its torturing demon, blindly, madly, impotently hated him; and the second, that he could no longer delay taking his wife into his confidence.  Then he remembered the letter he had received from her on the previous morning.  He got it, and saw that it bore no address, merely stating that she would be in London by midday on the first of May, that was on the morrow.  Till then it was clear he must wait, and he was not sorry for the reprieve.  His was not a pleasant story for a husband to have to tell.

Fortunately for Philip, there was an engagement of long standing for this day, the thirtieth of April, to go, in conjunction with other persons, to effect a valuation of the fallows, &c., of a large tenant who was going out at Michaelmas.  This prevented any call being made upon him to go and see Maria Lee, as, after the events of the previous evening, it might have been expected he would.  He started early on this business, and did not return till late, so he saw nothing of his father that day.

On the morning of the first of May he breakfasted about half-past eight, and then, without seeing his father, drove to Roxham to catch a train that got him up to London about twenty minutes to twelve.  As he steamed slowly into Paddington Station, another train steamed out, and had he been careful to examine the occupants of the first-class carriages as they passed him in a slow procession, he might have seen something that would have interested him; but he was, not unnaturally, too much occupied with his own thoughts to allow of the indulgence of an idle curiosity.  On the arrival of his train, he took a cab and drove without delay to the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and asked for Mrs. Roberts.

“She isn’t back yet, sir,” was Mrs. Jacobs’ reply.  “I got this note from her this morning to say that she would be here by twelve, but it’s twenty past now, so I suppose that she has missed the train or changed her mind; but there will be another in at three, so perhaps you had best wait for that, sir.”

Philip was put out by this contretemps, but at the same time he was relieved to find that he had a space to breathe in before the inevitable and dreadful moment of exposure and infamy, for he had grown afraid of his wife.

Three o’clock came in due course, but no Hilda.  Philip was seriously disturbed; but there was now no train by which she could arrive that day, so he was forced to the conclusion that she had postponed her departure.  There were now two things to be done, one to follow her down to where she was staying—­for he had ascertained her address from Mrs. Jacobs; the other, to return home and come back on the morrow.  For reasons which appeared to him imperative, but which need not be entered into here, he decided on the latter course; so leaving a note for his wife, he drove, in a very bad temper, back to Paddington in time to catch the five o’clock train to Roxham.

Let us now return to the Abbey House, where, whilst Philip was cooling his heels in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a rather curious scene was in progress.