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.