--be her husband? I think she will not deny me. She
has said she loves me. I know I am not equal to her in birth--in
anything; but I am no longer a destitute stranger."

"Is it true, my Romola?" said Bardo, in a lower tone, an evident
vibration passing through him and dissipating the saddened aspect of his
features.

"Yes, father," said Romola, firmly. "I love Tito--I wish to marry him,
that we may both be your children and never part."

Tito's hand met hers in a strong clasp for the first time, while she was
speaking, but their eyes were fixed anxiously on her father.

"Why should it not be?" said Bardo, as if arguing against any opposition
to his assent, rather than assenting. "It would be a happiness to me;
and thou, too, Romola, wouldst be the happier for it."

He stroked her long hair gently and bent towards her.

"Ah, I have been apt to forget that thou needest some other love than
mine. And thou wilt be a noble wife. Bernardo thinks I shall hardly
find a husband fitting for thee. And he is perhaps right. For thou art
not like the herd of thy sex: thou art such a woman as the immortal
poets had a vision of when they sang the lives of the heroes--tender but
strong, like thy voice, which has been to me instead of the light in the
years of my blindness... And so thou lovest him?"

He sat upright again for a minute, and then said, in the same tone as
before, "Why should it not be? I will think of it; I will talk with
Bernardo."

Tito felt a disagreeable chill at this answer, for Bernardo del Nero's
eyes had retained their keen suspicion whenever they looked at him, and
the uneasy remembrance of Fra Luca converted all uncertainty into fear.

"Speak for me, Romola," he said, pleadingly. "Messer Bernardo is sure
to be against me."

"No, Tito," said Romola, "my godfather will not oppose what my father
firmly wills. And it is your will that I should marry Tito--is it not
true, father? Nothing has ever come to me before that I have wished for
strongly: I did not think it possible that I could care so much for
anything that could happen to myself."

It was a brief and simple plea; but it was the condensed story of
Romola's self-repressing colourless young life, which had thrown all its
passion into sympathy with aged sorrows, aged ambition, aged pride and
indignation. It had never occurred to Romola that she should not speak
as directly and emphatically of her love for Tito as of any other
subject