was thinking that when all the rest had turned their backs upon him, it would be pleasant to have this little creature adoring him and nestling against him. The absence of presumptuous self-conceit in Tito made him feel all the more defenceless under prospective obloquy: he needed soft looks and caresses too much ever to be impudent. "In the Mercato?" said Tessa. "Not to-morrow morning, because the patrigno will be there, and he is so cross. Oh! but you have money, and he will not be cross if you buy some salad. And there are some chestnuts. Do you like chestnuts?" He said nothing, but continued to look down at her with a dreamy gentleness, and Tessa felt herself in a state of delicious wonder; everything seemed as new as if she were being carried on a chariot of clouds. "Holy Virgin!" she exclaimed again presently. "There is a holy father like the Bishop I saw at Prato." Tito looked up too, and saw that he had unconsciously advanced to within a few yards of the conjuror, Maestro Vaiano, who, for the moment, was forsaken by the crowd. His face was turned away from them, and he was occupied with the apparatus on his altar or table, preparing a new diversion by the time the interest in the dancing should be exhausted. The monkey was imprisoned under the red cloth, out of reach of mischief, and the youngster in the white surplice was holding a sort of dish or salver, from which his master was taking some ingredient. The altar-like table, with its gorgeous cloth, the row of tapers, the sham episcopal costume, the surpliced attendant, and even the movements of the mitred figure, as he alternately bent his head and then raised something before the lights, were a sufficiently near parody of sacred things to rouse poor little Tessa's veneration; and there was some additional awe produced by the mystery of their apparition in this spot, for when she had seen an altar in the street before, it had been on Corpus Christi Day, and there had been a procession to account for it. She crossed herself and looked up at Tito, but then, as if she had had time for reflection, said, "It is because of the Natività." Meanwhile Vaiano had turned round, raising his hands to his mitre with the intention of changing his dress, when his quick eye recognized Tito and Tessa who were both looking at him, their faces being shone upon by the light of his tapers, while his own was in shadow. "Ha! my children!" he said, instantly, stretching out his hands in a benedictory attitude, "you are come to de married. I commend your penitence- the blessing of Holy Church can never come too late." But whilst he was speaking, he had taken in the whole meaning of Tessa's attitude and expression, and he discerned an opportunity for a new kind of joke which required him to be cautious and solemn. "Should you like to be married to me, Tessa?" said Tito, softly, half enjoying the comedy, as he saw the pretty childish seriousness on her face, half prompted by hazy previsions which belonged to the intoxication of despair. He felt her vibrating before she looked up at him and said, timidly, "Will you let me?" He answered only by a smile, and by leading her forward in front of the cerretano, who, seeing an excellent jest in Tessa's evident delusion, assumed a surpassing sacerdotal solemnity, and went through the mimic ceremony with a liberal expenditure of lingua furbesca or thieves' Latin. But some symptoms of a new movement in the crowd urged him to bring it to a speedy conclusion and dismiss them with hands outstretched in a benedictory attitude over their kneeling figures. Tito, disposed always to cultivate goodwill, though it might be the least select, put a piece of four grossi into his hand as he moved away, and was thanked by a look which, the conjuror felt sure, conveyed a perfect understanding of the whole affair. But Tito himself was very far from that understanding, and did not, in fact, know whether, the next moment, he should tell Tessa of the joke and laugh at her for a little goose, or whether he should let her delusion last, and see what would come of it see what she would say and do next. "Then you will not go away from me again," said Tessa, after they had walked a few steps, "and you will take me to where you live." She spoke meditatively, and not in a questioning tone. But presently she added, "I must go back once to the Madre, though, to tell her I brought the cocoons, and that I'm married, and shall not go back again." Tito felt the necessity of speaking now; and, in the rapid thought prompted by that necessity, he saw that by undeceiving Tessa he should be robbing himself of some at least of that pretty trustfulness which might, by-and-by, be his only haven from contempt. It would spoil Tessa to make her the least particle wiser or more suspicious. "Yes, my little Tessa," he said, caressingly, "you must go back to the Madre; but you must not tell her you are married — you must keep that a secret from everybody; else some very great harm would happen to me, and you would never see me again." She looked up at him with fear in her face. "You must go back and feed your goats and mules, and do just as you have always done before, and say no word to any one about me." The corners of her mouth fell a little. "And then, perhaps, I shall come and take care of you again when you want me, as I did before. But you must do just what I tell you, else you will not see me again." "Yes, I will, I will," she said, in a loud whisper, frightened at that blank prospect. They were silent a little while; and then Tessa, looking at her hand, said, "The Madre wears a betrothal ring. She went to church and had it put on, and then after that, another day, she was married. And so did the cousin Nannina. But then she married Gollo," added the poor little thing, entangled in the difficult comparison between her own case and others within her experience. "But you must not wear a betrothal ring, my Tessa, because no one must know you are married," said Tito, feeling some insistance necessary. "And the buona fortuna that I gave you did just as well for betrothal. Some people are betrothed with rings and some are not." "Yes, it is true, they would see the ring," said Tessa, trying to convince herself that a thing she would like very much was really not good for her. They were now near the entrance of the church again, and she remembered her cocoons which were still in Tito's hand. "Ah, you must give me the boto," she said; "and we must go in, and I must take it to the Padre, and I must tell the rest of my beads, because I was too tired before." "Yes, you must go in, Tessa; but I will not go in. I must leave you now," said Tito, too fevered and weary to reenter that stifling heat, and feeling that this was the least difficult way of parting with her. "And not come back? Oh, where do you go?" Tessa's mind had never formed an image of his whereabout or his doings when she did not see him: he had vanished, and her thought, instead of following him, had stayed in the same spot where he was with her. "I shall come back some time, Tessa," said Tito, taking her under the cloisters to the door of the church. "You must not cry you must go to sleep, when you have said your beads. And here is money to buy your breakfast. Now kiss me, and look happy, else I shall not come again." She made a great effort over herself as she put up her lips to kiss him, and submitted to be gently turned round, with her face towards the door of the church. Tito saw her enter; and then with a shrug at his own resolution, leaned against a pillar, took off his cap, rubbed his hair backward, and wondered where Romola was now, and what she was thinking of him. Poor little Tessa had disappeared behind the curtain among the crowd of contadine; but the love which formed one web with all his worldly hopes, with the ambitions and pleasures that must make the solid part of his days the love that was identified with his larger self was not to be banished from his consciousness. Even to the man who presents the most elastic resistance to whatever is unpleasant, there will come moments when the pressure from without is too strong for him, and he must feel the smart and the bruise in spite of himself. Such a moment had come to Tito. There was no possible attitude of mind, no scheme of action by which the uprooting of all his newly-planted hopes could be made otherwise than painful. CHAPTER XV. The Dying Message. WHEN Romola arrived at the entrance of San Marco she found one of the Frati waiting there in expectation of her arrival. Monna Brigida retired into the adjoining church, and Romola was conducted to the door of the chapter-house in the outer cloister, whither the invalid had been conveyed; no woman being allowed admission beyond this precinct. When the door opened, the subdued external light blending with that of two tapers placed behind a truckle-bed, showed the emaciated face of Fra Luca, with the tonsured crown of golden hair above it, and with deep-sunken hazel eyes fixed on a small crucifix which he held before him. He was propped up into nearly a sitting posture; and Romola was just conscious, as she threw aside her veil, that there was another monk standing by the bed, with the black cowl drawn over his head, and that he moved towards the door as she entered; just conscious that in the background there was a crucified form rising high and pale on the frescoed wall, and pale faces of sorrow looking out from it below. The next moment her eyes met Fra Luca's as they looked up at her from the crucifix, and she was absorbed in that pang |