In a couple of days he told Rowland that he had received a telegraphic
answer to his message, informing him that the two ladies were to sail
immediately for Leghorn, in one of the small steamers which ply between
that port and New York. They would arrive, therefore, in less than a
month. Rowland passed this month of expectation in no very serene frame
of mind. His suggestion had had its source in the deepest places of his
agitated conscience; but there was something intolerable in the thought
of the suffering to which the event was probably subjecting those
undefended women. They had scraped together their scanty funds and
embarked, at twenty-four hours' notice, upon the dreadful sea, to
journey tremulously to shores darkened by the shadow of deeper alarms.
He could only promise himself to be their devoted friend and servant.
Preoccupied as he was, he was able to observe that expectation,
with Roderick, took a form which seemed singular even among his
characteristic singularities. If redemption--Roderick seemed to
reason--was to arrive with his mother and his affianced bride, these
last moments of error should be doubly erratic. He did nothing; but
inaction, with him, took on an unwonted air of gentle gayety. He laughed
and whistled and went often to Mrs. Light's; though Rowland knew not
in what fashion present circumstances had modified his relations with
Christina. The month ebbed away and Rowland daily expected to hear from
Roderick that he had gone to Leghorn to meet the ship. He heard nothing,
and late one evening, not having seen his friend in three or four days,
he stopped at Roderick's lodging to assure himself that he had gone at
last. A cab was standing in the street, but as it was a couple of doors
off he hardly heeded it. The hall at the foot of the staircase was dark,
like most Roman halls, and he paused in the street-doorway on hearing
the advancing footstep of a person with whom he wished to avoid coming
into collision. While he did so he heard another footstep behind him,
and turning round found that Roderick in person had just overtaken him.
At the same moment a woman's figure advanced from within, into the light
of the street-lamp, and a face, half-startled, glanced at him out of
the darkness. He gave a cry--it was the face of Mary Garland. Her glance
flew past him to Roderick, and in a second a startled exclamation broke
from her own lips. It made Rowland turn again. Roderick stood there,
pale, appa