ned it from
a sanctuary into a vulgar place.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

A REVELATION.

The next day Romola, like every other Florentine, was excited about the
departure of the French. Besides her other reasons for gladness, she
had a dim hope, which she was conscious was half superstitious, that
those new anxieties about Tito, having come with the burdensome guests,
might perhaps vanish with them. The French had been in Florence hardly
eleven days, but in that space she had felt more acute unhappiness than
she had known in her life before. Tito had adopted the hateful armour
on the day of their arrival, and though she could frame no distinct
notion why their departure should remove the cause of his fear--though,
when she thought of that cause, the image of the prisoner grasping him,
as she had seen it in Piero's sketch, urged itself before her and
excluded every other--still, when the French were gone, she would be rid
of something that was strongly associated with her pain.

Wrapped in her mantle she waited under the loggia at the top of the
house, and watched for the glimpses of the troops and the royal retinue
passing the bridges on their way to the Porta San Piero, that looks
towards Siena and Rome. She even returned to her station when the gates
had been closed, that she might feel herself vibrating with the great
peal of the bells. It was dusk then, and when at last she descended
into the library, she lit her lamp with the resolution that she would
overcome the agitation which had made her idle all day, and sit down to
work at her copying of the catalogue. Tito had left home early in the
morning, and she did not expect him yet. Before he came she intended to
leave the library, and sit in the pretty saloon, with the dancing nymphs
and the birds. She had done so every evening since he had objected to
the library as chill and gloomy.

To her great surprise, she had not been at work long before Tito
entered. Her first thought was, how cheerless he would feel in the wide
darkness of this great room, with one little oil-lamp burning at the
further end, and the fire nearly out. She almost ran towards him.

"Tito, dearest, I did not know you would come so soon," she said,
nervously, putting up her white arms to unwind his becchetto.

"I am not welcome then?" he said, with one of his brightest smiles,
clasping her, but playfully holding his head back from her.

"Tito!" She uttered the word in a tone of p