the morning?

Nevertheless, a little incident of Mr. Fenwick's departure, not
noticed at the moment, suddenly assumed vitality just as Sally was
"going off," and woke her up. What was it she overheard her mother
say to him, just as he was leaving the house, about something she had
promised to tell him some time? However, reflection on it with waking
faculties dissipated the importance it seemed to have half-way to
dreamland, and Sally went contentedly to sleep again.

Fenwick, as he walked to his lodgings through the dull February night,
did not regard this something, whatever it was, as a thing of slight
importance at all. He may have been only "spooney," but it was in a
sense that left him no pretence for thinking that anything connected
with this beautiful young widow-lady could be unimportant to him. On
the contrary, she was more and more filling all his waking thoughts,
and becoming the pivot on which all things turned. It is true, he
"dismissed from his mind"--whatever that means--every presumptuous
suggestion that in some precious time to come she might be willing to
throw in her lot with his own, and asked himself what sort of thing
was he that he should allow such an idea to come even as far as
contradiction-point? He, a poor inexplicable wreck! What was the Self
he had to offer, and what else had he? But, indeed, the speculation
rarely got even to this maturity, so promptly was it nipped in the
bud. Only, there were so many buds to nip. He became aware that he
was giving a good deal of attention to this sort of gardening.

Also, he had a consciousness that he was growing morbidly anxious for
the maintenance of his own oblivion. That which was at first only
a misgiving about what a return of memory might bring to light, was
rapidly becoming a definite desire that nothing should come to light
at all. How _could_ he look forward to that "hypothetical" wife whom
he did not in the least believe in, but who might be somewhere, for
all that! He knew perfectly well that his relations with Krakatoa
Villa would _not_ remain the same, say what you might! Of course, he
also knew that he had no relations there that _need_ change--most
certainly not! At this point an effort would be made against the
outcrop of his thoughts. Those confounded buds were always bursting.
It was impossible to be even with them.

Perhaps it was on this evening, or rather early morning, as he walked
home to his lodgings, that Fenwick began to