He paused, and turned away his eyes from her with an air of abstraction, till, with a slow shrug, he added—
“As for warnings, they are of no use to me, child. I enter into no plots, but I never forsake my colours. If I march abreast with obstinate men, who will rush on guns and pikes, I must share the consequences. Let us say no more about that. I have not many years left at the bottom of my sack for them to rob me of. Go, child; go home and rest.”
He put his hand on her head again caressingly, and she could not help clinging to his arm, and pressing her brow against his shoulder. Her godfather’s caress seemed the last thing that was left to her out of that young filial life, which now looked so happy to her even in its troubles, for they were troubles untainted by anything hateful.
“Is silence best, my Romola?” said the old man.
“Yes, now; but I cannot tell whether it always will be,” she answered, hesitatingly, raising her head with an appealing look.
“Well, you have a father’s ear while I am above ground,”—he lifted the black drapery and folded it round her head, adding—“and a father’s home; remember that.” Then opening the door, he said: “There, hasten away. You are like a black ghost; you will be safe enough.”
When Romola fell asleep that night, she slept deep. Agitation had reached its limits; she must gather strength before she could suffer more; and, in spite of rigid habit, she slept on far beyond sunrise.
When she awoke, it was to the sound of guns. Piero de’ Medici, with thirteen hundred men at his back, was before the gate that looks towards Rome.
So much Romola learned from Maso, with many circumstantial additions of dubious quality. A countryman had come in and alarmed