nderstood him. But he
chose to repeat what he had said, that there might be no mistake as to
the test.

"The ring I possess," he said, "is a fine sard, engraved with a subject
from Homer. There was no other at all resembling it in Messer Tito's
collection. Will you turn to the passage in Homer from which that
subject is taken? Seat yourself here," he added, laying the book on the
table, and pointing to his own seat while he stood beside it.

Baldassarre had so far recovered from the first confused horror produced
by the sensation of rushing coldness and chiming din in the ears as to
be partly aware of what was said to him: he was aware that something was
being demanded from him to prove his identity, but he formed no distinct
idea of the details. The sight of the book recalled the habitual
longing and faint hope that he could read and understand, and he moved
towards the chair immediately.

The book was open before him, and he bent his head a little towards it,
while everybody watched him eagerly. He turned no leaf. His eyes
wandered over the pages that lay before him, and then fixed on them a
straining gaze. This lasted for two or three minutes in dead silence.
Then he lifted his hands to each side of his head, and said, in a low
tone of despair, "Lost, lost!"

There was something so piteous in the wandering look and the low cry,
that while they confirmed the belief in his madness they raised
compassion. Nay, so distinct sometimes is the working of a double
consciousness within us, that Tito himself, while he triumphed in the
apparent verification of his lie, wished that he had never made the lie
necessary to himself--wished he had recognised his father on the steps--
wished he had gone to seek him--wished everything had been different.
But he had borrowed from the terrible usurer Falsehood, and the loan had
mounted and mounted with the years, till he belonged to the usurer, body
and soul.

The compassion excited in all the witnesses was not without its danger
to Tito; for conjecture is constantly guided by feeling, and more than
one person suddenly conceived that this man might have been a scholar
and have lost his faculties. On the other hand, they had not present to
their minds the motives which could have led Tito to the denial of his
benefactor, and having no ill-will towards him, it would have been
difficult to them to believe that he had been uttering the basest of
lies. And the originally commo