uld have shot himself, so utterly wretched and
debased did he feel. But no such weapon was there, and he lay in his
splendid gilt bed and groaned aloud as he covered his eyes with his
hand.

The light hurt him--he was giddy, and his head swam. Surely, among other
things in the half-indistinct nightmare of the preceding evening, he
must have had too much champagne.

From the moment, now over a week ago, that he had been allowed to sit up
in bed, and more or less distinct thought had come back to him, he had
been a prey to hideous anxiety and grief. Halcyone was gone from
him--had been snatched away by Fate, who, with relentless
vindictiveness, had filled his cup. For the first letters that he
opened, marked from his lawyers so urgently that they had been given to
him before the bandages were off his head, contained the gravest news of
his financial position. The chief mortgagee intended to foreclose in the
course of the next three months, unless an arrangement could be come to
at once, which appeared impossible.

He was actually at bay. Thus, although in his first moments of
consciousness, he had intended to go directly he was well and demand his
love openly and chance the rest, this news made that course now quite
out of the question. He could not condemn her to wretched poverty and
tie a millstone round both their necks. The doctors had absolutely
forbidden him to read or even know of any more letters--the official
ones the secretary could deal with--but he became so restless with
anxiety that Arabella Clinker was persuaded to bring them up and at
least let him glance at the addresses.

There was one from Cheiron, which he insisted upon opening--a brief dry
line of commiseration for his accident, with no mention of Halcyone in
it. The complete ignoring of his letter to announce their marriage cut
him deeply. He realized Mr. Carlyon guessed that the accident had
happened before that event could take place, and his silence about it
showed what he thought. John Derringham quivered with discomfort, he
hated to feel the whip of his old master's contempt. And he could not
explain matters or justify himself--there was nothing to be said. The
Professor, of course, knew of Halcyone's whereabouts--but, after his
broad hint of his want of sympathy about their relations, John
Derringham felt he could not open the subject with him again. This
channel for the assuagement of his anxieties was closed. The immense
pile of the rest