f horror; and
again, a more imperious need to keep close by the side of this old man
whom, the divination of keen feeling told her, her husband had injured.
In the very instant of this conflict she still leaned towards him and
kept her right-hand ready to administer more wine, while her left was
passed under his neck. Her hands trembled, but their habit of soothing
helpfulness would have served to guide them without the direction of her
thought.

Baldassarre was looking at _her_ for the first time. The close
seclusion in which Romola's trouble had kept her in the weeks preceding
her flight and his arrest, had denied him the opportunity he had sought
of seeing the Wife who lived in the Via de' Bardi: and at this moment
the descriptions he had heard of the fair golden-haired woman were all
gone, like yesterday's waves.

"Will it not be well to carry him to the steps of San Stefano?" said
Romola. "We shall cease then to stop up the street, and you can go on
your way with your bier."

They had only to move onward for about thirty yards before reaching the
steps of San Stefano, and by this time Baldassarre was able himself to
make some efforts towards getting off the bier, and propping himself on
the steps against the church-doorway. The charitable brethren passed
on, but the group of interested spectators, who had nothing to do and
much to say, had considerably increased. The feeling towards the old
man was not so entirely friendly now it was quite certain that he was
alive, but the respect inspired by Romola's presence caused the passing
remarks to be made in a rather more subdued tone than before.

"Ah, they gave him his morsel every day in the Stinche--that's why he
can't do so well without it. You and I, Cecco, know better what it is
to go to bed fasting."

"_Gnaffe_! that's why the Magnificent Eight have turned out some of the
prisoners, that they may shelter honest people instead. But if every
thief is to be brought to life with good wine and wheaten bread, we
Ciompi had better go and fill ourselves in Arno while the water's
plenty."

Romola had seated herself on the steps by Baldassarre, and was saying,
"Can you eat a little bread now? perhaps by-and-by you will be able, if
I leave it with you. I must go on, because I have promised to be at the
hospital. But I will come back if you will wait here, and then I will
take you to some shelter. Do you understand? Will you wait? I will
come back."

He