old Maso seeking for you, but your nest was empty. He
will come again presently. The old man looked mournful, and seemed in
haste. I hope there is nothing wrong in the Via de' Bardi."

"Doubtless Messer Tito knows that Bardo's son is dead," said Cronaca,
who had just come up.

Tito's heart gave a leap--had the death happened before Romola saw him?

"No, I had not heard it," he said, with no more discomposure than the
occasion seemed to warrant, turning and leaning against the doorpost, as
if he had given up his intention of going away. "I knew that his sister
had gone to see him. Did he die before she arrived?"

"No," said Cronaca; "I was in San Marco at the time, and saw her come
out from the chapter-house with Fra Girolamo, who told us that the dying
man's breath had been preserved as by a miracle, that he might make a
disclosure to his sister."

Tito felt that his fate was decided. Again his mind rushed over all the
circumstances of his departure from Florence, and he conceived a plan of
getting back his money from Cennini before the disclosure had become
public. If he once had his money he need not stay long in endurance of
scorching looks and biting words. He would wait now, and go away with
Cennini and get the money from him at once. With that project in his
mind he stood motionless--his hands in his belt, his eyes fixed absently
on the ground. Nello, glancing at him, felt sure that he was absorbed
in anxiety about Romola, and thought him such a pretty image of
self-forgetful sadness, that he just perceptibly pointed his razor at
him, and gave a challenging look at Piero di Cosimo, whom he had never
forgiven for his refusal to see any prognostics of character in his
favourite's handsome face. Piero, who was leaning against the other
doorpost, close to Tito, shrugged his shoulders: the frequent recurrence
of such challenges from Nello had changed the painter's first
declaration of neutrality into a positive inclination to believe ill of
the much-praised Greek.

"So you have got your Fra Girolamo back again, Cronaca? I suppose we
shall have him preaching again this next Advent," said Nello.

"And not before there is need," said Cronaca, gravely. "We have had the
best testimony to his words since the last Quaresima; for even to the
wicked wickedness has become a plague; and the ripeness of vice is
turning to rottenness in the nostrils even of the vicious. There has
not been a change since the Qua