position for a wife to adopt. And if, on such evidence, you succeed in holding me up to infamy, you will have surpassed all the heroines of the Greek drama.”
He paused a moment, but she stood mute. He went on with the sense of mastery.
“I believe you have no other grievance against me—except that I have failed in fulfilling some lofty indefinite conditions on which you gave me your wifely affection, so that, by withdrawing it, you have gradually reduced me to the careful supply of your wants as a fair Piagnone of high condition and liberal charities. I think your success in gibbeting me is not certain. But doubtless you would begin by winning the ear of Messer Bernardo del Nero?”
“Why do I speak of anything?” cried Romola, in anguish, sinking on her chair again. “It is hateful in me to be thinking of myself.”
She did not notice when Tito left the room, or know how long it was before the door opened to admit Monna Brigida. But in that instant she started up and said—
“Cousin, we must go to San Marco directly. I must see my confessor, Fra Salvestro.”