"Do you think I am a brute?" he said. "It is far off." "Hear him!" Dr. Boussingault appealed to the ceiling. "Hear him! 'It is far off!' Name of a name! Go you one day to the consulting room of the great Pinard at the Clinique Baudelocque and read the '_Avis Important_' he there has posted on the door." It needed quite a quarter of an hour more for the physician to explain and for Stainton to recover his temper, which, generally gentle, had been tried by this new threat of evil and was now the more being tried by the reaction of his system against the absinthe. Then, after Madame Boussingault had been seen and the arrangements for Muriel's visit had been completed, the doctor sent him away with more advice and more exclamations against the ignorance of the average man and woman of maturity. "A week," he said, patting Stainton's broad, straight back. "One little week. We must ourself sever from the so charming lady for so long, for we know that, ultimately, an absence will work for even her good. Is it not, _hein_? But the not-knowing profound of mankind! Incredible! Truly. Nine-tens of my women patients, they are married, who of themselves know not half so much as the savage little girl of ten years. And the men, they I think no more wise." Stainton passed through the now crowded waiting-room and into the sunlit street in a mood that wavered between rebellion and submission. He walked to the Chatham and, once arrived, walked past the hotel. He did this twice, when, with the realisation that he hesitated from fear of Muriel, he mastered his timidity and entered. His wife was still in bed. Her eyes were closed, but Stainton knew that she was not asleep. He went to her and kissed her. "Muriel," he said, "I am going to Lyons." She did not open her eyes. "Yes," she said. "I think that I ought to go," said Stainton, "and clean up this matter of the sale. I shall get the American consul there to recommend a good lawyer, and I'll complete the whole transaction as soon as I can." "Yes." "It will probably take an entire week," pursued Stainton. He waited. "I don't like to leave you alone in Paris, but you'd be frightfully lonely in Lyons, and I shall be busy--very busy. Now, I know you don't like Boussingault. I don't like his opinions myself, but he is a leading man in his specialty, and his wife is a good woman. She has said that she will call on you this afternoon and take you to stay with her." Muriel was silent. "That's all," said Stainton, "except that there is a train from the Gare de Lyon at noon, and I ought to take it." "Then you have been to Dr. Boussingault?" asked Muriel. "Yes, dear." "And he----" "He said the--the change was what I needed." He busied himself packing a bag. At last he came again to the bed and bent over her. "Good-bye," he said.