"It is your doing!" Basterga stared.

He was in the dark as to what had happened, though the Syndic's manner on leaving the bridge had prepared him for something.
"My doing, Messer Blondel ?" he said.

"Why?
What have I done ?" "Done ?" "Ay, done! It was not my fault," the scholar continued, with a touch of sternness, "that I could not offer you the _remedium_ on easy terms.

Nor mine, that hard as the terms were, you did not accept them.

Besides," he continued, slowly and with meaning, "Terque quaterque redit! You remember the Sibylline books?
How often they were offered, and the terms?
It is not too late, Messer Blondel--even now.