her away when suffering and loss have come upon him.  But Death—­the mystery to which we look as the solver of all earthly mysteries—­has resolved for her this darkest and saddest perplexity of her life.  Tito is gone to his place:  and his baseness shall vex her no more with antagonistic duties and a divided life.  There is no joy, no expressed sense of relief and release; no reproach of him other than that implied one which springs out of the necessities of her being, the putting away from her, quietly and unobtrusively, the material gains of his treasons.  The poor innocent wrong-doer, Tessa, is sought for, rescued, and cared for; and is never allowed to know the foul wrong to her rescuer of which she has been made the unconscious instrument.  Even to her the language is that “Naldo will return no more, not because he is cruel, but because he is dead.”

One direct trial of her faith and patience remains, through the weakness and apparent apostasy of Savonarola.  Has he, through whom first came to her definite guidance amid the dark perplexities of her life, been always untrue? has the light that seemed through him to dawn on her been therefore misleading and perverting?  In almost agonised intentness she listens for some word, watches for some sign, which shall tell her it has not been so.  She outrages all her womanly sensibilities by being present at the death-scene, in hope that something there, were it but the uplifting of the drooping head to the clear true light of heaven, shall reassure her that the prophet was a true prophet, and his voice to her the voice of God.  But she watches in vain.  Without word or sign that even her quick sure instinct can interpret, Savonarola passes into “the eternal silence.”  What measure of overshadowing darkness and sorrow then again fell over her life we are not told:  we only know how that life passed from under this cloud also into purer and serener light.  This perplexity also solves itself for her in the path of unquestioning acceptance of duty, human service, and human love; and as she treads this path, the mists clear away from around Savonarola too, and she sees him again at last as he really was, in the essential truthfulness, nobleness, and self-devotedness of his life.

Of the after-life little is told us, but little needed to be told.  We have followed Romola thus far with dulled intelligence of mind and soul if we cannot picture it clearly and certainly for ourselves.  Love that never falters, patience that never questions, meekness that never fails, truth clear and still as the light of heaven, devotedness that knows no thought of self, a life flowing calmly on through whatever of sorrow and disappointment may remain toward the perfect purity and blessedness of heaven.  Few, we think, can carefully study the character and development of Romola del Bardo and refuse to endorse the verdict that Imagination has given us no figure more rounded and complete in every grace and glory of feminine loveliness.