at hung on the hall-stand.

At that moment his wife came into the passage, holding a candle. She was
red-eyed with weeping, and looked frail.

"Did YOU leave the parlour door open?" she asked of Millicent,
suspiciously.

"No," said Millicent from the kitchen.

The doctor, with his soft, Oriental tread followed Mrs. Sisson into the
parlour. Aaron saw his wife hold up the candle before his portrait and
begin to weep. But he knew her. The doctor laid his hand softly on
her arm, and left it there, sympathetically. Nor did he remove it when
Millicent stole into the room, looking very woe-begone and important.
The wife wept silently, and the child joined in.

"Yes, I know him," said the doctor. "If he thinks he will be happier
when he's gone away, you must be happier too, Mrs. Sisson. That's
all. Don't let him triumph over you by making you miserable. You enjoy
yourself as well. You're only a girl---"

But a tear came from his eye, and he blew his nose vigorously on a large
white silk handkerchief, and began to polish his _pince nez_. Then he
turned, and they all bundled out of the room.

The doctor took his departure. Mrs. Sisson went almost immediately
upstairs, and Millicent shortly crept after her. Then Aaron, who had
stood motionless as if turned to a pillar of salt, went quietly down
the passage and into the living room. His face was very pale,
ghastly-looking. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the
mantel, as he passed, and felt weak, as if he were really a criminal.
But his heart did not relax, nevertheless. So he hurried into the night,
down the garden, climbed the fence into the field, and went away across
the field in the rain, towards the highroad.

He felt sick in every fibre. He almost hated the little handbag he
carried, which held his flute and piccolo. It seemed a burden just
then--a millstone round his neck. He hated the scene he had left--and
he hated the hard, inviolable heart that stuck unchanging in his own
breast.

Coming to the high-road, he saw a tall, luminous tram-car roving along
through the rain. The trams ran across country from town to town. He
dared not board, because people knew him. So he took a side road, and
walked in a detour for two miles. Then he came out on the high-road
again and waited for a tram-car. The rain blew on his face. He waited a
long time for the last car.

CHAPTER V. AT THE OPERA

A friend had given Josephine Ford a box at the opera for