When he went down-stairs he found that Mrs. Gilderman had not yet come down to breakfast. He picked up the paper, but he did not read it, but went to the window and stood looking out into the street. The sky was still cloudy and gray, and there was a drizzling rain falling. The day seemed to be singularly in keeping with his mood and the strong distaste of life that lay upon him. How wretchedly he had slept the night before--that must be what ailed him now, to make him feel so depressed. It must be lack of sleep. He remembered how he had heard the clock strike four. He was just dropping off into a doze, and he had awakened almost as with a shock at the tinkling, silver stroke of the bell in the next room. He must have fallen asleep soon after that. What was so incomprehensible in the affair of yesterday was the expression of that face looking up to the sky with the tears running down the cheeks. Why did He weep? Oh, if he could only forget it all! He was sick of it--sick almost to a physical repulsion. If he went on thinking about this thing he would certainly go crazy. Again he vowed that he would give up this morbid tampering with and brooding upon religious things; it was not wholesome, and the time would surely come when his mind could no longer stand it. Why did not Florence come down to breakfast? Almost as in answer to the thought he heard the rustle of her dress, and, turning around, he found that she had come into the dining-room. "Why did you not go on with your breakfast, Henry?" she said; "why did you wait?" "Oh, I don't know," he said. "I wasn't hungry." "What's the matter? Aren't you feeling well?" She looked briefly at him as she sat at her place smoothing back the folds of her morning-gown. "Oh yes," he said, "I'm all right. No, I don't feel very well. How are you this morning, Florence?" "Oh, I feel very well, indeed." She held up her face as he passed behind her, and he bent over and kissed it. Then a sudden feeling of straining pity for her coming motherhood seized him. He hesitated for a moment, and then he took her face in both his hands and, raising it, kissed it again. She laughed and blushed a little. "What is it, Henry?" she said. "Nothing," he answered, and then he went around to his place. The waiter offered him a dish of fruit, but he shook his head. "Fetch me a cup of coffee," he said. "Aren't you going to eat anything?" said Mrs. Gilderman as the man poured out a black stream of coffee into a cup. "No; I'm not hungry." "What's the matter with you?" "Nothing; only I didn't sleep very well. Maybe I'll eat something by-and-by down at the club." He had almost finished his cup of coffee, and had just opened the paper, when the man came in to say that Mr. Furgeson was down-stairs and wanted to know if he could see Mr. Gilderman. Furgeson was one of Gilderman's agents, and he had gone down the day before to the Lenning sale to buy a famous hunter and two road-horses.