ere stooping to examine something, while a group of idle
workmen, with features paled and sharpened by hunger, were clustering
around and all talking at once.

"He's dead, I tell you! Messer Domeneddio has loved him well enough to
take him."

"Ah, and it would be well for us all if we could have our legs stretched
out and go with our heads two or three _bracci_ foremost! It's ill
standing upright with hunger to prop you."

"Well, well, he's an old fellow. Death has got a poor bargain. Life's
had the best of him."

"And no Florentine, ten to one! A beggar turned out of Siena. San
Giovanni defend us! They've no need of soldiers to fight us. They send
us an army of starving men."

"No, no! This man is one of the prisoners turned out of the Stinche. I
know by the grey patch where the prison badge was."

"Keep quiet! Lend a hand! Don't you see the brethren are going to lift
him on the bier?"

"It's likely he's alive enough if he could only look it. The soul may
be inside him if it had only a drop of _vernaccia_ to warm it."

"In truth, I think he is not dead," said one of the brethren, when they
had lifted him on the bier. "He has perhaps only sunk down for want of
food."

"Let me try to give him some wine," said Romola, coming forward. She
loosened the small flask which she carried at her belt, and, leaning
towards the prostrate body, with a deft hand she applied a small ivory
implement between the teeth, and poured into the mouth a few drops of
wine. The stimulus acted: the wine was evidently swallowed. She poured
more, till the head was moved a little towards her, and the eyes of the
old man opened full upon her with the vague look of returning
consciousness.

Then for the first time a sense of complete recognition came over
Romola. Those wild dark eyes opening in the sallow deep-lined face,
with the white beard, which was now long again, were like an
unmistakable signature to a remembered handwriting. The light of two
summers had not made that image any fainter in Romola's memory: the
image of the escaped prisoner, whom she had seen in the Duomo the day
when Tito first wore the armour--at whose grasp Tito was paled with
terror in the strange sketch she had seen in Piero's studio. A wretched
tremor and palpitation seized her. Now at last, perhaps, she was going
to know some secret which might be more bitter than all that had gone
before. She felt an impulse to dart away as from a sight o