"

"Yes," he breathed.

"But you're home very early!" Her voice shook.

"I'm not well, Gertrude," he replied. "I'm tired. I came in here to lie
down. Can't you do something for my head? I must have a holiday."

He heard her crunch up the letter, and then she hastened to him in the
dressing-room.

"My poor Cloud!" she said, bending over him in the mature elegance of
her thirty years. He noticed her travelling costume. "Some eau de
Cologne?"

He nodded weakly.

"We'll go away for a holiday," he said, later, as she bathed his
forehead.

The touch of her hands on his temples reminded him of forgotten
caresses. And he did really feel as though, within a quarter of an hour,
he had been through a long and dreadful illness and was now
convalescent.

II

"Then you think that after starting she thought better of it?" said Lord
Bargrave after dinner that night. "And came back?"

Lord Bargrave was Gertrude's cousin, and he and his wife sometimes came
over from Shropshire for a week-end. He sat with Sir Cloud in the
smoking-room; a man with greying hair and a youngish, equable face.

"Yes, Harry, that was it. You see, I'd just happened to put the letter
exactly where I found it. She's no notion that I've seen it."

"She's a thundering good actress!" observed Lord Bargrave, sipping some
whisky. "I knew something was up at dinner, but I didn't know it from
_her_: I knew it from you."

Sir Cloud smiled sadly.

"Well, you see, I'm supposed to be ill--at least, to be not well."

"You'd best take her away at once," said Lord Bargrave. "And don't do it
clumsily. Say you'll go away for a few days, and then gradually lengthen
it out. She mentioned Italy, you say. Well, let it be Italy. Clear out
for six months."

"But my work here?"

"D--n your work here!" said Lord Bargrave. "Do you suppose you're
indispensable here? Do you suppose the Five Towns can't manage without
you? Our caste is decayed, my boy, and silly fools like you try to
lengthen out the miserable last days of its importance by giving
yourselves airs in industrial districts! Your conscience tells you that
what the demagogues say is true--we _are_ rotters on the face of the
earth, we _are_ mediaeval; and you try to drown your conscience in the
noise of philanthropic speeches. There isn't a sensible working-man in
the Five Towns who doesn't, at the bottom of his heart, assess you at
your true value--as nothing but a man with a hobby, and plenty of