returned to my own room for a
little while, to put certain papers in order, so that they might be
easily found in case of the worst. The key of the old-fashioned
bureau in which the papers were kept I sealed up, and left it on my
table, with Marian's name written on the outside of the little packet.
This done, I went downstairs to the sitting-room, in which I expected
to find Laura and Marian awaiting my return from the Opera. I felt my
hand trembling for the first time when I laid it on the lock of the
door.

No one was in the room but Marian. She was reading, and she looked at
her watch, in surprise, when I came in.

"How early you are back!" she said. "You must have come away before
the Opera was over."

"Yes," I replied, "neither Pesca nor I waited for the end. Where is
Laura?"

"She had one of her bad headaches this evening, and I advised her to go
to bed when we had done tea."

I left the room again on the pretext of wishing to see whether Laura
was asleep. Marian's quick eyes were beginning to look inquiringly at
my face--Marian's quick instinct was beginning to discover that I had
something weighing on my mind.

When I entered the bedchamber, and softly approached the bedside by the
dim flicker of the night-lamp, my wife was asleep.

We had not been married quite a month yet. If my heart was heavy, if
my resolution for a moment faltered again, when I looked at her face
turned faithfully to my pillow in her sleep--when I saw her hand
resting open on the coverlid, as if it was waiting unconsciously for
mine--surely there was some excuse for me? I only allowed myself a few
minutes to kneel down at the bedside, and to look close at her--so
close that her breath, as it came and went, fluttered on my face. I
only touched her hand and her cheek with my lips at parting. She
stirred in her sleep and murmured my name, but without waking. I
lingered for an instant at the door to look at her again. "God bless
and keep you, my darling!" I whispered, and left her.

Marian was at the stairhead waiting for me. She had a folded slip of
paper in her hand.

"The landlord's son has brought this for you," she said. "He has got a
cab at the door--he says you ordered him to keep it at your disposal."

"Quite right, Marian. I want the cab--I am going out again."

I descended the stairs as I spoke, and looked into the sitting-room to
read the slip of paper by the light on the table. It contained these
two