This evening "melancholy marked him for her own." It had been a day more vacant of incident than usual, and he was almost bad-tempered. The thought of the recent defeat by Alicia rankled, and he turned over in his mind schemes by which he could outwit her and procure a holiday in Brighton. "It's all very well," he grumbled to himself, "but I don't see why I should continually knuckle under. I've been too easy-going. It's time things were put on a different footing. I wonder if ..." He was still wondering when Alicia returned, and the solution of his difficulties was not yet. Alicia, who was in an aggressive good-humor, commented on his dulness. Robert replied in a tone that she characterized as "snappy"; she also made the inevitable suggestion that he had eaten something that disagreed with him. "_Good lord!_" said Robert, goaded at last beyond caution and fear. "Who wouldn't be snappy, doing nothing half the day, and the other half doing what he doesn't like? Nothing ever happens here--it's like being a fly buzzing in a tumbler. He can't get out, though he can see all sorts of interesting things through the glass." "You ought to be thankful for your many mercies," said his wife coldly: she knew the treatment for the case. "Instead of grumbling like a child, you had better go to bed. That is, if you have finished supper." At that moment Mr. Hedderwick had one of the strongest temptations of a blameless life. He yearned for the courage to say, "Oh, damn the supper!" but broke into a perspiration at the mere thought. Instead, he had the grace to be astonished at his mood and weakly answered, "I think I shall, my dear." As he opened the door his helpmeet suggested he should not forget at his private devotions to ask for a contented spirit. Rebellion returned, and he banged the door. He soon forgot his troubles in sleep; in fact, he did not even hear his wife come to bed. He slept dreamlessly, despite the suggestion that he had committed an error in diet, until a quarter past one. Then he awoke quite suddenly, with a dim idea that something was happening. He sat up in bed, rubbed his eyes, and listened: no, there seemed to be nothing ... everything was still: only the regular breathing of his wife, fast asleep, was to be heard. "I must have been dreaming," he thought, preparing to lie down again. And then he heard a subdued, but distinct, noise down-stairs.