hen in his turn he speaks to us, gives his
highest praise, "where all he praises," to this trait in her whom he
calls "My rose, I gather for the breast of God."

"Oh child, that didst despise thy life so much
When it seemed only thine to keep or lose,
How the fine ear felt fall the first low word
'Value life, and preserve life for My sake!'

* * * * *

Thou, at first prompting of what I call God,
And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend,
Accept the obligation laid on thee,
Mother elect, to save the unborn child.
. . . Go past me,
And get thy praise--and be not far to seek
Presently when I follow if I may!"

"Now" (says the sympathetic Other Half-Rome), "begins the tenebrific
passage of the tale." As we have seen, Pompilia had tried all other
means of escape, even before the great call came to her. Her last appeal
had been made to two of Guido's kinsmen, on the wing for Rome like
everyone else--Conti being one. Both had refused, but Conti had referred
her to Caponsacchi--not evilly like Margherita, but jestingly,
flippantly. Nevertheless, that name had come to take a half-fateful
sense to her ears . . . and the Other Half-Rome thus images the moment
in which she resolved to appeal to him.

"If then, all outlets thus secured save one,
At last she took to the open, stood and stared
With her wan face to see where God might wait--
And there found Caponsacchi wait as well
For the precious something at perdition's edge,
He only was predestinate to save . . .

* * * * *

Whatever way in this strange world it was,
Pompilia and Caponsacchi met, in fine,
She at her window, he i' the street beneath,
And understood each other at first look."

For suddenly (she tells us) on that morning of Annunciation, she turned
on Margherita, ever at her ear, and said, "Tell Caponsacchi he may
come!" "How plainly" (says Pompilia)--

"How plainly I perceived hell flash and fade
O' the face of her--the doubt that first paled joy,
Then final reassurance I indeed
Was caught now, never to be free again!"

But she cared not; she felt herself strong for everything.

"After the Ave Maria, at first dark,
I will be standing on the terrace, say!"

She knew he would come, and prayed to God all day. At "a