abode at Arezzo. The arrangement proved disastrous; and
at the end of a few months Pietro and Violante were glad to return to
Rome, though with empty pockets, and on money lent them for the journey
by their son-in-law.

We have conflicting testimony as to the cause of this rupture. The
Governor of Arezzo, writing to the Abate Paul in Rome, lays all the
blame of it on the Comparini, whom he taxes with vulgar and aggressive
behaviour; and Mr. Browning readily admits that at the beginning there
may have been faults on their side. But popular judgment, as well as
the balance of evidence, were in favour of the opposite view; and
curious details are given by Pompilia and by a servant of the family, a
sworn witness on Pompilia's trial, of the petty cruelties and privations
to which both parents and child were subjected.

So much, at all events, was clear; Violante's sin had overtaken her; and
it now occurred to her, apparently for the first time, to cast off its
burden by confession. The moment was propitious, for the Pope had
proclaimed a jubilee in honour of his eightieth year, and absolution was
to be had for the asking. But the Church in this case made conditions.
Absolution must be preceded by atonement. Violante must restore to her
legal heirs that of which her pretended motherhood had defrauded them.
The first step towards this was to reveal the fraud to her husband; and
Pietro lost no time in making use of the revelation. He repudiated
Pompilia, and with her all claims on her husband's part. The case was
carried into court. The Court decreed a compromise. Pietro appealed from
the decree, and the question remained unsettled.

The chief sufferer by these proceedings was Pompilia herself. She
already had reason to dread her husband as a tyrant--he to dislike her
as a victim; and his discovery of her base birth, with the threatened
loss of the greater part of her dowry, could only result, with such a
man, in increased aversion towards her. From this moment his one aim
seems to have been to get rid of his wife, but in such a manner as not
to forfeit any pecuniary advantage he might still derive from their
union. This could only be done by convicting her of infielity; and he
attacked her so furiously, and so persistently, on the subject of a
certain Canon Giuseppe Caponsacchi, whom she barely knew, but whose
attentions he declared her to have challenged, that at last she fled
from Arezzo, with this very man.

She had app