Suddenly he dropped down and kissed my knee--but with ardour, with
reverence, indescribable devotion; then sprang to his feet, and was
gone.

I made all preparations for my journey to Florence.




CHAPTER XLI

I RETURN TO FLORENCE AND THE WORLD OF FASHION


Upon my arrival in the capital, my first care, after securing a lodging
on the Lung' Arno, was to pay a visit to the Ghetto, where I had spent
those happy three days with my newly wedded wife--if wife indeed she had
been. I found the church, but not the priest; I found the old Jewess,
Miriam, in whose house we had lodged. She made short work of my doubts.
"You are no more married to your Virginia than you are to me," she
curtly said. "You are as little married as any young man of my
acquaintance. Married, indeed! Why, that church hadn't had a Mass said
in it to my knowledge for fifty years, except a black one now and again
to oblige the jaded vicious; and as for your priest, 'tis true he was a
priest once, but he had been degraded for a bad affair of robbery with
violence and inhibited from his business--and, now I come to think on
it, he was hanged outside the Bargello no earlier than last week."

I was aghast at this news, which, as it was delivered, I could hardly
doubt. Virginia then had deceived me. I had trusted her in all things