The moment seemed to him to be favorable for breaking down the barriers that had so long appeared to separate him from his wife. He would find her in the music-room. Diplomate that he was, he would ask her to sing one or two of her own songs to him, and then he would tell her of the outlines of their journey that he had prepared, and would make whatever changes in the itinerary that she suggested. He could see her, in imagination, closing her piano for the last time, and turning to him with a bright smile on her face when she had locked the instrument and put the key in her pocket. His heart beat with stifling rapidity as he quietly entered the drawing-room. He smiled as the thought flashed through his mind that he was more in the mood of a young lover, staking his life’s happiness on a few burning words, than in that of a middle-aged husband about to discuss the prosaic details of a European trip with his wife. The drawing-room was dimly lighted, and the portières at the entrance to the music-room were closely drawn. He approached them noiselessly, somewhat surprised that his rival, the piano, was not taking advantage of his absence to strengthen its hold upon his wife. Gently he laid his trembling hand upon the heavy hangings, and looked into the music-room. Then he dropped the portière and turned away, his face ghastly in its pallor, and his eyes wild with sudden pain. He staggered forward across the drawing-room, making an heroic effort to avoid stumbling against the furniture. Strangely enough, the one overpowering fear that possessed him at the moment was that, by some accident, he should make his presence known in the music-room. He looked, as he actually skulked toward the hall, like a man who had committed some awful crime, and who was making a desperate effort to avoid detection. Great beads of perspiration had broken out upon his brow. His face was drawn and set, and his lips were pressed against his teeth in a way that gave his countenance an expression of ghastly mirth. The dread that beset him was that in the hall he would attract the attention of one of the servants. Trembling with cold, he crept into his overcoat and tip-toed to the door. All was silent in the house. Out into the night he stole, glancing furtively up and down the avenue like one who dreads detection. He reeled with dizziness as he reached the sidewalk and leaned for a moment against a railing. The night air seemed to revive him after a time; for pulling himself together with a mighty effort, he moved on toward his club like one who walks in sleep and flees from the phantoms of his dream. CHAPTER XXVI. “It is hard, Gertrude; very hard! But I must be in London a week from to-day.”