'Now, Carlo! you know I mean the coins. Methinks I recognise a text in one of them.'

Beatrice shrugged her shoulders, with a little yawn expressive of intolerable boredom.

'Well,' quoth Lanti impatiently, 'let him see it, you and he shall parable us for grace to meat, while these laggard dogs'—he looked over his shoulder, growling for his dinner.

Beatrice unclasped the cincture without a word, and flung it indifferently across the table. She had lain as impassive throughout her own discussing by the others as a slave being negotiated in a market. Not a tremor of her eyelids had acknowledged either her lord's rudeness or Bembo's provisional compliment.

The boy took up the belt and examined it. He was conscious of a sweet perfume that had come into his hands with the trinket. His lips were parted a little, his cheeks flushed. Presently he put it down softly, and looked across at Beatrice.

'It is what I thought,' said he—'the coin, I mean—a denarius of Tiberius, in the thirty-first year of Our Lord Shall I tell you what it says to me, Madonna?'

She did not take the trouble to answer.

'Yes,' roared Carlo.

Bembo slung his lute to the front, and began coaxing forth one of those odd, shy accompaniments of his, into which, a moment later, his voice melted:—

'When Tiberius was Emperor,

For thirty silver pieces bearing his image

Did Judas betray his Lord;

Then, himself betrayed to blood-guilt, cast them ringing

On the flags of the Temple, and maddened forth and died.

But the Jew elders eyed askance

The sleek, round coins, accurst and yet no whit

Depreciated as currency,

And ogling them and each other, were silent, till one spoke:

"Ill come; well sped. We need a place to bury the dead.

Let the Potter take these, and in return

Change us his field, o'er which we long have haggled.

So shall this outlay bring us two-fold profit,

Yet leave us conscience-clean before the Lord."

Thus, gentles dear, was bought "The Field of Blood";

And thus the wicked, damned price returned

Into the veins of traffic, there to circulate

And poison where it ran.

One piece found Hope, and changed was for Despair;

And Charity one led to hoard for self;

And one reached Faith, and Faith became a whore.

But, most of all, what had betrayed Love sore,

Sweet Love was used to betray for evermore.'