.

"Romola mia!" said her father fondly, pausing on the words, "it is true
thou hast never urged on me any wishes of thy own. And I have no will
to resist thine; rather, my heart met Tito's entreaty at its very first
utterance. Nevertheless, I must talk with Bernardo about the measures
needful to be observed. For we must not act in haste, or do anything
unbeseeming my name. I am poor, and held of little account by the
wealthy of our family--nay, I may consider myself a lonely man--but I
must nevertheless remember that generous birth has its obligations. And
I would not be reproached by my fellow-citizens for rash haste in
bestowing my daughter. Bartolommeo Scala gave his Alessandra to the
Greek Marullo, but Marullo's lineage was well-known, and Scala himself
is of no extraction. I know Bernardo will hold that we must take time:
he will, perhaps, reproach me with want of due forethought. Be patient,
my children: you are very young."

No more could be said, and Romola's heart was perfectly satisfied. Not
so Tito's. If the subtle mixture of good and evil prepares suffering
for human truth and purity, there is also suffering prepared for the
wrong-doer by the same mingled conditions. As Tito kissed Romola on
their parting that evening, the very strength of the thrill that moved
his whole being at the sense that this woman, whose beauty it was hardly
possible to think of as anything but the necessary consequence of her
noble nature, loved him with all the tenderness that spoke in her clear
eyes, brought a strong reaction of regret that he had not kept himself
free from that first deceit which had dragged him into the danger of
being disgraced before her. There was a spring of bitterness mingling
with that fountain of sweets. Would the death of Fra Luca arrest it?
He hoped it would.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1. The name given to the grotesque black-faced figures, supposed
to represent the Magi, carried about or placed in the windows on Twelfth
Night: a corruption of Epifania.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE SHADOW OF NEMESIS.

It was the lazy afternoon time on the seventh of September, more than
two months after the day on which Romola and Tito had confessed their
love to each other.

Tito, just descended into Nello's shop, had found the barber stretched
on the bench with his cap over his eyes; one leg was drawn up, and the
other had slipped towards the