esire for union and forgiveness.

"--That before I died I might urge others of our brethren to study the
Eastern tongues, as I had not done, and go out to greater ends than I
did; and I find them already bent on the work. And since I came,
Romola, I have felt that I was sent partly to thee--not to renew the
bonds of earthly affection, but to deliver the heavenly warning conveyed
in a vision. For I have had that vision thrice. And through all the
years since first the Divine voice called me, while I was yet in the
world, I have been taught and guided by visions. For in the painful
linking together of our waking thoughts we can never be sure that we
have not mingled our own error with the light we have prayed for; but in
visions and dreams we are passive, and our souls are as an instrument in
the Divine hand. Therefore listen, and speak not again--for the time is
short."

Romola's mind recoiled strongly from listening to this vision. Her
indignation had subsided, but it was only because she had felt the
distance between her brother and herself widening. But while Fra Luca
was speaking, the figure of another monk had entered, and again stood on
the other side of the bed, with the cowl drawn over his head.

"Kneel, my daughter, for the Angel of Death is present, and waits while
the message of heaven is delivered: bend thy pride before it is bent for
thee by a yoke of iron," said a strong rich voice, startlingly in
contrast with Fra Luca's.

The tone was not that of imperious command, but of quiet self-possession
and assurance of the right, blended with benignity. Romola, vibrating
to the sound, looked round at the figure on the opposite side of the
bed. His face was hardly discernible under the shadow of the cowl, and
her eyes fell at once on his hands, which were folded across his breast
and lay in relief on the edge of his black mantle. They had a marked
physiognomy which enforced the influence of the voice: they were very
beautiful and almost of transparent delicacy. Romola's disposition to
rebel against command, doubly active in the presence of monks, whom she
had been taught to despise, would have fixed itself on any repulsive
detail as a point of support. But the face was hidden, and the hands
seemed to have an appeal in them against all hardness. The next moment
the right-hand took the crucifix to relieve the fatigued grasp of Fra
Luca, and the left touched his lips with a wet sponge which lay near.