It was like enough that it may have done so.  Trevelyan, as he had been speaking, had walked about the room, going from one extremity to the other with hurried steps, gesticulating with his arms, and every now and then pushing back with his hands the long hair from off his forehead.  Mr Glascock was in truth very much disturbed.  He had come there with an express object; but, whenever he mentioned the child, the father became almost rabid in his wrath.  ’I have done very well, thank you,’ said Mr Glascock.  ’I will not eat any more, and I believe I must be thinking of going back to Siena.’

‘I had hoped you would spend the day with me, Mr Glascock.’

’I am to be married, you see, in two days; and I must be in Florence early to-morrow.  I am to meet my wife, as she will be, and the Rowleys, and your wife.  Upon my word I can’t stay.  Won’t you just say a word to the young woman and let the boy be got ready?’

‘I think not; no, I think not.’

’And am I to have had all this journey for nothing?  You will have made a fool of me in writing to me.’

‘I intended to be honest, Mr Glascock.’

’Stick to your honesty, and send the boy back to his mother.  It will be better for you, Trevelyan.’

’Better for me!  Nothing can be better for me.  All must be worst.  It will be better for me, you say; and you ask me to give up the last drop of cold water wherewith I can touch my parched lips.  Even in my hell I had so much left to me of a limpid stream, and you tell me that it will be better for me to pour it away.  You may take him, Mr Glascock.  The woman will make him ready for you.  What matters it whether the fiery furnace be heated seven times, or only six; in either degree the flames are enough!  You may take him, you may take him!’ So saying, Trevelyan walked out of the window, leaving Mr Glascock seated in his chair.  He walked out of the window and went down among the olive trees.  He did not go far, however, but stood with his arm round the stem of one of them, playing with the shoots of a vine with his hand.  Mr Glascock followed him to the window and stood looking at him for a few moments.  But Trevelyan did not turn or move.  There he stood gazing at the pale, cloudless, heat-laden, motionless sky, thinking of his own sorrows, and remembering too, doubtless, with the vanity of a madman, that he was probably being watched in his reverie.

Mr Glascock was too practical a man not to make the most of the offer that had been made to him, and he went back among the passages and called for Catarina.  Before long he had two or three women with him, including her whom he had brought from Florence, and among them Louey was soon made to appear, dressed for his journey, together with a small trunk in which were his garments.  It was quite clear that the order for his departure had been given before that scene at the breakfast-table, and that Trevelyan had not intended to go back on his