ent up stairs to his mother without
attracting the slightest notice.

The month was August. The streets were empty. The vilest breeze that
blows--a hot east wind in London--was the breeze abroad on that day.
Even Geoffrey appeared to feel the influence of the weather as the cab
carried him from his father's door to the hotel. He took off his hat,
and unbuttoned his waistcoat, and lit his everlasting pipe, and growled
and grumbled between his teeth in the intervals of smoking. Was it only
the hot wind that wrung from him these demonstrations of discomfort? Or
was there some secret anxiety in his mind which assisted the depressing
influences of the day? There was a secret anxiety in his mind. And the
name of it was--Anne.

As things actually were at that moment, what course was he to take with
the unhappy woman who was waiting to hear from him at the Scotch inn?

To write? or not to write? That was the question with Geoffrey.

The preliminary difficulty, relating to addressing a letter to Anne at
the inn, had been already provided for. She had decided--if it proved
necessary to give her name, before Geoffrey joined her--to call herself
Mrs., instead of Miss, Silvester. A letter addressed to "Mrs.
Silvester" might be trusted to find its way to her without causing any
embarrassment. The doubt was not here. The doubt lay, as usual, between
two alternatives. Which course would it be wisest to take?--to inform
Anne, by that day's post, that an interval of forty-eight hours must
elapse before his father's recovery could be considered certain? Or
to wait till the interval was over, and be guided by the result?
Considering the alternatives in the cab, he decided that the wise course
was to temporize with Anne, by reporting matters as they then stood.

Arrived at the hotel, he sat down to write the letter--doubted--and tore
it up--doubted again--and began again--doubted once more--and tore
up the second letter--rose to his feet--and owned to himself (in
unprintable language) that he couldn't for the life of him decide which
was safest--to write or to wait.

In this difficulty, his healthy physical instincts sent him to healthy
physical remedies for relief. "My mind's in a muddle," said Geoffrey.
"I'll try a bath."

It was an elaborate bath, proceeding through many rooms, and combining
many postures and applications. He steamed. He plunged. He simmered. He
stood under a pipe, and received a cataract of cold water on his head