First she told him that she could neither read nor write, but that the letters said to be from him had been read to her, and seemed to say that he loved her. She did not believe that he meant that as Margherita meant it; but "good true love would help me now so much" that at last she had resolved to see him. Her whole life was so strange that this but belonged to the rest: that an utter stranger should be able to help her--he, and he alone! She told him her story. There was a reason now at last why she must fly from "this fell house of hate," and she would take from Caponsacchi's love what she needed: enough to save her life with-- ". . . Take me to Rome! Take me as you would take a dog, I think, Masterless left for strangers to maltreat: Take me home like that--leave me in the house Where the father and mother are" . . . She tells his answer thus: "He replied-- The first word I heard ever from his lips, All himself in it--an eternity Of speech, to match the immeasurable depth O' the soul that then broke silence--'I am yours.'" * * * * * But when he had left her, irresolution swept over him. First, the Church seemed to rebuke--the Church who had smiled on his silly intrigues! Now she changed her tone, it appeared:-- "Now, when I found out first that life and death Are means to an end, that passion uses both, Indisputably mistress of the man Whose form of worship is self-sacrifice." But that soon passed: the word was God's; this was the true self-sacrifice. . . . But might it not injure her--scandal would hiss about her name. Would not God choose His own way to save her? And _he_ might pray. . . . Two days passed thus. But he must go to counsel and to comfort her--was he not a priest? He went. She was there, leaning over the terrace; she reproached him: why did he delay the help his heart yearned to give? He answered with his fears for her, but she broke in, never doubting him though he should doubt himself: "'I know you: when is it that you will come?'" "To-morrow at the day's dawn," he replied; and all was arranged--the place, the time; she came, she did not speak, but glided into the carriage, while he cried to the driver: ". . . 'By San Spirito, To Rome, as if the road burned underneath!'" When she was dying of Guido's twenty-two dagger-thrusts, this was how Pompilia thought of that long flight: "I did pray, do pray, in the prayer shall die: 'Oh, to have Caponsacchi for my guide!' Ever the face upturned to mine, the hand Holding my hand across the world . . ." And he, telling the judges of it at the murder-trial, cried that he never could lie quiet in his grave unless he "mirrored them plain the perfect soul Pompilia."