The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-03-29

like flash of Lightning. he felt. rather than saw, her eyes and the cry of love with which shs said; '"rito!''
 Tt Is all over." she said weeping. He is dead"
 warned her of a vision that he had seen, in which he beheld a man whose face was a blank, take her to the altar and lead her thence to strange misery. "Ah," he had cried at last, "in the end I saw his face. Romoia, it was the Great Tempter! Do not marry him. I beseech you" With these words he had died.
 Titos mind Ieapsd back into sun light. He was safe! Tenderly he com dark. shining eyes till the sadness faded out of her own.
 Now at last all the shadows of the past seemed to have removed them- selves from the path of Tito Melema. He had become the acknowledged favorite of Scala, secretary of the Florentine Republic. Cardinals and nobles had him at their houses com stantly. When Easter came his happi- ness was crowned by his marrige to Romola. and he took his place as an honored and influential citizen.
 Two and one half years had passed since he entered Florence first. and he had been married more than year, when a gregg change came to the re- public. In November the people gath cred with their arms and drove out the Medici. The exiled members of the family were called home again. The republic had recovered the use of its will, and prepared to receive a splen- did guest!--an unexampled visitor who had come through the Alps with such an army as Italy had never seen be- fore, on his way to take possession of the Kingdom of Naples, and then to set out for conquest of the Turk g..
 Fra Girolamo Savonarola, prior of the Dominician convent, had preach ed that this visitor-Charles the Eighth of France-was the scourge prophesied bye cd two years before in a vision. That scourge, he declared. was to purify the earth from iniquity. Let Florence repent and turn from It's ways and the scourge would not fall there but elsewhere.
 Among those who believed him were the choicest spirits of the age, for Savonarola had a power rarely paral- leled of making men believe him with shuddering awe
 Fated to be wrecked at last by his attempt to achieve success, instead of remaining the preacher and teacher: involved in politics and action that made him contradict himself. he still succeeded for long while in swaying all Italy--for he had a great soul, 8 burning indignation at the sight of wrong and a fervid and unfalterinR belief in purity and Divine justice.
 Florence looked forward to the com ing Of the French king with a thrill. which did not, however, prevht the populace from testing at the oddities of the French advance parties--nof- ably the hoof- shap ped shoes which were known to have been adopted in deli- cate hattery of their ruler's unpleasant superfiuity of toes.
 Thus when a small body of French foot soldiers appeared with three men bound with ropes. two of whom cried to the crowd that they were Tuscans. the Fiorentines did not hestitate to set on the troop and free the three.
 The two Tuscans disappeared in the crowd immediately. But the third prisoner, an old white-haired man, who had remained obstinately silent and looked around defiantly ran to the church for sanctuary. As he rushed up the steps he stumbled ana grasp ed at the sleeve of one of the nrill- iant party standing there.
 It was Tito Melema who felt that clutch. He turned his head tnd saw the face of his adopted father. Baldas. sarre Calvo, close to his ownl
 Who is this prisoner. wonder, 1"