er
that evening when my brother's name was mentioned and my father spoke of
him to you?"

"Yes," said Tito, in a low tone. There was a strange complication in
his mental state. His heart sank at the probability that a great change
was coming over his prospects, while at the same time his thoughts were
darting over a hundred details of the course he would take when the
change had come; and yet he returned Romola's gaze with a hungry sense
that it might be the last time she would ever bend it on him with full
unquestioning confidence.

"The _cugina_ had heard that he was come back, and the evening before--
the evening of San Giovanni--as I afterwards found, he had been seen by
our good Maso near the door of our house; but when Maso went to inquire
at San Marco, Dino, that is, my brother--he was christened Bernardino,
after our godfather, but now he calls himself Fra Luca--had been taken
to the monastery at Fiesole, because he was ill. But this morning a
message came to Maso, saying that he was come back to San Marco, and
Maso went to him there. He is very ill, and he has adjured me to go and
see him. I cannot refuse it, though I hold him guilty; I still remember
how I loved him when I was a little girl, before I knew that he would
forsake my father. And perhaps he has some word of penitence to send by
me. It cost me a struggle to act in opposition to my father's feeling,
which I have always held to be just. I am almost sure you will think I
have chosen rightly, Tito, because I have noticed that your nature is
less rigid than mine, and nothing makes you angry: it would cost, you
less to be forgiving; though, if you had seen your father forsaken by
one to whom he had given his chief love--by one in whom he had planted
his labour and his hopes--forsaken when his need was becoming greatest--
even you, Tito, would find it hard to forgive."

What could he say? He was not equal to the hypocrisy of telling Romola
that such offences ought not to be pardoned; and he had not the courage
to utter any words of dissuasion.

"You are right, my Romola; you are always right, except in thinking too
well of me."

There was really some genuineness in those last words, and Tito looked
very beautiful as he uttered them, with an unusual pallor in his face,
and a slight quivering of his lip. Romola, interpreting all things
largely, like a mind prepossessed with high beliefs, had a tearful
brightness in her eyes as she looked at h