The fierceness had flamed up again. He spoke with his former intensity, and again he grasped Romola’s arm.
“But you will help me? He has been false to you too. He has another wife, and she has children. He makes her believe he is her husband, and she is a foolish, helpless thing. I will show you where she lives.”
The first shock that passed through Romola was visibly one of anger. The woman’s sense of indignity was inevitably foremost. Baldassarre instinctively felt her in sympathy with him.
“You hate him,” he went on. “Is it not true? There is no love between you; I know that. I know women can hate; and you have proud blood. You hate falseness, and you can love revenge.”
Romola sat paralysed by the shock of conflicting feelings. She was not conscious of the grasp that was bruising her tender arm.
“You shall contrive it,” said Baldassarre, presently, in an eager whisper. “I have learned by heart that you are his rightful wife. You are a noble woman. You go to hear the preacher of vengeance; you will help justice. But you will think for me. My mind goes—everything goes sometimes—all but the fire. The fire is God: it is justice: it will not die. You believe that—is it not true? If they will not hang him for robbing me, you will take away his armour—you will make him go without it, and I will stab him. I have a knife, and my arm is still strong enough.”
He put his hand under his tunic, and reached out the hidden knife, feeling the edge abstractedly, as if he needed the sensation to keep alive his ideas.
It seemed to Romola as if every fresh hour of her life were to become more difficult than the last. Her judgment was too vigorous and rapid for her to fall into the mistake of using futile deprecatory words to a man in Baldassarre’s state of mind. She chose not to answer his last speech. She would win time for his excitement to allay itself by asking something else that she cared to know. She spoke rather tremulously—
“You say she is foolish and helpless—that other wife—and believes him to be her real husband. Perhaps he is: perhaps he married her before he married me.”
“I cannot tell,” said Baldassarre, pausing in that action of feeling the knife, and looking bewildered. “I can remember no more. I only know where she lives. You shall see her. I will take you; but not now,” he added hurriedly, “he may be there. The night is coming on.”
“It is true,” said Romola, starting up with a sudden consciousness that the sun had set and the hills were darkening; “but you will come and take me—when?”
“In the morning,” said Baldassarre, dreaming that she, too, wanted to hurry to her vengeance.
“Come to me, then, where you came to me today, in the church. I will be there at ten; and if you are not there, I will go again towards midday. Can you remember?”
“Midday,” said Baldassarre—“only midday. The same place, and midday. And, after that,” he added, rising and grasping her arm again with his left hand, while he held the knife in his right; “we will have our revenge. He shall feel the sharp edge of justice. The world is against me, but you will help me.”
“I would help you in other ways,” said Romola, making a first, timid effort to dispel his illusion about her. “I fear you are in want; you have to labour, and get little. I should like to bring you comforts, and make you feel again that there is someone who cares for you.”
“Talk no more about that,” said Baldassarre, fiercely. “I will have nothing else. Help me to wring one drop of vengeance on this side of the grave. I have nothing but my knife. It is sharp; but there is a moment after the thrust when men see the face of death—and it shall be my face that he will see.”
He loosed his hold, and sank down again in a sitting posture. Romola felt helpless: she must defer all intentions till the morrow.
“Midday, then,” she said, in a distinct voice.
“Yes,” he answered, with an air of exhaustion. “Go; I will rest here.”
She hastened away. Turning at the last spot whence he was likely to be in sight, she saw him seated still.
LIV
The Evening and the Morning
Romola had a purpose in her mind as she was hastening away; a purpose which had been growing through the afternoon hours like a side-stream, rising higher and higher along with the main current. It was less a resolve than a necessity of her feeling. Heedless of the darkening streets, and not caring to call for Maso’s slow escort, she hurried across the bridge where the river showed itself black before the distant dying red, and took the most direct way to the Old Palace. She might encounter her husband there. No matter. She could not weigh probabilities; she must discharge her heart. She did not know what she passed in the pillared court or up the wide stairs; she only knew that she asked an usher for the Gonfaloniere, giving her name, and begging to be shown into a private room.
She was not left long alone with the frescoed figures and the newly-lit tapers. Soon the door opened, and Bernardo del Nero entered, still carrying his white head erect above his silk lucco.
“Romola, my child, what is this?” he said, in a tone of anxious surprise as he closed the door.
She had uncovered her head and went towards him without speaking. He laid his hand on her shoulder, and held her a little way from him that he might see
