on presently. "I was master
of everything. I saw all the world again, and my gems, and my books;
and I thought I had him in my power, and I went to expose him where--
where the lights were and the trees; and he lied again, and said I was
mad, and they dragged me away to prison... Wickedness is strong; and he
wears armour."

The fierceness had flamed up again. He spoke with his former intensity,
and again he grasped Romola's arm.

"But you will help me? He has been false to you too. He has another
wife, and she has children. He makes her believe he is her husband, and
she is a foolish, helpless thing. I will show you where she lives."

The first shock that passed through Romola was visibly one of anger.
The woman's sense of indignity was inevitably foremost. Baldassarre
instinctively felt her in sympathy with him.

"You hate him," he went on. "Is it not true? There is no love between
you; I know that. I know women can hate; and you have proud blood. You
hate falseness, and you can love revenge."

Romola sat paralysed by the shock of conflicting feelings. She was not
conscious of the grasp that was bruising her tender arm.

"You shall contrive it," said Baldassarre, presently, in an eager
whisper. "I have learned by heart that you are his rightful wife. You
are a noble woman. You go to hear the preacher of vengeance; you will
help justice. But you will think for me. My mind goes--everything goes
sometimes--all but the fire. The fire is God: it is justice: it will
not die. You believe that--is it not true? If they will not hang him
for robbing me, you will take away his armour--you will make him go
without it, and I will stab him. I have a knife, and my arm is still
strong enough."

He put his hand under his tunic, and reached out the hidden knife,
feeling the edge abstractedly, as if he needed the sensation to keep
alive his ideas.

It seemed to Romola as if every fresh hour of her life were to become
more difficult than the last. Her judgment was too vigorous and rapid
for her to fall into, the mistake of using futile deprecatory words to a
man in Baldassarre's state of mind. She chose not to answer his last
speech. She would win time for his excitement to allay itself by asking
something else that she cared to know. She spoke rather tremulously--

"You say she is foolish and helpless--that other wife--and believes him
to be her real husband. Perhaps he is: perhaps he married her bef