t this moment she
was so utterly in antagonism with him, that what he called perplexity
seemed to her sophistry and doubleness; and as he went on, his words
only fed that flame of indignation, which now again, more fully than
ever before, lit up the memory of all his mistakes, and made her trust
in him seem to have been a purblind delusion. She spoke almost with
bitterness.

"Do you, then, know so well what will further the coming of God's
kingdom, father, that you will dare to despise the plea of mercy--of
justice--of faithfulness to your own teaching? Has the French king,
then, brought renovation to Italy? Take care, father, lest your enemies
have some reason when they say, that in your visions of what will
further God's kingdom you see only what will strengthen your own party."

"And that is true!" said Savonarola, with flashing eyes. Romola's voice
had seemed to him in that moment the voice of his enemies. "The cause
of my party _is_ the cause of God's kingdom."

"I do not believe it!" said Romola, her whole frame shaken with
passionate repugnance. "God's kingdom is something wider--else, let me
stand outside it with the beings that I love."

The two faces were lit up, each with an opposite emotion, each with an
opposite certitude. Further words were impossible. Romola hastily
covered her head and went out in silence.

CHAPTER SIXTY.

THE SCAFFOLD.

Three days later the moon that was just surmounting the buildings of the
piazza in front of the Old Palace within the hour of midnight, did not
make the usual broad lights and shadows on the pavement. Not a
hand's-breadth of pavement was to be seen, but only the heads of an
eager struggling multitude. And instead of that background of silence
in which the pattering footsteps and buzzing voices, the lute-thrumming
or rapid scampering of the many night wanderers of Florence stood out in
obtrusive distinctness, there was the background of a roar from mingled
shouts and imprecations, tramplings and pushings, and accidental
clashing of weapons, across which nothing was distinguishable but a
darting shriek, or the heavy dropping toll of a bell.

Almost all who could call themselves the public of Florence were awake
at that hour, and either enclosed within the limits of that piazza, or
struggling to enter it. Within the palace were still assembled in the
council-chamber all the chief magistracies, the eighty members of the
senate, and the other select c