evening, but just pressed her hand to his lips, and left her. Tito felt that Romola was a more unforgiving woman than he had imagined; her love was not that sweet clinging instinct, stronger than all judgments, which, he began to see now, made the great charm of a wife. Still, this petrified coldness was better than a passionate, futile opposition. Her pride and capability of seeing where resistance was useless had their convenience.
But when the door had closed on Tito, Romola lost the look of cold immobility which came over her like an inevitable frost whenever he approached her.
Inwardly she was very far from being in a state of quiet endurance, and the days that had passed since the scene which had divided her from Tito had been days of active planning and preparation for the fulfilment of a purpose.
The first thing she did now was to call old Maso to her.
“Maso,” she said, in a decided tone, “we take our journey tomorrow morning. We shall be able now to overtake that first convoy of cloth, while they are waiting at San Piero. See about the two mules tonight, and be ready to set off with them at break of day, and wait for me at Trespiano.”
She meant to take Maso with her as far as Bologna, and then send him back with letters to her godfather and Tito, telling them that she was gone and never meant to return. She had planned her departure so that its secrecy might be perfect, and her broken love and life be hidden away unscanned by vulgar eyes. Bernardo del Nero had been absent at his villa, willing to escape from political suspicions to his favourite occupation of attending to his land,