had
committed sacrilege in her passion. And even the sense that she could
retract nothing of her plea, that her mind could not submit itself to
Savonarola's negative, made it the more needful to her to satisfy those
reverential memories. With a sudden movement towards him she said--

"Forgive me, father; it is pain to me to have spoken those words--yet I
cannot help speaking. I am little and feeble compared with you; you
brought me light and strength. But I submitted because I felt the
proffered strength--because I saw the light. _Now_ I cannot see it.
Father, you yourself declare that there comes a moment when the soul
must have no guide but the voice within it, to tell whether the
consecrated thing has sacred virtue. And therefore I must speak."

Savonarola had that readily-roused resentment towards opposition, hardly
separable from a power-loving and powerful nature, accustomed to seek
great ends that cast a reflected grandeur on the means by which they are
sought. His sermons have much of that red flame in them. And if he had
been a meaner man his susceptibility might have shown itself in
irritation at Romola's accusatory freedom, which was in strong contrast
with the deference he habitually received from his disciples. But at
this moment such feelings were nullified by that hard struggle which
made half the tragedy of his life--the struggle of a mind possessed by a
never-silent hunger after purity and simplicity, yet caught in a tangle
of egoistic demands, false ideas, and difficult outward conditions, that
made simplicity impossible. Keenly alive to all the suggestions of
Romola's remonstrating words, he was rapidly surveying, as he had done
before, the courses of action that were open to him, and their probable
results. But it was a question on which arguments could seem decisive
only in proportion as they were charged with feeling, and he had
received no impulse that could alter his bias. He looked at Romola, and
said--

"You have full pardon for your frankness, my daughter. You speak, I
know, out of the fulness of your family affections. But these
affections must give way to the needs of the Republic. If those men who
have a close acquaintance with the affairs of the State believe, as I
understand they do, that he public safety requires the extreme
punishment of the law to fall on the five conspirators, I cannot control
their opinion, seeing that I stand aloof from such affairs."

"Then you d