posterous! The whole day he battled with himself, voice
crying against voice, without result. Observe, it was a mere case of
expediency: he had no thought to own a fault or repudiate a slander--the
fellow had no conscience at all. Expediency, indeed, was his conscience,
his attention to it the ladder whereby he hoped to climb to the only
heaven he knew. No imagination had he, but very tender senses.
Applause--the hushed church, the following eyes, the sobered mouths, a
sob in the breath--stood him for glory. He had worked for this, and, by
the Lord! he had won it. And now he must lose it. Eh, never, never!
Stated thus, he knew the issue of his battle. He knew he could not give
up these things--eye-service, lip-service, heart-service--of which he
had supped so thirstily. Rather be unfrocked, driven out of the city,
reviled, and spit upon, than admit such a shame as that other: to prove
himself a vapourer before his slaves, to be pricked like a bulging
bladder, slit open like a rotten bag--God of the love of women, never,
never in life! The other course, then? He pictured himself, the tall
and comely youth, standing up alone before the grim assembly of elders,
flinty old men who knew nothing of my Lord Amor, how he rides afield in
a rose-coloured garment, throwing a flower and a dart to boy or girl as
he goes. He saw a dewy-eyed Battista owning himself Love's priest. The
women called him Sebastian for his beauty. A Sebastian he was, _per
Dio!_ stuck all over with Amor's fiery darts. Like Sebastian, by his
persecutors he would be stripped bare; like that martyr's enemies, they
would wound his tender flesh; like Sebastian he would endure, casting
his eyes upwards; and like Sebastian he would infallibly be wept by the
women.

If women will weep for you they will bleed for you; the fount of tears
feeds a river as well as betrays a hidden well. Good, then; good, then!
He saw a future in all this. From the other spike of the dilemma he saw
nothing but his impaling; in this case, if he was impaled, balm at least
would be laid upon his wounds. Fra Battista determined to brazen it out
before Verona.

They lit the tapers in the sanctuary betimes; and then all the brethren
in their hoods sat in choir awaiting the bishop. With him and his clergy
should come the reverend prior. Fra Battista was to stand on the
rood-step to make his purgation. He would be backed by the light. So
much of grace they would do him, that he should face a s