But this is a dangerous business--a cursed business. Why does not Speyer write?" As his thoughts ran in this strain, he looked up, and his eye caught that of his wife. She was struck with his troubled expression. "You look anxious and care-worn. Are you ill?" "Come to me, Edith," said Vinal, with a faint smile. She came to the side of his chair, and he took her hand. "Edith, I am not well to-day. My head swims. This long confinement is eating away my life by inches." "In a week more, I trust, you will be able to move again. The country air will give you new life. But why do you look so troubled?" "Dreams, Edith,--bad dreams, like Hamlet's, I suppose. It is very strange,--I cannot imagine why it is,--but to-day I have felt oppressed, weighed down, shadowed as if a cloud hung over me. I am not myself. A man is a mere slave to his nervous system, and when that is overthrown, his whole soul is shaken with it. The country is my hope, Edith. We will go there together, soon, and begin life anew." A knock at the door interrupted him. "Come in," cried Vinal, in his usual quick, decisive tone. A servant entered. "Well, what is it?" "A gentleman wishes to see you, sir." "Did he give his name?" "Mr. Edwards, sir." "Ask him to come up." "A man whom I expected this morning on business," he said, in explanation to his wife, as the servant closed the door. "I wish he were any where but here. And so you are going away."--She was dressed to go out.--"He will be here only a moment; do not be gone long." "No, I will be with you again in an hour." "Do not forget," said Vinal, pressing her hand, "for when you leave the room, Edith, it is as if a sunbeam were shut out." As Vinal, sick in body and mind, thus leaned in his distress on the victim of his villany, he cast into her face a look that was almost piteous. She, seeing nothing but his love for her, warmed towards him with compassion; the more so since, till that moment, she had known him as a calm, firm man, a model, to her eyes, of masculine self-government. A mind tortured with suspense, acting upon a weak and morbidly sensitive body, had betrayed him into this unwonted imbecility. The step of the visitor sounded in the passage; and returning the pressure of his hand, his wife went out at the door of a small adjoining room, opening upon the side passage by which she commonly entered and left the hotel. After a few minutes' interview, Edwards took his leave, and Vinal, left alone, fell into his former train of thought. In a moment, he was again interrupted by a knock at the door, quite unlike the hasty rap of the hotel servant. "Come in," cried Vinal. The door opened, and Vassall Morton entered. He had learned from the retiring visitor that Vinal was alone. "My dear fellow!" exclaimed Vinal, his face beaming with a transport of welcome. "My dear fellow!"