the severing of such ties was regarded as an expensive but unhazardous
piece of surgery--nobody bled to death of the wound.... The footman came
back to remind him that his horse was waiting, and Amherst rose to his
feet.

"Send him back to the stable," he said with a glance at his watch, "and
order a trap to take me to the next train."

XXII

WHEN Amherst woke, the next morning, in the hotel to which he had gone
up from Lynbrook, he was oppressed by the sense that the hardest step he
had to take still lay before him. It had been almost easy to decide that
the moment of separation had come, for circumstances seemed to have
closed every other issue from his unhappy situation; but how tell his
wife of his decision? Amherst, to whom action was the first necessity of
being, became a weak procrastinator when he was confronted by the need
of writing instead of speaking.

To account for his abrupt departure from Lynbrook he had left word that
he was called to town on business; but, since he did not mean to return,
some farther explanation was now necessary, and he was paralyzed by the
difficulty of writing. He had already telegraphed to his friend that he
would be at the mills the next day; but the southern express did not
leave till the afternoon, and he still had several hours in which to
consider what he should say to his wife. To postpone the dreaded task,
he invented the pretext of some business to be despatched, and taking
the Subway to Wall Street consumed the morning in futile activities. But
since the renunciation of his work at Westmore he had no active concern
with the financial world, and by twelve o'clock he had exhausted his
imaginary affairs and was journeying up town again. He left the train at
Union Square, and walked along Fourth Avenue, now definitely resolved to
go back to the hotel and write his letter before lunching.

At Twenty-sixth Street he had struck into Madison Avenue, and was
striding onward with the fixed eye and aimless haste of the man who has
empty hours to fill, when a hansom drew up ahead of him and Justine
Brent sprang out. She was trimly dressed, as if for travel, with a small
bag in her hand; but at sight of him she paused with a cry of pleasure.

"Oh, Mr. Amherst, I'm so glad! I was afraid I might not see you for
goodbye."

"For goodbye?" Amherst paused, embarrassed. How had she guessed that he
did not mean to return to Lynbrook?

"You know," she reminded him, "I'm goin