unrest—a radiant presence for a lonely man to have won for himself. If he were silent when his father expected some response, still he did not look moody; if he declined some labour—why, he flung himself down with such a charming, half-smiling, half-pleading air, that the pleasure of looking at him made amends to one who had watched his growth with a sense of claim and possession: the curves of Tito’s mouth had ineffable good-humour in them. And then, the quick talent to which everything came readily, from philosophical systems to the rhymes of a street ballad caught up at a hearing! Would anyone have said that Tito had not made a rich return to his benefactor, or that his gratitude and affection would fail on any great demand?
He did not admit that his gratitude had failed; but it was not certain that Baldassarre was in slavery, not certain that he was living.
“Do I not owe something to myself?” said Tito, inwardly, with a slight movement of his shoulders, the first he had made since he had turned to look down at the florins.
“Before I quit everything, and incur again all the risks of which I am even now weary, I must at least have a reasonable hope. Am I to spend my life in a wandering search? I believe he is dead. Cennini was right about my florins: I will place them in his hands tomorrow.”
When, the next morning, Tito put this determination into act he had chosen his colour in the game, and had given an inevitable bent to his wishes.
He had made it impossible that he should not from henceforth desire it to be the truth that his father was dead; impossible that he should not be tempted to baseness rather than that the precise facts of his conduct should not remain forever concealed.
Under every guilty secret there is hidden a brood of guilty wishes, whose unwholesome infecting life is cherished by the darkness. The