“Now we have found them let me face them by myself,” said Colin, to whom the interval¹ of silence and consideration had been of use. They were both waiting in the hall of one of the hotels facing towards the Piazza² del Popolo, to which they had{322} at last tracked Mr. Meredith, and Lauderdale acquiesced³ silently in Colin’s decision. The young man had already sent up his card, with a request that he might see not Alice but her father. After a considerable time, the servant who had taken it returned with an abrupt⁴ message that Mr. Meredith was engaged. When he had sent up a second time, explaining that his business was urgent, but with the same effect, Colin accompanied his third message with a note, and went with his messenger to the door of the room in which his adversary⁵ was. There could be no doubt of the commotion⁶ produced within by this third application. Colin could hear some one pacing about the room with disturbed steps, and the sound of a controversy⁷ going on, which, though he was too far off to hear anything that was said, still reached him vaguely⁸ in sound at least. When he had waited for about five minutes, the clergyman, whom he had not in the least thought of or expected to see, made his appearance cautiously at the door. He did not attempt to admit the young man, but came up to him on tiptoe, and took him persuasively⁹, almost caressingly¹⁰, by the arm. “My good friend, my excellent young friend,” said the puzzled priest, with a mixture of compunction and expostulation which in other circumstances would have amused Colin, “let us have a little conversation. I am sure you are much too generous and considerate to add to the

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