she had so often heard her father allude
to with bitterness. Her indignation rushed to her lips.

"Dino, I thought you had some words to send to my father. You forsook
him when his sight was failing; you made his life very desolate. Have
you never cared about that? never repented? What is this religion of
yours, that places visions before natural duties?"

The deep-sunken hazel eyes turned slowly towards her, and rested upon
her in silence for some moments, as if he were meditating whether he
should answer her.

"No," he said at last; speaking as before, in a low passionless tone, as
of some spirit not human, speaking through dying human organs. "No; I
have never repented fleeing from the stifling poison-breath of sin that
was hot and thick around me, and threatened to steal over my senses like
besotting wine. My father could not hear the voice that called me night
and day; he knew nothing of the demon-tempters that tried to drag me
back from following it. My father has lived amidst human sin and misery
without believing in them: he has been like one busy picking shining
stones in a mine, while there was a world dying of plague above him. I
spoke, but he listened with scorn. I told him the studies he wished me
to live for were either childish trifling--dead toys--or else they must
be made warm and living by pulses that beat to worldly ambitions and
fleshly lusts, for worldly ambitions and fleshly lusts made all the
substance of the poetry and history he wanted me to bend my eyes on
continually."

"Has not my father led a pure and noble life, then?" Romola burst
forth, unable to hear in silence this implied accusation against her
father. "He has sought no worldly honours; he has been truthful; he has
denied himself all luxuries; he has lived like one of the ancient sages.
He never wished you to live for worldly ambitions and fleshly lusts; he
wished you to live as he himself has done, according to the purest
maxims of philosophy, in which he brought you up."

Romola spoke partly by rote, as all ardent and sympathetic young
creatures do; but she spoke with intense belief. The pink flush was in
her face, and she quivered from head to foot. Her brother was again
slow to answer; looking at her passionate face with strange passionless
eyes.

"What were the maxims of philosophy to me? They told me to be strong,
when I felt myself weak; when I was ready, like the blessed Saint
Benedict, to roll myself amon