He rose, went to a writing table, and came back with a fat paper book—a Continental Bradshaw.

“You’re not going?” I exclaimed.

“Oh, yes! I promised.”

“You promised something to your wife too, didn’t you?”

“I can’t argue it. I must go and see what she wants. I—I hope she’ll let me come back.”

I tried to dissuade him. I know I told him he was a fool; I think I told him he was a scoundrel. I was not sure of the second, but I thought it wisest to pretend that I was.

“I hope it will be all right,” he said, again and again; “but, right or wrong, I must go.”

I took an immediate resolution.

“I suppose you’ll go by the eleven-o’clock train to Paris to-morrow?”

“Yes,” he said.