He saw those curates, and their mute brother, and the aggrieved mother of the three dogging him either to prison or to his deathbed! And how could he explain to Alice?
Impossible to explain to Alice!...

Still, it was conceivable that Alice would not desire explanation.

Alice somehow never did desire an explanation.

She always said, "I can quite understand," and set about preparing a meal.
She was the comfortablest cushion of a creature that the evolution of the universe had ever produced.
Then the gusty breeze dropped and it began to rain.

He ignored the rain.
But December rain has a strange, horrid quality of chilly persistence.
It is capable of conquering the most obstinate and serious mental preoccupation, and it conquered Priam's.