saying, "I leave to-day. Come and see me at once."

He was shown into the same room as before; but it was much darkened
with blinds and curtains. The Princess was not there, but she presently
entered, dressed in a loose wrap of some soft silk, in color a dusky
orange, her head again with black lace floating about it, her arms
showing themselves bare from under her wide sleeves. Her face seemed
even more impressive in the sombre light, the eyes larger, the lines
more vigorous. You might have imagined her a sorceress who would
stretch forth her wonderful hand and arm to mix youth-potions for
others, but scorned to mix them for herself, having had enough of youth.

She put her arms on her son's shoulders at once, and kissed him on both
cheeks, then seated herself among her cushions with an air of assured
firmness and dignity unlike her fitfulness in their first interview,
and told Deronda to sit down by her. He obeyed, saying, "You are quite
relieved now, I trust?"

"Yes, I am at ease again. Is there anything more that you would like to
ask me?" she said, with the matter of a queen rather than of a mother.

"Can I find the house in Genoa where you used to live with my
grandfather?" said Deronda.

"No," she answered, with a deprecating movement of her arm, "it is
pulled down--not to be found. But about our family, and where my father
lived at various times--you will find all that among the papers in the
chest, better than I can tell you. My father, I told you, was a
physician. My mother was a Morteira. I used to hear all those things
without listening. You will find them all. I was born amongst them
without my will. I banished them as soon as I could."

Deronda tried to hide his pained feeling, and said, "Anything else that
I should desire to know from you could only be what it is some
satisfaction to your own feeling to tell me."

"I think I have told you everything that could be demanded of me," said
the Princess, looking coldly meditative. It seemed as if she had
exhausted her emotion in their former interview. The fact was, she had
said to herself, "I have done it all. I have confessed all. I will not
go through it again. I will save myself from agitation." And she was
acting out that scheme.

But to Deronda's nature the moment was cruel; it made the filial
yearning of his life a disappointed pilgrimage to a shrine where there
were no longer the symbols of sacredness. It seemed that all the woman
lacking in he