‘Henry, old boy, what are you talking of?’ said Captain Hindes. ‘Why, I saw you at the office this morning, and you promised to dine with us this evening, and go to the theatre afterwards. Your wife is already in town, and I have come to see why you have not joined us. Had you forgotten your engagement? Why did you not come straight to Haxells’, as you promised?’ ‘Did I promise?’ asked his brother in a stupid way. ‘I suppose I have forgotten it! I have so much business to think of. But I had better tell Hannah I am going with you, or she will wait dinner for me.’ ‘I left Hannah with Edith, Hal, and the sooner we join them the better. I have my cab at the door, so come at once, like a good fellow,’ said Arthur Hindes, who was beginning to feel seriously uneasy about his brother. He persuaded him to accompany him back to town, however, and in another half-hour they had all sat down to dinner. Captain Hindes marked the anxious look in his sister-in-law’s eye, as he related how he had found his brother; but Henry picked up considerably during dinner, and even attempted some feeble attempts towards jocularity, which were accompanied, however, by such a silly, cackling laugh, that his wife’s cheeks burned with shame to listen to him, and Arthur tried by all means in his power to cover his shortcomings by talking a great deal more nonsense than was his wont. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, as they started for the theatre, ‘that I was unable to procure a box at the Lyceum. Everything was booked there for three weeks in advance, but I got seats at another theatre, which I daresay will prove just as amusing.’ ‘I shall like anything, naturally,’ replied Edith; ‘but you, Hannah, see so many pieces, I suppose, that you may be fastidious.’ ‘Indeed, you are mistaken,’ said Hannah, with her quiet smile. ‘Henry does not care, as a rule, to go out after dinner, and I cannot, of course, go without him. An evening at the theatre is almost as great a treat to me as to you, Edith.’ The theatre which Captain Hindes had selected was one of those which provide melodrama for the public amusement. There happened to be a very stirring piece on there at that moment, full of sensational scenes of murder, assault, and robbery. The murder was committed in the prologue, and the story dragged through three long acts afterwards, during which the assassin was being hunted down until he was finally brought to justice.