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 sentences in Pesca's handwriting—
"Your letter is received.
If I don't see you before the time you mention, I will break the seal when the clock strikes."
I placed the paper in my pocket-book, and made for the door.
Marian met me on the threshold, and pushed me back into the room, where the candle-light fell full on my face.
She held me by both hands, and her eyes fastened searchingly on mine.
"I see!" she said, in a low eager whisper. "You are trying the last chance to-night."
"Yes, the last chance and the best," I whispered back.
"Not alone!
Oh, Walter, for God's sake, not alone!
Let me go with you.
Don't refuse me because I'm only a woman.
I must go!
I will go!
I'll wait outside in the cab!"
It was my turn now to hold HER.
She tried to break away from me and get down first to the door.
"If you want to help me," I said, "stop here and sleep in my wife's room to-night.
Only let me go away with my mind easy about Laura, and I answer for everything else.
Come, Marian, give me a kiss, and show that you have the courage to wait till I come back."
I dared not allow her time to say a word more.
She tried to hold me again. I unclasped her hands, and was out of the room in a moment.
The boy below heard me on the stairs, and opened the hall-door.
I jumped into the cab before the driver could get off the box.
"Forest Road, St. John's Wood," I called to him through the front window.