Having satisfactorily explained her return, Madeline went at once to her room, where she found her maid awaiting her. The girl assisted her mistress to remove her dress; to take down her hair, and put on her dressing gown; then she was summarily dismissed for the night, and Madeline, after locking her door, sat down to think what it would be best for her to do. What had she done? Nothing as yet. She had let the man see that she feared him, certainly, but then he needed no sign from her to assure him of that. She had, moreover, in her desperation and fear of exposure, made an assignation with him. But then that assignation need never be kept. There was one way open to her--one open, honest course; but she shrank from it appalled. Her heart counselled thus--‘Go to your husband, tell him all, and throw yourself upon his sympathy;’ but her courage failed her, she shrank back like a contaminated guilty thing. ‘Go to him, look in his eyes, and say to him--“I have seen to-night the man who made me his mistress; with one word he can bring disgrace upon me, and _you_”---------’ No, she could not do it. Whatever her husband had heard of her past she hoped by this time he had forgotten. In Forster’s sight, at least, she would not be degraded; come what might, she would fight her battle alone. CHAPTER XXIX.--GAVROLLES. When Madeline came down to breakfast next morning she looked very ill. There was a wild light in her eyes and a feverish flush upon her face. Quite unsuspicious of the real cause of the change in her, Forster attributed it to the indisposition of the night before, and began to wonder if the sudden change in her habits was going to tell upon her health. It certainly was a great change to be transported from the wild excitement of public life to the monotonous existence of a quiet house like his; but when he had asked her to give up the stage, he had thought he was lifting from her shoulders a load of which she would gladly be free. He had wished his wife to take her ease and enjoy her days, not to toil wearily as if for her daily bread. But now he began to think that he had been totally wrong. While he had been working away with unconscious happiness in the City, his beautiful wild bird had been beating her breast against the bars of her gilded cage, and pining for that freedom which to all gifted beings is so dear. These thoughts and many more of the same strain passed through Forster’s mind, while he made his way to the City. Long before he reached his office he had decided how to act. ‘I will speak to Madeline to-night,’ he said to himself, and hear her views. Something must be done to make her contented.’ Meanwhile Madeline, left with Miss Forster, walked about the room in new restlessness. She looked out of the window; it was a damp, dark day; she looked at her watch, it was past ten o’clock. In an hour she had promised to meet the man, and by this time she had settled in her mind that she must go.