ing the courage to attack her young life, had put herself into a
boat and pushed off to sea; then, lying down in the boat, had wrapt her
mantle round her head, hoping to be wrecked, so that her fear would be
helpless to flee from death. The memory had remained a mere thought in
Romola's mind, without budding into any distinct wish; but now, as she
paused again in her walking to and fro, she saw gliding black against
the red gold another boat with one man in it, making towards the bend
where the first and smaller boat was moored. Walking on again, she at
length saw the man land, pull his boat ashore and begin to unload
something from it. He was perhaps the owner of the smaller boat also:
he would be going away soon, and her opportunity would be gone with
him--her opportunity of buying that smaller boat. She had not yet
admitted to herself that she meant to use it, but she felt a sudden
eagerness to secure the possibility of using it, which disclosed the
half-unconscious growth of a thought into a desire.

"Is that little boat yours also?" she said to the fisherman, who had
looked up, a little startled by the tall grey figure, and had made a
reverence to this holy Sister wandering thus mysteriously in the evening
solitude.

It _was_ his boat; an old one, hardly seaworthy, yet worth repairing to
any man who would buy it. By the blessing of San Antonio, whose chapel
was in the village yonder, his fishing had prospered, and he had now a
better boat, which had once been Gianni's who died. But he had not yet
sold the old one. Romola asked him how much it was worth, and then,
while he was busy, thrust the price into a little satchel lying on the
ground and containing the remnant of his dinner. After that, she
watched him furling his sail and asked him how he should set it if he
wanted to go out to sea, and then pacing up and down again, waited to
see him depart.

The imagination of herself gliding away in that boat on the darkening
waters was growing more and more into a longing, as the thought of a
cool brook in sultriness becomes a painful thirst. To be freed from the
burden of choice when all motive was bruised, to commit herself,
sleeping, to destiny which would either bring death or else new
necessities that might rouse a new life in her!--it was a thought that
beckoned her the more because the soft evening air made her long to rest
in the still solitude, instead of going back to the noise and heat of
the villa