Patting him on the cheek and kissing him on the neck, as she had so often done when some sudden wave of affection overwhelmed her, she bade him good-night at last. Once outside in the old-fashioned hall, she stopped for a moment, her eyes fixed on the floor, the light from the hall-lamp shining on her silver hair and the shawl about her shoulders, and said slowly to herself, as if counting each word: "What--can I do--to save this boy--from--himself?" CHAPTER V A MESSAGE OF IMPORTANCE Richard, when he waked, made no allusion to the mortgage nor to his promise the night before, to take no steps in the matter without her consent, nor could Mrs. Horn see that the inventor had given the subject further thought. He came in to breakfast with his usual serenity of mien, kissed her gallantly on the cheek--in all their married life this dear old gentleman had never forgotten this breakfast kiss--and taking his seat opposite her, he picked up the new Scientific Review, just in by the morning mail, and began cutting the leaves. She tried to draw him into conversation by asking him when the note on the mortgage was due, but his mind was doubtless absorbed by some problem suggested by the Review before him, for without answering--he, of course, had not heard her--he rose from his chair, excused himself for a moment, opened a book in his library, studied it leisurely, and only resumed his seat when Malachi gently touched his elbow and said: "Coffee purty nigh done sp'ilt, Marse Richard." Breakfast over, Richard picked up his letters, and with that far-away look in his eyes which his wife knew so well, walked to the closet, took down his long red calico gown, slipped it over his coat, and with a loving pat on his wife's shoulder as he passed, and with the request that no one but Nathan should see him that morning, made his way through the damp brick-paved back yard to the green door of his "li'l" room. Mrs. Horn watched his retreating figure from the window--his head bent, his soft hair stirred by the morning air, falling about his shoulders. His serenity; his air of abstraction; of being wrapped in the clouds as it were--borne aloft by the power of a thought altogether beyond her, baffled her as it always did. She could not follow his flights when he was in one of these uplifted moods. She could only watch and wait until he returned again to the common ground of their daily love and companionship.