stival.
Your wager's lost--how am I moved by this?

GENTLEMAN.
Hark to the end. 'T would move all men whose veins
Flow not clear water. He hath carried off
The Rose of Naples.

LORENZO.
What wouldst thou say? Speak out!
In God's name, who hath followed him?

GENTLEMAN.
Ah, thou'rt roused.
Thy master hath been robbed--the Spagnoletto--
Maria of the Golden Locks--his daughter.

LORENZO.
How is this known? 'T is a foul slander forged
By desperate malice. What! in the night, you say?--
She whose bright name was clean as gold, whose heart
Shone a fixed star of loyal love and duty
Beside her father's glory! This coarse lie
Denies itself. I will go seek the master,
And if this very noon she walk not forth,
Led by the Spagnoletto, through the streets,
To blind the dazed eyes of her slanderers,--
I am your debtor for a hundred florins.

GENTLEMAN.
Your faith in womanhood becomes you, sir.
(Aside.) A beggar's child the mistress of a Prince;
Humph! there be some might think the weight of scandal
Lay on the other side. (To Lorenzo.) You need not forth
To seek her father. See, he comes, alone.
I will not meddle in the broil. Farewell!
[Exit Gentleman.]

Enter RIBERA, without hat or mantle, slowly, with folded arms
and bent head.

LORENZO.
Oh heart, break not for pity! Shall he thus
Unto all Naples blazon his disgrace?
This must not be (advancing). Father!

RIBERA (starts and looks up sharply).
Who calls me father?

LORENZO.
Why, master, I--you know me not? Lorenzo.

RIBERA.
Nor do I care to know thee. Thou must be
An arrant coward, thus to league with foes
Against so poor a wretch as I--to call me
By the most curst, despised, unhallowed name
God's creatures can own. Away! and let me pass;
I injure no man.

LORENZO.
Look at me, dear master.
Your head is bare, your face is ashy pale,
The sun is fierce. I am your friend, your pupil;
Let me but guide my reverend master home,
In token of the grateful memory
Wherein I hold his guidance of my mind
Up the steep paths of art.
[While LORENZO speaks, RIBERA slowly gains consciousness of his
situation, rai