fely out of
sight, and left the pleasant serviceable Tito just where he was before.

The subject gradually floated away, and gave place to others, till a
heavy tramp, and something like the struggling of a man who was being
dragged away, were heard outside. The sounds soon died out, and the
interruption seemed to make the last hour's conviviality more resolute
and vigorous. Every one was willing to forget a disagreeable incident.

Tito's heart was palpitating, and the wine tasted no better to him than
if it had been blood.

To-night he had paid a heavier price than ever to make himself safe. He
did not like the price, and yet it was inevitable that he should be glad
of the purchase.

And after all he led the chorus. He was in a state of excitement in
which oppressive sensations, and the wretched consciousness of something
hateful but irrevocable, were mingled with a feeling of triumph which
seemed to assert itself as the feeling that would subsist and be master
of the morrow.

And it _was_ master. For on the morrow, as we saw, when he was about to
start on his mission to Rome, he had the air of a man well satisfied
with the world.

CHAPTER FORTY.

AN ARRESTING VOICE.

When Romola sat down on the stone under the cypress, all things
conspired to give her the sense of freedom and solitude: her escape from
the accustomed walls and streets; the widening distance from her
husband, who was by this time riding towards Siena, while every hour
would take her farther on the opposite way; the morning stillness; the
great dip of ground on the roadside making a gulf between her and the
sombre calm of the mountains. For the first time in her life she felt
alone in the presence of the earth and sky, with no human presence
interposing and making a law for her.

Suddenly a voice close to her said--

"You are Romola de' Bardi, the wife of Tito Melema."

She knew the voice: it had vibrated through her more than once before;
and because she knew it, she did not turn round or look up. She sat
shaken by awe, and yet inwardly rebelling against the awe. It was one
of those black-skirted monks who was daring to speak to her, and
interfere with her privacy: that was all. And yet she was shaken, as if
that destiny which men thought of as a sceptred deity had come to her,
and grasped her with fingers of flesh.

"You are fleeing from Florence in disguise. I have a command from God
to stop you. You are not permitted to