did not go to bed that night. There was a fire in the room, and he
kept it alight until daybreak, when he descended softly to the hall and
let himself out of the house.

In a fierce wind that swept from the north-west down the foaming
Channel, he walked for an hour or two, careless whither the roads
directed him. All he desired was to be at a distance from that house,
with its hideous silence and the faint cry that could scarcely be
called a sound. The necessity of returning, of spending days there, was
an Oppression which held him like a nightmare.

Monica's statement he neither believed nor disbelieved; he simply could
not make up his mind about it. She had lied to him so resolutely
before; was she not capable of elaborate falsehood to save her
reputation and protect her child? The letter from Bevis might have been
a result of conspiracy between them.

That Bevis was the man against whom his jealousy should have been
directed at first astounded him. By now he had come to a full
perception of his stupidity in never entertaining such a thought. The
revelation was equivalent to a second offence just discovered; for he
found it impossible to ignore his long-cherished suspicion of Barfoot,
and he even surmised the possibility of Monica's having listened to
love-making from that quarter previously to her intimacy with Bevis. He
loathed the memory of his life since marriage; and as for pardoning his
wife, he could as soon pardon and smile upon the author of that
accursed letter from Bordeaux.

But go back to the house he must. By obeying his impulse, and
straightway returning to London, he might be the cause of a fatal turn
in Monica's illness. Constraint of bare humanity would keep him here
until his wife was out of danger. But he could not see her, and as soon
as possible he must escape from such unendurable circumstances.

Re-entering at half-past eight, he was met by Alice, who seemed to have
slept as little as he himself had done. They went into the dining-room.

'She has been inquiring about you,' began Miss Madden timorously.

'How is she?'

'Not worse, I believe. But so very weak. She wishes me to ask you--'

'What?'

His manner did not encourage the poor woman.

'I shall be obliged to tell her something. If I have nothing to say she
will fret herself into a dangerous state. She wants to know if you have
read her letter, and if--if you will see the child.'

Widdowson turned away and stood irresolute. H