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RODERICK HUDSON
this lady asked when he would come back to Rome, and he answered that he would return either never or for always. When she asked him what he meant he said he really could n't tell her; but this moved her to embrace him in a motherly manner, as if she understood. She did more, she pronounced him a paragon among men; only that afterwards made his ears burn—it was so like a consecration afresh of the overstrained use of his reason and his charity. There were moments now when these faculties in him felt limp and lifeless.
