"Better--ah, yes! thank you, Sally; I am cured, quite cured; but
please be quick with the things, for I shall leave by the nine o'clock
train."



CHAPTER X

The night of the dinner-party was a nearly sleepless one for Philip,
although his father had so considerately regretted his wearied
appearance, he could do nothing but walk, walk, walk, like some
unquiet ghost, up and down his great, oak-panelled bedroom, till,
about dawn, his legs gave way beneath him; and think, think, think,
till his mind recoiled, confused and helpless, from the dead wall of
its objects. And, out of all this walking and thinking, there emerged,
after an hour of stupor, that it would be a misnomer to call sleep,
two fixed results. The first of these was that he hated his father as
a lost soul must hate 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