This letter, folded and sealed, I sent to my wife in her own apartments by her maid,--the girl came back and said she had delivered it, but that there was no answer. Her ladyship had a severe headache and meant to keep her room that morning. I expressed just as much civil regret as a confidential maid would naturally expect from the newly-wedded husband of her mistress,--and then, giving instructions to my man Morris to pack my portmanteau, I partook of a hurried breakfast with Lucio in more or less silence and constraint, for the servants were in attendance, and I did not wish them to suspect that anything was wrong. For their benefit, I gave out that my friend and I were called suddenly to town on urgent business,--that we might be absent a couple of days, perhaps longer,--and that any special message or telegram could be sent on to me at Arthur's Club. I was thankful when we at last got away,--when the tall, picturesque red gables of Willowsmere vanished from my sight,--and when finally, seated in a railway smoking-carriage reserved for our two selves, we were able to watch the miles of distance gradually extending between us and the beautiful autumnal woods of poet-haunted Warwickshire. For a long time we kept silence, turning over and pretending to read the morning's papers,--till presently flinging down the dull and wearisome 'Times' sheet, I sighed heavily, and leaning back, closed my eyes. "I am truly very much distressed about all this;" said Lucio then, with extreme gentleness and suavity--"It seems to me that _I_ am the adverse element in the affair. If Lady Sibyl had never seen _me_,----" "Why, then I should never have seen _her_!" I responded bitterly--"It was through you I met her first." "True!" and he eyed me thoughtfully--"I am very unfortunately placed!--it is almost as if I were to blame, though no-one could be more innocent or well-intentioned than myself!" He smiled,--then went on very gravely--"I really should avoid scandalous gossip if I were you,--I do not speak of my own involuntary share in the disaster,--what people say of me is quite immaterial; but for the lady's sake----" "For my own sake I shall try to avoid it;" I said brusquely, whereat his eyes glittered strangely--"It is myself I have to consider most of all. I shall, as I hinted to you this morning, travel for a few years." "Yes,--go on a tiger-hunting expedition in India,"--he suggested--"Or kill elephants in Africa. It is what a great many men do when their wives forget themselves. Several well-known husbands are abroad just now!" Again the brilliant enigmatical smile flashed over his face,--but I could not smile in answer. I stared moodily out of the window at the bare autumnal fields, past which the train flew,--bare of harvest,--stripped of foliage--like my own miserable life.