Page:The Woman in White.djvu/547

 the outside of the little packet. This done, I went downstairs to the sitting- room, in which I expected to find Laura and Marian awaiting my return from the Opera. I felt my hand trembling for the first time when I laid it on the lock of the door.

No one was in the room but Marian. She was reading, and she looked at her watch, in surprise, when I came in.

"How early you are back!" she said. "You must have come away before the Opera was over."

"Yes," I replied, "neither Pesca nor I waited for the end. Where is Laura?"

"She had one of her bad headaches this evening, and I advised her to go to bed when we had done tea."

I left the room again on the pretext of wishing to see whether Laura was asleep. Marian's quick eyes were beginning to look inquiringly at my face&mdash;Marian's quick instinct was beginning to discover that I had something weighing on my mind.

When I entered the bedchamber, and softly approached the bedside by the dim flicker of the night-lamp, my wife was asleep.

We had not been married quite a month yet. If my heart was heavy, if my resolution for a moment faltered again, when I looked at her face turned faithfully to my pillow in her sleep&mdash;when I saw her hand resting open on the coverlid, as if it was waiting unconsciously for mine&mdash;surely there was some excuse for me? I only allowed myself a few minutes to kneel down at the bedside, and to look close at her&mdash;so close that her breath, as it came and went, fluttered on my face. I only touched her hand and her cheek with my lips at parting. She stirred in her sleep and murmured my name, but without waking. I lingered for an instant at the door to look at her again. "God bless and keep you, my darling!" I whispered, and left her.

Marian was at the stairhead waiting for me. She had a folded slip of paper in her hand.

"The landlord's son has brought this for you," she said. "He has got a cab at the door&mdash;he says you ordered him to keep it at your disposal."

"Quite right, Marian. I want the cab&mdash;I am going out again."

I descended the stairs as I spoke, and looked into the sitting- room to read the slip of paper by the light on the table. It contained these two sentences in Pesca's handwriting&mdash;

"Your letter is received. If I don't see you befo