sed voices within the court, rushing waves of
sound through the entrance from without. It seemed to Romola as if she
were in the midst of a storm-troubled sea, caring nothing about the
storm, caring only to hold out a signal till the eyes that looked for it
could seek it no more.

Suddenly there was stillness, and the very tapers seemed to tremble into
quiet. The executioner was ready on the scaffold, and Bernardo del Nero
was seen ascending it with a slow firm step. Romola made no visible
movement, uttered not even a suppressed sound: she stood more firmly,
caring for _his_ firmness. She saw him pause, saw the white head kept
erect, while he said, in a voice distinctly audible--

"It is but a short space of life that my fellow-citizens have taken from
me."

She perceived that he was gazing slowly round him as he spoke. She felt
that his eyes were resting on her, and that she was stretching out her
arms towards him. Then she saw no more till--a long while after, as it
seemed--a voice said, "My daughter, all is peace now. I can conduct you
to your house."

She uncovered her head and saw her godfather's confessor standing by
her, in a room where there were other grave men talking in subdued
tones.

"I am ready," she said, starting up. "Let us lose no time."

She thought all clinging was at an end for her: all her strength now
should be given to escape from a grasp under which she shuddered.

CHAPTER SIXTY ONE.

DRIFTING AWAY.

On the eighth day from that memorable night Romola was standing on the
brink of the Mediterranean, watching the gentle summer pulse of the sea
just above what was then the little fishing village of Viareggio.

Again she had fled from Florence, and this time no arresting voice had
called her back. Again she wore the grey religious dress; and this
time, in her heart-sickness, she did not care that it was a disguise. A
new rebellion had risen within her, a new despair. Why should she care
about wearing one badge more than another, or about being called by her
own name? She despaired of finding any consistent duty belonging to
that name. What force was there to create for her that supremely
hallowed motive which men call duty, but which can have no inward
constraining existence save through some form of believing love?

The bonds of all strong affection were snapped. In her marriage, the
highest bond of all, she had ceased to see the mystic union which is its
own guarante