land alone Roderick talked a
great deal more; often about things related to his own work, or about
artistic and aesthetic matters in general. He talked as well as ever,
or even better; but his talk always ended in a torrent of groans and
curses. When this current set in, Rowland straightway turned his back
or stopped his ears, and Roderick now witnessed these movements with
perfect indifference. When the latter was absent from the star-lit
circle in the garden, as often happened, Rowland knew nothing of his
whereabouts; he supposed him to be in Florence, but he never learned
what he did there. All this was not enlivening, but with an even,
muffled tread the days followed each other, and brought the month
of August to a close. One particular evening at this time was most
enchanting; there was a perfect moon, looking so extraordinarily large
that it made everything its light fell upon seem small; the heat was
tempered by a soft west wind, and the wind was laden with the odors of
the early harvest. The hills, the vale of the Arno, the shrunken river,
the domes of Florence, were vaguely effaced by the dense moonshine; they
looked as if they were melting out of sight like an exorcised vision.
Rowland had found the two ladies alone at the villa, and he had sat with
them for an hour. He felt absolutely hushed by the solemn splendor of
the scene, but he had risked the remark that, whatever life might yet
have in store for either of them, this was a night that they would never
forget.

"It 's a night to remember on one's death-bed!" Miss Garland exclaimed.

"Oh, Mary, how can you!" murmured Mrs. Hudson, to whom this savored
of profanity, and to whose shrinking sense, indeed, the accumulated
loveliness of the night seemed to have something shameless and defiant.

They were silent after this, for some time, but at last Rowland
addressed certain idle words to Miss Garland. She made no reply, and he
turned to look at her. She was sitting motionless, with her head pressed
to Mrs. Hudson's shoulder, and the latter lady was gazing at him through
the silvered dusk with a look which gave a sort of spectral solemnity to
the sad, weak meaning of her eyes. She had the air, for the moment, of
a little old malevolent fairy. Miss Garland, Rowland perceived in an
instant, was not absolutely motionless; a tremor passed through her
figure. She was weeping, or on the point of weeping, and she could not
trust herself to speak. Rowland left his pl