she herself was startled and
arrested.

"I mean," she added, hesitatingly, "I know nothing positive. I only
know what fills me with fears."

"Poor child!" said Bernardo, looking at her with quiet penetration for a
moment or two. Then he said: "Go, Romola--go home and rest. These
fears may be only big ugly shadows of something very little and
harmless. Even traitors must see their interest in betraying; the rats
will run where they smell the cheese, and there is no knowing yet which
way the scent will come."

He paused, and turned away his eyes from her with an air of abstraction,
till, with a slow shrug, he added--

"As for warnings, they are of no use to me, child. I enter into no
plots, but I never forsake my colours. If I march abreast with
obstinate men, who will rush on guns and pikes, I must share the
consequences. Let us say no more about that. I have not many years
left at the bottom of my sack for them to rob me of. Go, child; go home
and rest."

He put his hand on her head again caressingly, and she could not help
clinging to his arm, and pressing her brow against his shoulder. Her
godfather's caress seemed the last thing that was left to her out of
that young filial life, which now looked so happy to her even in its
troubles, for they were troubles untainted by anything hateful.

"Is silence best, my Romola?" said the old man.

"Yes, now; but I cannot tell whether it always will be," she answered,
hesitatingly, raising her head with an appealing look.

"Well, you have a father's ear while I am above ground,"--he lifted the
black drapery and folded it round her head, adding--"and a father's
home; remember that," Then opening the door, he said: "There, hasten
away. You are like a black ghost; you will be safe enough."

When Romola fell asleep that night, she slept deep. Agitation had
reached its limits; she must gather strength before she could suffer
more; and, in spite of rigid habit, she slept on far beyond sunrise.

When she awoke, it was to the sound of guns. Piero de' Medici, with
thirteen hundred men at his back, was before the gate that looks towards
Rome.

So much Romola learned from Maso, with many circumstantial additions of
dubious quality. A countryman had come in and alarmed the Signoria
before it was light, else the city would have been taken by surprise.
His master was not in the house, having been summoned to the Palazzo
long ago. She sent out the old man again, tha