At the end of the third week he ventured to the Second Avenue house. The room they had occupied was dark. He watched it until midnight. If Denasia had been singing anywhere, she would certainly have returned to her child before that hour. The next night he sent a messenger to inquire for her address, and the boy said, "It was not known. Mrs. Tresham had left two weeks before. She had spoken of England, but it was not positively known that she had gone there."
"She is likely in St. Penfer by this time," mentally commented Roland, and the thought gave him comfort. He did want Denasia and the baby to be taken care of, and he knew they would want no necessary thing in John Penelles' cottage. But it was this very certainty of Denasia's return to England which really detained Roland in America. He had no desire to meet John Penelles until time had healed the wound he had given John's daughter. John would be sure to seek him out in London, and there might be no end of trouble; but John would not come to America, nor would he be likely in the summer season to leave the fishing and seek him either in Paris or Switzerland. As for Elizabeth, she knew from her brother's letters that he had deceived and left his wife, and she had, of course, thought it proper to offer a feeble remonstrance, but Roland knew right well she would never betray his hiding-place.
So Roland lived on week after week in luxurious thoughtlessness. Mr. Lanhearne grew very fond of him, and Ada, in spite of her numerous objects of charitable interest, found it singularly pleasant to discuss with so handsome and intelligent a companion religious topics on which their opinions were widely apart. Indeed, she honestly accepted the evident duty of leading him back to the safe and narrow road of creditable dogmas. And with such a fair, earnest teacher it was easy, it was natural for Roland to affect an interest in the subject he did not really feel.
Dangerous ground for both, but especially so for the lovely young woman whose sincerity and singleness of purpose led her to believe that a very natural and womanly instinct was the prompting of a spiritual concern for an immortal soul wandering from the right path. Roland as a hypocrite, affecting a piety he despised, would not have been either so captivating or so dangerous as Roland honestly ignorant and doubtful, yet willing to be taught and convinced.