share in the Divine life which quenches the sense of suffering Self in the ardours of an evergrowing love. And now, when the sword has pierced your soul, you say, 'I will go away; I cannot bear my sorrow.". And you think nothing of the sorrow and the wrong that are within the walls of the city where you dwell: you would leave your place empty, when it ought to be filled with your pity and your labour. If there is wickedness in the streets, your steps should shine with the light of purity: if there is a cry of anguish, you, my daughter, because you know the meaning of the cry, should be there to still it. My beloved daughter, sorrow has come to teach you a new worship: the sign of it hangs before you."

beside him. M
Te, you must
e my husb
"Yet if o
luntarily begu
mish from her
Make your
r: an offering

Romola's mind was still torn by conflict. She foresaw that she should obey Savonarola and go back: his words had come to her as if they were an interpretation of that revulsion from self-satisfied ease, and of that new fellowship with suffering, which had already been awakened in her. His arresting voice had brought a new condition into her life, which made it seem impossible to her that she could go on her way as if she had not heard it; yet she shrank as one who sees the path she must take, but sees, too, that the hot lava lies there. And the instinctive shrinking from a return to her husband brought doubts. She turned away her eyes from Fra Girolamo, and stood for a minute or two with her hands hanging clasped before her, like a statue. At last she spoke, as if the words were being wrung from her, still looking on the ground,

01

being made t inning. Here faith behold it to die daily by last by laying & child of Fl tance. Live f preparing 24 smart. The in tender flesh. re is rapture in life below it dr ack to your place While Savonard htly folded befor his face alight self surrounded ate faith. The ned by the se ch she was bein strength withi erful cry, she s "Father, I will

'My husband. . . . he is not. . . . my love is gone!" "My daughter, there is the bond of a higher love. Marriage is not carnal only, made for selfish delight. See what that thought leads you to! It leads you to wander away in a false garb from all the obligations of your place and name. That would not have been, if you had learned that it is a sacramental vow, from which none but God can release you. My daughter, your life is not as a grain of sand, to be blown by the winds; it is a thing of flesh and blood, that dies if it be sundered. Your husband is not a malefactor?"

tomola started. "Heaven forbid! No; I accuse him of ing."

I did not suppose he was a malefactor. I meant, that if ere a malefactor, your place would be in the prison e him. My daughter, if the cross comes to you as a you must carry it as a wife. You may say, 'I will ke my husband,' but you cannot cease to be a wife." Yet if — oh, how could I bear "Romola had intarily begun to say something which she sought to h from her mind again.

Make your marriage-sorrows an offering too, my daughin offering to the great work by which sin and sorrow

eing made to cease. The end is sure, and is already ning. Here in Florence it is beginning, and the eyes th behold it. And it may be our blessedness to die for die daily by the crucifixion of our selfish will to die by laying our bodies on the altar. My daughter, you child of Florence; fulfil the duties of that great innce. Live for Florence - for your own people, whom preparing to bless the earth. Bear the anguish and art. The iron is sharp- I know, I know der flesh. The draught is bitterness on the lips. But s rapture in the cup- there is the vision which makes below it dross for ever. Come, my daughter, come O your place!"

it rends

ile Savonarola spoke with growing intensity, his arms folded before him still, as they had been from the first, 3 face alight as from an inward flame, Romola felt surrounded and possessed by the glow of his pasfaith. The chill doubts all melted away; she was by the sense of something unspeakably great to she was being called by a strong being who roused trength within herself. In a voice that was like a low, ul cry, she said

ther, I will be guided. Teach me! I will go

Romola arose from her knees. been a sort of sacrament to her, confirming the state of yearning passivity on which she had newly entered. By the one act of renouncing her resolve to quit her husband, her will seemed so utterly bruised that she felt the need of direction even in small things. She lifted up the edge of her cowl, and saw Maso and the second Dominican standing with their backs towards her on the edge of the hill about ten yards from her; but she looked at Savonarola again without speaking, as if the order to Maso to turn back must come from him and not from her.

"Then sha aver, if" ta sudden uld vanish is vanished. "My daugh in my lips, and I will see y And I will not ther concern

"I will go and call them," he said, answering her glance of appeal; "and I will recommend you, my daughter, to the Brother who is with me. You desire to put yourself under guidance, and to learn that wisdom which has been hitherto as foolishness to you. A chief gate of that wisdom is the sacrament of confession. You will need a confessor, my daughter, and I desire to put you under the care of Fra Salvestro, one of the brethren of San Marco in whom I most confide."

"I would rather have no guidance but yours, father," said Romola, looking anxious.

labour for th

alled as a daug desire to beho

sters as the ap

fairness a

rough which th now and call When Maso estro came fo She had guide who isted Savonar de of indep st be drawn fro whole bent of inful rather tha

"My daughter, I do not act as a confessor. The vocation I have withdraws me from offices that would force me into frequent contact with the laity, and interfere with my special duties."

Fra Salvestro raised her h

tame a palpita

ace infuses tru on we have ne

de; and that sed to have Sa Salvestro Ma manifestly re air of hypocri somer than F

Then shall I not be able to speak to you in private? if I r, if-" Romola broke off from rising agitation. She a sudden alarm lest her new strength in renunciation Id vanish if the immediate personal influence of Savonavanished.

My daughter, if your soul has need of the word in private my lips, you will let me know it through Fra Salvestro, I will see you in the sacristy or in the choir of San Marco. I will not cease to watch over you. I will instruct my er concerning you, that he may guide you into that path our for the suffering and the hungry to which you are 1 as a daughter of Florence in these times of hard need. ire to behold you among the feebler and more ignorant s as the apple-tree among the trees of the forest, so that fairness and all natural gifts may be but as a lamp gh which the Divine light shines the more purely. I will w and call your servant."

Then Maso had been sent a little way in advance, Fra stro came forward, and Savonarola led Romola towards She had beforehand felt an inward shrinking from a guide who was a total stranger to her; but to have ed Savonarola's advice would have been to assume an de of independence at a moment when all her strength be drawn from the renunciation of independence. And hole bent of her mind now was towards doing what was l rather than what was easy. She bowed reverently a Salvestro before looking directly at him; but when aised her head and saw him fully, her reluctance e a palpitating doubt. There are men whose preinfuses trust and reverence; there are others to we have need to carry our trust and reverence ready

and that difference flashed on Romola as she to have Savonarola before her, and saw in his stead alvestro Maruffi. It was not that there was anymanifestly repulsive in Fra Salvestro's face and manner, r of hypocrisy, any tinge of coarseness; his face was mer than Fra Girolamo's, his person a little taller.

He was the long-accepted confessor of many among the chief
personages in Florence, and had therefore had large ex-
perience as a spiritual director. But his face had the vacilla-
ting expression of a mind unable to concentrate itself strongly
in the channel of one great emotion or belief, an expression
which is fatal to influence over an ardent nature like Romola's.
Such an expression is not the stamp of insincerity; it is the
stamp simply of a shallow soul, which will often be found
sincerely striving to fill a high vocation, sincerely composing
its countenance to the utterance of sublime formulas, but
finding the muscles twitch or relax in spite of belief, as prose
insists in coming instead of poetry to the man who has not the
divine frenzy. Fra Salvestro had a peculiar liability to
visions, dependent apparently on a constitution given to
somnambulism. Savonarola believed in the supernatural
character of these visions, while Fra Salvestro himself had
originally resisted such an interpretation of them, and had
even rebuked Savonarola for his prophetic preaching.
other proof, if one were wanted, that the relative greatness
of men is not to be gauged by their tendency to disbelieve the
superstitions of their age. For of these two there can be no
question which was the great man and which the small.

An

The difference between them was measured very accurately by the change in Romola's feeling as Fra Salvestro began to address her in words of exhortation and encouragement. After her first angry resistance of Savonarola had passed away, she had lost all remembrance of the old dread lest any influence should drag her within the circle of fanaticism and sour monkish piety. But now again, the chill breath of that dread stole over her. It could have no decisive effect against the impetus her mind had just received; it was only like the closing of the grey clouds over the sunrise, which made her returning path monotonous and sombre.

And perhaps of all sombre paths that on which we go back after treading it with a strong resolution is the one that most severely tests the fervour of renunciation. As they re-entered the city gates the light snow-flakes fell about them; and as

San Marco,

arge door in

darkly on the and damp ab She went

the parting le

her hair, and long exciti place. The alone.

She felt th

that of a seeke going to threa energy of her remained locke Nothing br ome, till the

Tet it was the Bomola, this o