suppressed tears. They had lost time, she
said, and they must hurry; she sent Assunta to look for a fiacre. She
remained silent a while, scratching the ground with the point of her
parasol, and then at last, looking up, she thanked Rowland for his
confidence in her "reasonableness." "It 's really very comfortable to be
asked, to be expected, to do something good, after all the horrid things
one has been used to doing--instructed, commanded, forced to do! I 'll
think over what you have said to me." In that deserted quarter fiacres
are rare, and there was some delay in Assunta's procuring one. Christina
talked of the church, of the picturesque old court, of that strange,
decaying corner of Rome. Rowland was perplexed; he was ill at ease.
At last the fiacre arrived, but she waited a moment longer. "So,
decidedly," she suddenly asked, "I can only harm him?"

"You make me feel very brutal," said Rowland.

"And he is such a fine fellow that it would be really a great pity, eh?"

"I shall praise him no more," Rowland said.

She turned away quickly, but she lingered still. "Do you remember
promising me, soon after we first met, that at the end of six months you
would tell me definitely what you thought of me?"

"It was a foolish promise."

"You gave it. Bear it in mind. I will think of what you have said to me.
Farewell." She stepped into the carriage, and it rolled away. Rowland
stood for some minutes, looking after it, and then went his way with
a sigh. If this expressed general mistrust, he ought, three days
afterward, to have been reassured. He received by the post a note
containing these words:--

"I have done it. Begin and respect me!

"--C. L."

To be perfectly satisfactory, indeed, the note required a commentary.
He called that evening upon Roderick, and found one in the information
offered him at the door, by the old serving-woman--the startling
information that the signorino had gone to Naples.

CHAPTER VIII. Provocation

About a month later, Rowland addressed to his cousin Cecilia a letter of
which the following is a portion:--

... "So much for myself; yet I tell you but a tithe of my own story
unless I let you know how matters stand with poor Hudson, for he gives
me more to think about just now than anything else in the world. I need
a good deal of courage to begin this chapter. You warned me, you know,
and I made rather light of your warning. I have had all kinds of hopes
and fears, but h