But Maxwell made him a sign over his wife’s head so impassioned and imperative that the man was struck dumb for the moment. He gazed blankly at the doctor, then stooped down to murmur fond words less distinct and articulate in her ear. Fortunately, she was too much excited, too much disturbed, to notice this sudden pause, or that the doctor said nothing in response to her husband’s appeal. She held fast by his arm and sobbed, but gradually grew calmer, soothed by his tenderness, and after a while made a half-smiling, tearful apology for her weakness. It was after dinner on a lovely summer evening, not more than twilight, though it was late. The two gentlemen had been lingering over their claret, while she lay on the sofa waiting for them, for she did not choose to be shut up upstairs all by herself, she said. After she had recovered they went to the drawing-room, where the windows were all open, and a couple of softly-burning lamps lit up the twilight with two half-veiled moons of light. There was not a lovely prospect as at Sunninghill; nothing, indeed, but the London square, where a few trees vegetated, just room enough for the dews to fall, and for ‘the little span of sky and little lot of stars’ to unfold themselves. But even London air grows soft with that musical effect of summer, and the sounds of passing voices and footsteps broke in with a faint, far-off sound as in dreams: the country itself could not have been more peaceful. Mrs. Beresford, half ashamed of herself, sat down at the little, bright tea-table, just within the circle of one of the lamps, and made tea, talking with a little attempt at gaiety, in which, indeed, the natural revulsion of relief after that outbreak of alarm and melancholy was evident. It was she now who was the soul of the little party; for the doctor was moody and preoccupied, and her husband watched her with an anxiety almost too great to be kept within the bounds of ordinary calm. She rose, however, to the occasion. She began to talk of their probable travels, of Baden and Homburg, and all the other places which had been suggested to her. ‘We shall be as well known about the world as the Wandering Jew,’ she said; ‘better, for he had not a wife; and now that we have nearly exhausted Europe, there will be nothing for us but the East or Egypt--suppose we go to Egypt; that would be original?’ ‘Not at all original,’ said Mr. Maxwell, who seemed half to resent her new-born gaiety. ‘All the cockneys in the world go to Egypt. Mr. Cook does the Pyramids regularly; and as for Jerusalem, it is common, common as Margate, and the society not much unlike.’ ‘Margate is very bracing, I have always heard,’ said Mrs. Beresford, ‘and much cheaper than a German bath. What do you say to saving money, James, and eating shrimps and riding donkeys? I remember being at Margate when I was a child. They say there is no such air anywhere; and Mr. Maxwell says that the sea, if I like the sea----’