The first shock that passed through Romola was visibly one of anger. The woman’s sense of indignity was inevitably foremost. Baldassarre instinctively felt her in sympathy with him.
“You hate him,” he went on. “Is it not true? There is no love between you; I know that. I know women can hate; and you have proud blood. You hate falseness, and you can love revenge.”
Romola sat paralysed by the shock of conflicting feelings. She was not conscious of the grasp that was bruising her tender arm.
“You shall contrive it,” said Baldassarre, presently, in an eager whisper. “I have learned by heart that you are his rightful wife. You are a noble woman. You go to hear the preacher of vengeance; you will help justice. But you will think for me. My mind goes—everything goes sometimes—all but the fire. The fire is God: it is justice: it will not die. You believe that—is it not true? If they will not hang him for robbing me, you will take away his armour—you will make him go without it, and I will stab him. I have a knife, and my arm is still strong enough.”
He put his hand under his tunic, and reached out the hidden knife, feeling the edge abstractedly, as if he needed the sensation to keep alive his ideas.
It seemed to Romola as if every fresh hour of her life were to become more difficult than the last. Her judgment was too vigorous and rapid for her to fall into the mistake of using futile deprecatory words to a man in Baldassarre’s state of mind. She chose not to answer his last speech. She would win time for his excitement to allay itself by asking something else that she cared to know. She spoke rather tremulously—
“You say she is foolish and helpless—that other wife—and believes him to be her real husband. Perhaps he is: perhaps he married her before he married me.”
“I cannot tell,” said Baldassarre, pausing in that action of feeling the knife, and looking bewildered. “I can remember no more. I only know where she lives. You shall see her. I will take you; but not now,” he added hurriedly, “he may be there. The night is coming on.”
“It is true,” said Romola, starting up with a sudden consciousness that the sun had set and the hills were darkening; “but you will come and take me—when?”
“In the morning,” said Baldassarre, dreaming that she, too, wanted to hurry to her vengeance.