t to cover the
heart of a scoundrel. I must know who is to wear it."

"Well, then, to be plain with you, Niccolo mio, I want it myself," said
Tito, knowing it was useless to try persuasion. "The fact is, I am
likely to have a journey to take--and you know what journeying is in
these times. You don't suspect _me_ of treason against the Republic?"

"No, I know no harm of you," said Niccolo, in his blunt way again. "But
have you the money to pay for the coat? For you've passed my shop often
enough to know my sign: you've seen the burning account-books. I trust
nobody. The price is twenty florins, and that's because it's
second-hand. You're not likely to have so much money with you. Let it
be till to-morrow."

"I happen to have the money," said Tito, who had been winning at play
the day before, and had not emptied his purse. "I'll carry the armour
home with me."

Niccolo reached down the finely-wrought coat, which fell together into
little more than two handfuls.

"There, then," he said, when the florins had been told down on his palm.
"Take the coat. It's made to cheat sword, or poniard, or arrow. But,
for my part, I would never put such a thing on. It's like carrying fear
about with one."

Niccolo's words had an unpleasant intensity of meaning for Tito. But he
smiled and said--

"Ah, Niccolo, we scholars are all cowards. Handling the pen doesn't
thicken the arm as your hammer-wielding does. Addio!"

He folded the armour under his mantle, and hastened across the Ponte
Rubaconte.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE YOUNG WIFE.

While Tito was hastening across the bridge with the new-bought armour
under his mantle, Romola was pacing up and down the old library,
thinking of him and longing for his return.

It was but a few fair faces that had not looked forth from windows that
day to see the entrance of the French king and his nobles. One of the
few was Romola's. She had been present at no festivities since her
father had died--died quite suddenly in his chair, three months before.

"Is not Tito coming to write?" he had said, when the bell had long ago
sounded the usual hour in the evening. He had not asked before, from
dread of a negative; but Romola had seen by his listening face and
restless movements that nothing else was in his mind.

"No, father, he had to go to a supper at the cardinal's: you know he is
wanted so much by every one," she answered, in a tone of gentle excuse.

"Ah! then