“I have a command to call you back,” he said.  “My daughter, you must return to your place.  You are flying from your debts; the debt of a Florentine woman to her fellow citizens; the debt of a wife.  You are turning your back on the lot that has been appointed for you—­you are going to choose another.  My daughter, you are fleeing from the presence of God into the wilderness.  My daughter, if the cross comes to you as a wife, you must carry it as a wife.  You may say, ’I will forsake my husband,’ but you cannot cease to be a wife.”

There was hunger and misery in the streets, and he urged upon her that if she had no other purpose in life she could stay, and help the poor of her own city.  Her pride was broken, and she yielded.

V.—­Baldassarre is Avenged

Meanwhile, Baldassarre, lurking about Florence, had armed himself with a knife, and was ravenous for revenge.  Being homeless, he called by chance at Tessa’s little house, and she, not knowing who he was, took pity on his age and misery, gave him shelter in a shed, and food and drink.

Whilst he was there, Tito came, and, too frankly simple to keep anything from him, Tessa confessed that she had disobeyed his injunctions against holding converse with strangers, and was sheltering a strange, weary old man in the shed without.  Her description of this guest left Tito in no doubt as to his identity, and, subduing his first perturbation, he conceived that he might turn the situation to his own advantage.  He went out to the shed, and looking down upon Baldassarre in the moonlight, sought to propitiate him with honeyed words, specious explanations, and a plea for pardon.  But the old man answered nothing, till his smouldering fury burst into a flame, then he precipitated himself upon the intruder and struck with all his force; but the blade of the knife broke off short against the hidden coat of mail.

Tito insisted that he was welcome to remain there, and said what he could to soothe him, but Baldassarre would stay no longer when he knew whose roof covered him.  Presently, he armed himself anew, and waited for another opportunity.  He learned all that was to be known of Tito’s career since his arrival in Florence; ascertained that he was married, and had thoughts of winning his wife’s sympathy and telling her of Tessa.  Then one night he contrived to get into the Rucellai Gardens, where Tito was at supper with a gathering of Florentine notabilities, and, seized in time and held back from assassinating him, he passionately denounced him before the company as a scoundrel, a liar, and a robber.

There were those present who had been on the church steps that day when Baldassarre had clutched Tito by the arm, and Tito had then explained away his momentary panic.  Questioned now by one of these, he declared that though when first he encountered his accuser he did not recognise him, he now saw that he was the servant who years ago accompanied him and his adoptive father to Greece, and was dismissed on account of misdemeanours, and that the story of his being rescued from beggary was the vision of a disordered brain.