re I tell you," said Romola, forgetting
everything else as soon as she began to pour forth her plea. "You know
what I am caring for--it is for the life of the old man I love best in
the world. The thought of him has gone together with the thought of my
father as long as I remember the daylight. That is my warrant for
coming to you, even if my coming should have been needless. Perhaps it
is: perhaps you have already determined that your power over the hearts
of men shall be used to prevent them from denying to Florentines a right
which you yourself helped to earn for them."

"I meddle not with the functions of the State, my daughter," said Fra
Girolamo, strongly disinclined to reopen externally a debate which he
had already gone through inwardly. "I have preached and laboured that
Florence should have a good government, for a good government is needful
to the perfecting of the Christian life; but I keep away my hands from
particular affairs which it is the office of experienced citizens to
administer."

"Surely, father--" Romola broke off. She had uttered this first word
almost impetuously, but she was checked by the counter-agitation of
feeling herself in an attitude of remonstrance towards the man who had
been the source of guidance and strength to her. In the act of
rebelling she was bruising her own reverence.

Savonarola was too keen not to divine something of the conflict that was
arresting her--too noble, deliberately to assume in calm speech that
self-justifying evasiveness into which he was often hurried in public by
the crowding impulses of the orator.

"Say what is in your heart; speak on, my daughter," he said, standing
with his arms laid one upon the other, and looking at her with quiet
expectation.

"I was going to say, father, that this matter is surely of higher moment
than many about which I have heard you preach and exhort fervidly. If
it belonged to you to urge that men condemned for offences against the
State should have the right to appeal to the Great Council--if--" Romola
was getting eager again--"if you count it a glory to have won that right
for them, can it less belong to you to declare yourself against the
right being denied to almost the first men who need it? Surely that
touches the Christian life more closely than whether you knew beforehand
that the Dauphin would die, or whether Pisa will be conquered."

There was a subtle movement, like a subdued sign of pain, in
Savonarola