Arno ran dark and shivering; the
hills were mournful; and Florence with its girdling stone towers had
that silent, tomb-like look, which unbroken shadow gives to a city seen
from above. Santa Croce, where her father lay, was dark amidst that
darkness, and slowly crawling over the bridge, and slowly vanishing up
the narrow street, was the white load, like a cruel, deliberate Fate
carrying away her father's lifelong hope to bury it in an unmarked
grave. Romola felt less that she was seeing this herself than that her
father was conscious of it as he lay helpless under the imprisoning
stones, where her hand could not reach his to tell him that he was not
alone.

She stood still even after the load had disappeared, heedless of the
cold, and soothed by the gloom which seemed to cover her like a mourning
garment and shut out the discord of joy. When suddenly the great bell
in the palace-tower rang out a mighty peal: not the hammer-sound of
alarm, but an agitated peal of triumph; and one after another every
other bell in every other tower seemed to catch the vibration and join
the chorus. And, as the chorus swelled and swelled till the air seemed
made of sound--little flames, vibrating too, as if the sound had caught
fire, burst out between the turrets of the palace and on the girdling
towers.

That sudden clang, that leaping light, fell on Romola like sharp wounds.
They were the triumph of demons at the success of her husband's
treachery, and the desolation of her life. Little more than three weeks
ago she had been intoxicated with the sound of those very bells; and in
the gladness of Florence, she had heard a prophecy of her own gladness.
But now the general joy seemed cruel to her: she stood aloof from that
common life--that Florence which was flinging out its loud exultation to
stun the ears of sorrow and loneliness. She could never join hands with
gladness again, but only with those whom it was in the hard nature of
gladness to forget. And in her bitterness she felt that all rejoicing
was mockery. Men shouted pagans with their souls full of heaviness, and
then looked in their neighbours' faces to see if there was really such a
thing as joy. Romola had lost her belief in the happiness she had once
thirsted for: it was a hateful, smiling, soft-handed thing, with a
narrow, selfish heart.

She ran down from the loggia, with her hands pressed against her ears,
and was hurrying across the antechamber, when she was st