daylight, he went upstairs and lay down on the bed;
he was weary, but not with the kind of weariness that brings sleep. His
mind was occupied with plans for discovering where Emily lived. Mrs.
Baxendale had professed to have lost sight of her; Wilfrid saw now that
there was a reason for concealing the truth, and felt that in all
probability his friend had misled him; in any case, he could not apply
to her. Was there a chance of a second meeting in the same place? Emily
was sure to be free on Saturday afternoon; but only in one case would
she go to the park again--if she desired to see him, and imagined a
corresponding desire on his side. And that was an unlikely thing;
granting she loved him, it was not in Emily's character to scheme thus,
under the circumstances.

Yet why had she chosen to come and live in London?

Beatrice he had put out of his thoughts. He did not do it deliberately;
he made no daring plans; simply he gave himself over to the rising flood
of passion, without caring to ask whither it would bear him. Though it
fevered him, there was a luxury in the sense of abandonment once more to
desire which suffered no questioning. That he had ever really loved
Beatrice he saw now to be more than doubtful; that he loved Emily was as
certain as that he lived. To compare the images of the two women was to
set side by side a life sad and wan with one which bloomed like a royal
flower, a face whose lines were wasted by long desolation with one whose
loveliness was the fit embodiment of supreme joy. But in the former he
found a beauty of which the other offered no suggestion, a beauty which
appealed to him with the most subtle allurements, which drew him as with
siren song, which, if he still contemplated it, would inspire him with
recklessness. He made no effort to expel it from his imagination; every
hour it was sweeter to forget the facts of life and dream of what might
be.

Through this day and that which followed he kept away from home, only
returning late at night. No more news of Beatrice came. He saw that his
father regarded him with looks of curiosity, but only conversation of
the wonted kind passed between them. When Saturday arrived he was no
longer in doubt whether to pursue the one faint hope of finding Emily
again in Bushey Park; the difficulty was to pass the time till noon,
before which it was useless to start. He was due for the last sitting in
the studio at Teddington, but that was an ordeal impossi