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, apparently trying to speak, but saying nothing.  His lips were parted and he was wavering slightly with a strange movement—­the movement of a man who has drunk too much.  Then Rowland’s eyes met Miss Garland’s again, and her own, which had rested a moment on Roderick’s, were formidable!

CHAPTER IX.  Mary Garland

How it befell that Roderick had failed to be in Leghorn on his mother’s arrival never clearly transpired; for he undertook to give no elaborate explanation of his fault.  He never indulged in professions (touching personal conduct) as to the future, or in remorse as to the past, and as he would have asked no praise if he had traveled night and day to embrace his mother as she set foot on shore, he made (in Rowland’s presence, at least) no apology for having left her to come in search of him.  It was to be said that, thanks to an unprecedentedly fine season, the voyage of the two ladies had been surprisingly rapid, and that, according to common probabilities, if Roderick had left Rome on the morrow (as he declared that he had intended), he would have had a day or two of waiting at Leghorn.  Rowland’s silent inference was that Christina Light had beguiled him into letting the time slip, and it was accompanied with a silent inquiry whether she had done so unconsciously or maliciously.  He had told her, presumably, that his mother and his cousin were about to arrive; and it was pertinent to remember hereupon that she was a young lady of mysterious impulses.  Rowland heard in due time the story