Princess receded and diminished in stature. . . . The frame was a
window again, and she a figure on a coloured pane, shining there in a
company of saints and angels. But her voice remained beside me,
speaking with another voice in a great emptiness.
The other voice--a man's--talked most of the while. I could not
follow what it said, but by-and-by caught a single word, "Milano";
and again two words, "The mountains" and yet again, but after an
interval, "The people are poor; they give nothing; from year's end to
year's end"--and the voice prolonged itself like an echo, repeating
the words until, as they died away, they seemed to measure out the
time.
"The more reason why _you_--" began the Princess's voice.
"There shall be spared one--a little one--for Our Lady."
But here I felt myself drifting off once more.
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