He wrung her hand as he said this, feeling for the moment as if of all his family Gertie alone had not forsaken him. Emily was dead, Emma was over the sea, Godfrey was estranged, Julia was seeking her own pleasure with a party of friends in Florida, and Edith, oh, how far she had drifted away from him within the last two hours,—so far that he feared she could never come back again, just as she was before. And yet he loved her so much, and when he caught through the open door a glimpse of her white face upon the pillow, he experienced a keen throb of pain, and felt an almost irresistible desire to go to her and beg her to tell him that what he had just read was false, that she was nought to Abelard Lyle, nought to that woman in Alnwick, the very thought of whom made him shudder with disgust. But there could be no doubt. He had it in her handwriting, and with a stifled moan he walked through the hall, and down the stairs out into the yard, where he ordered his man to take him to the train. There were none of his acquaintances going down at that time of the day, and choosing a seat near the door behind his fellow-passengers, he sat with his coat-collar turned up, and his hat over his eyes, apparently asleep, though never was sleep further from one’s eyes than from his, as he mentally went over with the story fold in Edith’s letter and tried to realize it. Arrived in New York he went to the St. Nicholas, feeling that he should be more secure there, as Godfrey and his friends frequented the hotels farther up town. He wanted as private a room as possible, he said, with his meals served in it, and no one to intrude; so they gave him one far up on the fourth floor, and there for three days he stayed, never once leaving the hotel, or taking other exercise than to walk up and down his room, and this he did for hours at a time, with his hands behind him, and his head bent forward, while he tried “to think it out.” He did not sleep, and the chamber-maid found his bed unruffled morning after morning, when she came to arrange his room, and his food was taken away untouched unless it were a bit of toast and a cup of coffee, which he compelled himself to swallow on the morning of the third day, when he felt his strength giving way, and knew he must take something. He had thought it all over and over again, and gone through with every incident of Edith’s life as narrated in her letter, and was as far from any decision as ever.