I left my room to go down to the ground floor of the house, and speak to the landlord about finding me a messenger.  He happened to be ascending the stairs at the time, and we met on the landing.  His son, a quick lad, was the messenger he proposed to me on hearing what I wanted.  We had the boy upstairs, and I gave him his directions.  He was to take the letter in a cab, to put it into Professor Pesca’s own hands, and to bring me back a line of acknowledgment from that gentleman—­returning in the cab, and keeping it at the door for my use.  It was then nearly half-past ten.  I calculated that the boy might be back in twenty minutes, and that I might drive to St. John’s Wood, on his return, in twenty minutes more.

When the lad had departed on his errand I 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 down-stairs 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.”