's strong lips, before he began to speak.

"My daughter, I speak as it is given me to speak--I am not master of the
times when I may become the vehicle of knowledge beyond the common
lights of men. In this case I have no illumination beyond what wisdom
may give to those who are charged with the safety of the State. As to
the law of Appeal against the Six Votes, I laboured to have it passed in
order that no Florentine should be subject to loss of life and goods
through the private hatred of a few who might happen to be in power; but
these five men, who have desired to overthrow a free government and
restore a corrupt tyrant, have been condemned with the assent of a large
assembly of their fellow-citizens. They refused at first to have their
cause brought before the Great Council. They have lost the right to the
appeal."

"How can they have lost it?" said Romola. "It is the right to appeal
against condemnation, and they have never been condemned till now; and,
forgive me, father, it _is_ private hatred that would deny them the
appeal; it _is_ the violence of the few that frightens others; else why
was the assembly divided again directly after it had seemed to agree?
And if anything weighs against the observance of the law, lot this weigh
for it--this, that you used to preach more earnestly than all else, that
there should be no place given to hatred and bloodshed because of these
party strifes, so that private ill-will should not find its
opportunities in public acts. Father, you know that there is private
hatred concerned here: will it not dishonour you not to have interposed
on the side of mercy, when there are many who hold that it is also the
side of law and justice?"

"My daughter," said Fra Girolamo, with more visible emotion than before,
"there is a mercy which is weakness, and even treason against the common
good. The safety of Florence, which means even more than the welfare of
Florentines, now demands severity, as it once demanded mercy. It is not
only for a past plot that these men are condemned, but also for a plot
which has not yet been executed; and the devices that were leading to
its execution are not put an end to: the tyrant is still gathering his
forces in Romagna, and the enemies of Florence, who sit in the highest
places of Italy, are ready to hurl any stone that will crush her."

"What plot?" said Romola, reddening, and trembling with alarmed
surprise.

"You carry papers in your hand, I