Lady Sunningdale turned quickly back in the doorway. “I adored you,” she said. “And next time I shall wear large eights. Perhaps they will not burst quite so soon.” Martin turned a thirsty eye on Karl when she had gone. “And can I have my whiskey-and-soda now?” he asked. “I want it frightfully.” Then quite suddenly his face changed, as if a lamp had been put out. He looked tired, worn out. “And I have such a headache,” he said. “I think I have had it two days, but was too excited to think about it. It went away altogether when I was playing. But it has come back in force!” Karl rang the bell. “Yes; you want a good rest,” he said; “you are tired without knowing it; you have been living on your nerves the last day or two. But anything worth doing is worth being tired over. Dear boy, I hope your headache is not really bad. Anyhow, you have done the thing worth doing. Don’t go out to-night. Go back home, and go to bed early.” Martin shook his head, smiling. “Ah, I won’t give up an hour of to-day for fifty headaches,” he said. “Besides, Stella and Lady Sunningdale leave to-morrow. My father was not at the concert, I suppose?” “No; not that I know of.” “I sent him a ticket, although I thought he would not come. He does not even approve of my wasting my time at the piano,” he added, with an irritability to which this horrible stabbing pain in his head contributed. He drank his whiskey-and-soda with feverish thirst. “And I had better have left that unsaid,” he remarked. “Now I shall go home, I think, and sleep off my headache before dinner. But I must just look at the platform once more.” He ran up the steps, and looked round the empty hall. The lights were being extinguished, and gangway carpets being rolled up. The Steinway Grand still stood there, and he felt somehow as if he were saying good-bye to it. “Well, that is done,” he said to himself. * * * * * Lady Sunningdale and Stella left London for the Riviera next morning, and later in the day Martin went down to his uncle’s at Chartries, and Helen back home to the vicarage. The reaction from the excitement of the last few days had left him, naturally enough, rather indolent and tired, and also, naturally enough, rather irritable and disposed--not to put too fine a point on it--to be cross. He found the railway carriage insufferably hot, and pulled down a window; that, however, made it draughty, and he changed his seat, and sat with his back to the engine. This was no good, because for some unexplained reason it made him feel ill, and changing back once more, he fell into a heavy sleep that lasted till they got to their station. Even then the stopping of the train did not arouse him, and Helen had to shake and poke him into consciousness, for which kind office she got growled at.