Kenton slept better that night than his wife, who was kept awake by a formless foreboding.  For the week that followed she had the sense of literally pushing the hours away, so that at times she found herself breathless, as if from some heavy physical exertion.  At such times she was frantic with the wish to have the days gone, and the day of their sailing come, but she kept her impatience from her husband and children, and especially from Ellen.  The girl was passive enough; she was almost willing, and in the preparation for their voyage she did her share of the shopping, and discussed the difficult points of this business with her mother and sister as if she had really been thinking about it all.  But her mother doubted if she had, and made more of Ellen’s sunken eyes and thin face than of her intelligent and attentive words.  It was these that she reported to her husband, whom she kept from talking with Ellen, and otherwise quelled.

“Let her alone,” she insisted, one morning of the last week.  “What can you do by speaking to her about it?  Don’t you see that she is making the best fight she can?  You will weaken her if you interfere.  It’s less than a week now, and if you can only hold out, I know she can.”

Kenton groaned.  “Well, I suppose you’re right, Sarah.  But I don’t like the idea of forcing her to go, unless—­”

“Then you had better write to that fellow, and ask him to come and get her.”

This shut Kenton’s mouth, and he kept on with his shaving.  When he had finished he felt fresher, if not stronger, and he went down to breakfast, which he had alone, not only with reference to his own family, but all the other guests of the hotel.  He was always so early that sometimes the dining-room was not open; when this happened, he used to go and buy a newspaper at the clerk’s desk, for it was too early then for the news-stand to be open.  It happened so that morning, and he got his paper without noticing the young man who was writing his name in the hotel register, but who looked briskly up when the clerk bade Kenton good-morning by name.

“Why, judge!” he said, and he put out a hand which Kenton took with trembling reluctance and a dazed stare.  “I thought you sailed last Saturday!”

“We sail next Saturday,” said Kenton.

“Well, well!  Then I misunderstood,” said Bittridge, and he added:  “Why, this is money found in the road!  How are all the family?  I’ve got my mother here with me; brought her on for a kind of a little outing.  She’ll be the most surprised woman in New York when I tell her you’re here yet.  We came to this hotel because we knew you had been here, but we didn’t suppose you were here!  Well!  This is too good!  I saw Dick, Friday, but he didn’t say anything about your sailing; I suppose he thought I knew.  Didn’t you tell me you were going in a week, that day in your house?”

“Perhaps I did,” Kenton faltered out, his eyes fixed on Bittridge’s with a helpless fascination.