rk the right
moment for seeking an interview with her. Twice Romola had caught sight
of his face in the Duomo--once when its dark glance was fixed on hers.
She wished not to see it again, and yet she looked for it, as men look
for the reappearance of a portent. But any revelation that might be yet
to come about this old man was a subordinate fear now: it referred, she
thought, only to the past, and her anxiety was almost absorbed by the
present.

Yet the stirring Lent passed by; April, the second and final month of
her godfather's supreme authority, was near its close; and nothing had
occurred to fulfil her presentiment. In the public mind, too, there had
been fears, and rumours had spread from Home of a menacing activity on
the part of Piero de' Medici; but in a few days the suspected Bernardo
would go out of power.

Romola was trying to gather some courage from the review of her futile
fears, when on the twenty-seventh, as she was walking out on her usual
errands of mercy in the afternoon, she was met by a messenger from
Camilla Rucellai, chief among the feminine seers of Florence, desiring
her presence forthwith on matters of the highest moment. Romola, who
shrank with unconquerable repulsion from the shrill volubility of those
illuminated women, and had just now a special repugnance towards Camilla
because of a report that she had announced revelations hostile to
Bernardo del Nero, was at first inclined to send back a flat refusal.
Camilla's message might refer to public affairs, and Romola's immediate
prompting was to close her ears against knowledge that might only make
her mental burden heavier. But it had become so thoroughly her habit to
reject her impulsive choice, and to obey passively the guidance of
outward claims, that, reproving herself for allowing her presentiments
to make her cowardly and selfish, she ended by compliance, and went
straight to Camilla.

She found the nervous grey-haired woman in a chamber arranged as much as
possible like a convent cell. The thin fingers clutching Romola as she
sat, and the eager voice addressing her at first in a loud whisper,
caused her a physical shrinking that made it difficult for her to keep
her seat.

Camilla had a vision to communicate--a vision in which it had been
revealed to her by Romola's Angel, that Romola knew certain secrets
concerning her godfather, Bernardo del Nero, which, if disclosed, might
save the Republic from peril. Camilla's voice r