"Can't he come for five minutes?
Why does he write such a cruel, cold note to his poor mother--to poor Mary?
What have we done that he acts so strangely?
It 's this wicked, infectious, heathenish place!" And the poor lady's suppressed mistrust of the Eternal City broke out passionately.

"Oh, dear Mr.Mallet," she went on, "I am sure he has the fever and he 's already delirious!" "I am very sure it 's not that," said Miss Garland, with a certain dryness.
She was still looking at Rowland; his eyes met hers, and his own glance fell.

This made him angry, and to carry off his confusion he pretended to be looking at the floor, in meditation.

After all, what had he to be ashamed of?
For a moment he was on the point of making a clean breast of it, of crying out, "Dearest friends, I abdicate: I can't help you!" But he checked himself; he felt so impatient to have his three words with Christina.

He grasped his hat.
"I will see what it is!" he cried.