onely man. I took him when they
were beating him. He slept in my bosom when he was little, and I
watched him as he grew, and gave him all my knowledge, and everything
that was mine I meant to be his. I had many things; money, and books,
and gems. He had my gems--he sold them; and he left me in slavery. He
never came to seek me, and when I came back poor and in misery, he
denied me. He said I was a madman."

"He told us his father was dead--was drowned," said Romola, faintly.
"Surely he must have believed it then. Oh! he could not have been so
base _then_!"

A vision had risen of what Tito was to her in those first days when she
thought no more of wrong in him than a child thinks of poison in
flowers. The yearning regret that lay in that memory brought some
relief from the tension of horror. With one great sob the tears rushed
forth.

"Ah, you are young, and the tears come easily," said Baldassarre, with
some impatience. "But tears are no good; they only put out the fire
within, and it is the fire that works. Tears will hinder us. Listen to
me."

Romola turned towards him with a slight start. Again the possibility of
his madness had darted through her mind, and checked the rush of belief.
If, after all, this man were only a mad assassin? But her deep belief
in this story still lay behind, and it was more in sympathy than in fear
that she avoided the risk of paining him by any show of doubt.

"Tell me," she said, as gently as she could, "how did you lose your
memory--your scholarship."

"I was ill. I can't tell how long--it was a blank. I remember nothing,
only at last I was sitting in the sun among the stones, and everything
else was darkness. And slowly, and by degrees, I felt something besides
that: a longing for something--I did not know what--that never came.
And when I was in the ship on the waters I began to know what I longed
for; it was for the Boy to come back--it was to find all my thoughts
again, for I was locked away outside them all. And I am outside now. I
feel nothing but a wall and darkness."

Baldassarre had become dreamy again, and sank into silence, resting his
head between his hands; and again Romola's belief in him had submerged
all cautioning doubts. The pity with which she dwelt on his words
seemed like the revival of an old pang. Had she not daily seen how her
father missed Dino and the future he had dreamed of in that son?

"It all came back once," Baldassarre went