“This is your day of triumph,” said the other man with a passionate ring in his voice. “You to-day have burnt all the Medici rejoiced in–painting, statuary, music, books, poetry, gay dresses, perfumes, cards and dice; and those people who praised Lorenzo for making this Florence so beautiful and splendid have danced round your pyre in gladness!” Frà Girolamo regarded him steadily. “Are not you also,” he asked gently, “pleased to see this city brought a little way to repentance?” “Friar,” answered the stranger vehemently, “I am your enemy. I stand for all you would destroy–the lust of the world, the pride of the beautiful, the power of the devil. I am also a ruined, outcast, beggared man, one of those your rule has banished from Florence. If I were discovered I should be murdered, and that would be better than to starve in Rome.” “Your name?” interrupted Frà Girolamo. “Are you one whom I know?” “You know me,” was the haughty response; “but my name is not pleasing to your ears. _You_ I hate, ay, and all your works; but there is a day soon when all hates shall be satisfied.” Girolamo Savonarola made quiet answer. “If you are a follower of Piero de’ Medici, I warn you to quit Florence, for I cannot and would not save one of the tyrant’s tools from the just anger of the People–the People!–in _them_ is my trust against these evils you threaten me with.” He turned to pass on his way, but the young man sprang lightly after him and caught his mantle. “The People!” he laughed. “Did not the People shout for Lorenzo yesterday? Will they not shout for Piero to-morrow!” Frà Girolamo looked at him with serene eyes. “Never for the Medici,” he answered. “Never for the tyrant. Florence is free.” “You are a bold man to say so,” returned the stranger, standing at his ease, with one foot on the lowest hospital step. “Free! No, Florence is no freer than she was five years ago; only now it is you who rule instead of the Magnificent. But not for long, Friar.” “Again, who are you who stay me in the street with these prophecies?” The sun had left even the tops of the buildings now, and the lucid light was fading from the heavens where an early star hung chill and pale above the Duomo; the black foliage of the cypress and the sharp, long leaves of the laurel showed clearly over the wall and against the argent flush of twilight; a little fear crept into the Friar’s heart, not base fear, or cowardice, or any trembling for himself, but the shadow of some coming doubt lest after all he had not saved Florence; in the tall, dark-robed figure of the stranger, now standing with his arms folded on his breast and regarding him with eyes that shot evil glimmers from the holes in the mottled green and yellow mask, in this man with his settled enmity, his mocking composure, he saw testified all the hatred, scorn and malice that had opposed his life-work. “Begone!” he said sternly, “and disturb me not.”