everything and that she must make the best of it. This morning she has
dried her eyes, but I warrant you it is n't a cheerful house. I long to
be out of it!"

"I 'm extremely sorry," said Rowland, "to have been the prime cause of
so much suffering. I owe your mother some amends; will it be possible
for me to see her?"

"If you 'll see her, it will smooth matters vastly; though to tell the
truth she 'll need all her courage to face you, for she considers you an
agent of the foul fiend. She does n't see why you should have come
here and set me by the ears: you are made to ruin ingenuous youths and
desolate doting mothers. I leave it to you, personally, to answer these
charges. You see, what she can't forgive--what she 'll not really ever
forgive--is your taking me off to Rome. Rome is an evil word, in my
mother's vocabulary, to be said in a whisper, as you 'd say 'damnation.'
Northampton is in the centre of the earth and Rome far away in outlying
dusk, into which it can do no Christian any good to penetrate. And there
was I but yesterday a doomed habitue of that repository of every virtue,
Mr. Striker's office!"

"And does Mr. Striker know of your decision?" asked Rowland.

"To a certainty! Mr. Striker, you must know, is not simply a
good-natured attorney, who lets me dog's-ear his law-books. He's a
particular friend and general adviser. He looks after my mother's
property and kindly consents to regard me as part of it. Our opinions
have always been painfully divergent, but I freely forgive him his
zealous attempts to unscrew my head-piece and set it on hind part
before. He never understood me, and it was useless to try to make him.