‘Of course! And so will your wife be waiting to receive you,’ said Downe. ‘Take my word for it she will! And with a dinner prepared for you far better than mine.’ ‘I hope so,’ Barnet replied dubiously. He moved on to Downe’s door, which the solicitor’s family had already opened. Downe descended, but being encumbered with his bag and umbrella, his foot slipped, and he fell upon his knees in the gutter. ‘O, my dear Charles!’ said his wife, running down the steps; and, quite ignoring the presence of Barnet, she seized hold of her husband, pulled him to his feet, and kissed him, exclaiming, ‘I hope you are not hurt, darling!’ The children crowded round, chiming in piteously, ‘Poor papa!’ ‘He’s all right,’ said Barnet, perceiving that Downe was only a little muddy, and looking more at the wife than at the husband. Almost at any other time—certainly during his fastidious bachelor years—he would have thought her a too demonstrative woman; but those recent circumstances of his own life to which he had just alluded made Mrs. Downe’s solicitude so affecting that his eye grew damp as he witnessed it. Bidding the lawyer and his family good-night he left them, and drove slowly into the main street towards his own house. The heart of Barnet was sufficiently impressionable to be influenced by Downe’s parting prophecy that he might not be so unwelcome home as he imagined: the dreary night might, at least on this one occasion, make Downe’s forecast true. Hence it was in a suspense that he could hardly have believed possible that he halted at his door. On entering his wife was nowhere to be seen, and he inquired for her. The servant informed him that her mistress had the dressmaker with her, and would be engaged for some time. ‘Dressmaker at this time of day!’ ‘She dined early, sir, and hopes you will excuse her joining you this evening.’ ‘But she knew I was coming to-night?’ ‘O yes, sir.’ ‘Go up and tell her I am come.’ The servant did so; but the mistress of the house merely transmitted her former words. Barnet said nothing more, and presently sat down to his lonely meal, which was eaten abstractedly, the domestic scene he had lately witnessed still impressing him by its contrast with the situation here. His mind fell back into past years upon a certain pleasing and gentle being whose face would loom out of their shades at such times as these. Barnet turned in his chair, and looked with unfocused eyes in a direction southward from where he sat, as if he saw not the room but a long way beyond. ‘I wonder if she lives there still!’ he said. CHAPTER II