"I did not know that you were here alone."
"Or you would not have come, perhaps? But you should not have come. Why did you not ask before you came?"
"Because I should have been refused. It would have been refused; would it not?"
"Certainly it would."
"But as I wish to see you specially—"
"Why specially? I have wanted to see you always. Every day has been a special want. It should have been so with you also had you been as true as I am. There should have been no special times."
"But I am going—"
"Going! Where are you going? Not for always! You are leaving Holloway, you mean, or the Post Office." Then he explained to her that as far as he knew the journey would not be for long. He was not leaving his office, but had permission to absent himself for a time, so that he might travel with his mother as far as Milan. "Nay," said he, laughing, "why I am to do so I do not in the least know. My mother has some great Italian mystery of which she has never yet revealed to me any of the circumstances. All I know is that I was born in Italy."
"You an Italian?"
"I did not say that. There is an old saying that you need not be a horse because you were born in a stable. Nor do I quite know that I was born in Italy, though I feel sure of it. Of my father I have never known anything,—except that he was certainly a bad husband to my mother. There are circumstances which do make me almost sure that I was born in Italy; but as my mother has been unwilling to talk to me of my earliest days, I have never chosen to ask her. Now I shall perhaps know it all."