“He told us his father was dead—was drowned,” said Romola, faintly. “Surely he must have believed it then. Oh! he could not have been so base then!”
A vision had risen of what Tito was to her in those first days when she thought no more of wrong in him than a child thinks of poison in flowers. The yearning regret that lay in that memory brought some relief from the tension of horror. With one great sob the tears rushed forth.
“Ah, you are young, and the tears come easily,” said Baldassarre, with some impatience. “But tears are no good; they only put out the fire within, and it is the fire that works. Tears will hinder us. Listen to me.”
Romola turned towards him with a slight start. Again the possibility of his madness had darted through her mind, and checked the rush of belief. If, after all, this man were only a mad assassin? But her deep belief in this story still lay behind, and it was more in sympathy than in fear that she avoided the risk of paining him by any show of doubt.
“Tell me,” she said, as gently as she could, “how did you lose your memory—your scholarship?”
“I was ill. I can’t tell how long—it was a blank. I remember nothing, only at last I was sitting in the sun among the stones, and everything else was darkness. And slowly, and by degrees, I felt something besides that: a longing for something—I did not know what—that never came. And when I was in the ship on the waters I began to know what I longed for; it was for the Boy to come back—it was to find all my thoughts again, for I was locked away outside them all. And I am outside now. I feel nothing but a wall and darkness.”
Baldassarre had become dreamy again, and sank into silence, resting his head between his hands; and again Romola’s belief in him had submerged all cautioning doubts. The pity with which she dwelt on his words seemed like the revival of an old pang. Had she not daily seen how her father missed Dino and the future he had dreamed of in that son?
“It all came back once,” Baldassarre went on presently. “I was master of everything. I saw all the world again, and my gems, and my books; and I thought I had him in my power, and I went to expose him where—where the lights were and the trees; and he lied again, and said I was mad, and they dragged me away to prison... Wickedness is strong; and he wears armour.”
The fierceness had flamed up again. He spoke with his former intensity, and again he grasped Romola’s arm.
“But you will help me? He has been false to you too. He has another wife, and she has children. He makes her believe he is her husband, and she is a foolish, helpless thing. I will show you where she lives.”