With Rowland 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 place and wandered to another part of the garden, wondering at the motive of her sudden tears.  Of women’s sobs in general he had a sovereign dread, but these, somehow, gave him a certain pleasure.  When he returned to his place Miss Garland had raised her head and banished her tears.  She came away from Mrs. Hudson, and they stood for a short time leaning against the parapet.

“It seems to you very strange, I suppose,” said Rowland, “that there should be any trouble in such a world as this.”