Thereafter, he met her again at intervals, finding her naive love and humble adoration and obedience very pleasant; and, meeting her once at a peasant’s fair, he jestingly yielded to the burlesque solicitations of a mountebank in a white mitre, paid a small fee, and went through an absurd ceremony of mock-marriage with her.

Tessa herself believed the marriage to be real enough, and he would not mar her delight by undeceiving her.  Later, since she was wretched at home with her scolding mother and a brutal step-father, and there were dangers in allowing her to go on waylaying him in streets when too long a period elapsed between his visits to her, he quietly took her away and established her in a small house on the outskirts of the city, with the deaf, discreet old Monna Lisa as her servant and companion.

Neither this nor the darker secret of his treachery to his adoptive father cast any cloud over his habitual cheerfulness.  His love for Romola was a higher and deeper passion than anything he felt for the child-like, submissive little Tessa, and when she told him frankly of her brother’s warning vision, he set himself to convince her it was the mere nightmare of a diseased imagination, and the perfect love and trust she had for him made the task easy.

For a while after their marriage she was ideally happy; she was not even separated from her father, for Tito came to live with them, and was to Bardo, in his scholastic labours, all that he had wished his own son to be.  Then came the first cloud.

On November 17, 1494, more than eighteen months after the marriage of Tito and Romola, the King of France marched his army into Florence on his way to take possession of Naples and impose peace on the warring little states into which Italy was divided.  There were those in Florence who were prepared to welcome the invaders, but the majority, the common people in particular, resented their coming.

With the soldiery came three wretched prisoners; they were led in ropes by their captors, and with blows from knotted cords were stimulated to beg.  Two, as they passed, held out their hands, crying piteously, “For the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us something towards our ransom!”

But the third remained obstinately silent.  He was old, white-haired, emaciated, with a thick-set figure that seemed to express energy in spite of age; yet there was something fitful in his eyes.

This sight was witnessed by the Florentines with growing exasperation, and presently from jeering at the French soldiers and hustling them, they became bent upon rescuing this third prisoner from his tormentors; one venturesome youth suddenly dashed in, cut the old man’s bonds and urged him to run; and the next moment he had plunged into the crowd, which closed behind him and hampered the pursuit.

With one soldier struggling desperately on his track, the fugitive sped towards the Duomo, to seek refuge in that sanctuary, but in mounting the steps his foot slipped, he was precipitated towards a group of signori who stood there with their backs to him, and clutched one to save himself.