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BOMOLA was wake
arly morning was
elling wallet. T
pened the door,
me he had been u
hair, the thick fol
dowed by the darl
It is well, Maso
est voice, and
et quite ready.
behind you. Wh
re slowly, for I sh
mano. 39

This was the tangled web that Romola had in her mind as she sat weary in the darkness. No radiant angel came across the gloom with a clear message for her. In those times, as now, there were human beings who never saw angels or heard perfectly clear messages. Such truth as came to them was brought confusedly in the voices and deeds of men not at all like the seraphs of unfailing wing and piercing vision who believed falsities as well as truths, and did the wrong as well as the right. The helping hands stretched out to them were the hands of men who stumbled and often saw dimly, so that these beings unvisited by angels had no other choice than to grasp that stumbling guidance along the path of reliance and action which is the path of life, or else to pause in loneliness and disbelief, which is no path, but the arrest of inaction and death.

And so Romola, seeing no ray across the darkness, and heavy with conflict that changed nothing, sank at last to sleep.

She closed the do ey which she ha night. It was the Tito had forg ed, as such sma raidered scarsella w long after thei ad put it by, wi on that the key tabernacle stood to one of the wi it so as to make ala, who knew his clusters and de; the Loves anning-eyed do idowery border, e familiar imag

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CHAPTER XVII.

The Tabernacle unlocked.

OMOLA was waked by a tap at the door. The cold light rly morning was in the room, and Maso was come for the lling wallet. The old man could not help starting when pened the door, and showed him, instead of the graceful e he had been used to, crowned with the brightness of air, the thick folds of the grey mantle and the pale face >wed by the dark cowl.

[t is well, Maso," said Romola, trying to speak in the est voice, and make the old man easy. "Here is the t quite ready. You will go on quietly, and I shall not be hind you. When you get out of the gates, you may go slowly, for I shall perhaps join you before you get to piano."

he closed the door behind him, and then put her hand on ey which she had taken from the casket the last thing in ght. It was the original key of the little painted taber: Tito had forgotten to drown it in the Arno, and it had d, as such small things will, in the corner of the emered scarsella which he wore with the purple tunic. One long after their marriage, Romola had found it there, ad put it by, without using it, but with a sense of satisn that the key was within reach. The cabinet on which bernacle stood had been moved to the side of the room, to one of the windows, where the pale morning light fell it so as to make the painted forms discernible enough to la, who knew them well, the triumphant Bacchus, is clusters and his vine-clad spear, clasping the crowned ne; the Loves showering roses, the wreathed vessels, nning-eyed dolphins, and the rippled sea; all encircled Lowery border, like a bower of paradise. Romola looked familiar images with new bitterness and repulsion: they

seemed a more pitiable mockery than ever on this chill morning, when she had waked up to wander in loneliness. They had been no tomb of sorrow, but a lying screen. Foolish Ariadne! with her gaze of love, as if that bright face, with its hyacinthine curls like tendrils among the vines, held the deep secret of her life!

THE T

She folded the ri outside. The

"DEAREST I could have b d not have gone ot ask the reas Fent any one from Porence. I cann my lot in silen ld be sent to you Please to g y cousin Brigida words of parting Farewell, my s still to rememb

"Ariadne is wonderfully transformed," thought Romola. "She would look strange among the vines and the roses now." She took up the mirror, and looked at herself once more. But the sight was so startling in this morning light that she laid it down again, with a sense of shrinking almost as strong as that with which she had turned from the joyous Ariadne. The recognition of her own face, with the cowl about it, brought back the dread lest she should be drawn at last into fellowship with some wretched supersition — into the company of the howling fanatics and weeping nuns who had been her contempt from childhood till now. She thrust the key into the tabernacle hurriedly: hurriedly she opened it, and took out the crucifix, without looking at it; then, with trembling fingers, she passed a cord through the little ring, hung the crucifix round her neck, and hid it in the bosom of her mantle. "For Dino's sake," she said to herself.

Still there were the letters to be written which Maso was to carry back from Bologna. They were very brief. The first said,

"Tito, my love for you is dead; and therefore, so far as I was yours, I too am dead. Do not try to put in force any laws for the sake of fetching me back: that would bring you no happiness. The Romola you married can never return. I need explain nothing to you after the words I uttered to you the last time we spoke long together. If you supposed them to be words of transient anger, you will know now that they were the sign of an irreversible change.

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"I think you will fulfil my wish that my bridal chest should be sent to my godfather, who gave it me. It contains my wedding clothes and the portraits and other relics of my father and mother."

getting broade her steps, she Her simplest then along by she must lea

ΤΟ

Piazza di Santa

ly as ever th

folded the ring inside this letter, and wrote Tito's utside. The next letter was to Bernardo del Nero: :-

"DEAREST GODFATHER,

I could have been any good to your life by staying, I not have gone away to a distance. But now I am gone. ask the reason; and if you loved my father, try to any one from seeking me. I could not bear my life ence. I cannot bear to tell any one why. Help to ny lot in silence. I have asked that my bridal chest be sent to you: when you open it, you will know the

Please to give all the things that were my mother's cousin Brigida, and ask her to forgive me for not saying rds of parting to her.

arewell, my second father. The best thing I have in till to remember your goodness and be grateful to you. "ROMOLA."

nola put the letters, along with the crucifix, within the of her mantle, and then felt that everything was done. is ready now to depart.

one was stirring in the house, and she went almost as as a grey phantom down the stairs and into the silent Her heart was palpitating violently, yet she enjoyed se of her firm tread on the broad flags — of the swift ent, which was like a chained-up resolution set free at The anxiety to carry out her act, and the dread of any le, averted sorrow; and as she reached the Ponte onte, she felt less that Santa Croce was in her sight hat the yellow streak of morning which parted the grey etting broader and broader, and that, unless she hasher steps, she should have to encounter faces.

r simplest road was to go right on to the Borgo Pinti, en along by the walls to the Porta San Gallo, from she must leave the city, and this road carried her by azza di Santa Croce. But she walked as steadily and y as ever through the piazza, not trusting herself to 3

la. II.

look towards the church. The thought that any eyes might be turned on her with a look of curiosity and recognition, and that indifferent minds might be set speculating on her private sorrows, made Romola shrink physically as from the imagination of torture. She felt degraded even by that act of her husband from which she was helplessly suffering. But there was no sign that any eyes looked forth from windows to notice this tall grey sister, with the firm step, and proud attitude of the cowled head. Her road lay aloof from the stir of early traffic, and when she reached the Porta San Gallo, it was easy to pass while a dispute was going forward about the toll for panniers of eggs and market produce which were just entering.

а

THE

ings of the road Maso was not v Pietra and ing roof of her The cowl was dro Meso, but-two yards of her. T er brow had shu , and for the las ing but the brigh and shrouded lik She wished now t le her especially et some pious pa walked along

Out! Once past the houses of the Borgo, she would be beyond the last fringe of Florence, the sky would be broad above her, and she would have entered on her new life life of loneliness and endurance, but of freedom. She had been strong enough to snap asunder the bonds she had accepted in blind faith: whatever befel her, she would no more feel the breath of soft hated lips warm upon her cheek, no longer feel the breath of an odious mind stifling her own. The bare wintry morning, the chill air, were welcome in their severity: the leafless trees, the sombre hills, were not haunted by the gods of beauty and joy, whose worship she had forsaken for ever.

W

till she had see The encounter Romola had an e at this studi t by a special

But presently the light burst forth with sudden strength, and shadows were thrown across the road. It seemed that the sun was going to chase away the greyness. The light is perhaps never felt more strongly as a divine presence stirring all those inarticulate sensibilities which are our deepest life, than in these moments when it instantaneously awakens the shadows. A certain awe which inevitably accompanied this most momentous act of her life became a more conscious element in Romola's feeling as she found herself in the sudden presence of the impalpable golden glory and the long shadow of herself that was not to be escaped. Hitherto she had met no one but an occasional contadino with mules, and the many

But the black sk going down hil Tess that rose fro desire which the ad rest.

She turned her b

il the monks wer

her cowl again w

so and the mule

her to overtak ger in expectatio Meanwhile she

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