"I am afraid poor Phil is in some trouble again," she says to Nelson, mechanically cracking the shell of her boiled egg. "He has gone."
"What?"
"Yes," shaking her head solemnly, "and without any breakfast."
"But you should not let him."
"I could not help it. He is going to see Eleanor."
"Has she been leading the poor fellow another dance? What a curse that woman is!"
"Don't talk like that! I am very fond of Eleanor, with all her faults—almost as fond as of Phil, and you know how I love him. I am not sure what it is about her, but you can't bring yourself not to care for her. It's that pretty little confiding way, I think, and those lovely wistful eyes. She is so easily led and swayed. It is a great pity."
"She will come to a bad end, depend upon it," replies Nelson, congratulating himself on the good woman who crowns his home.
Philip takes the morning train to Copthorne. Business goes to the wind. He thinks only of his wife, and the letters that have come back so strangely into his keeping.
The journey seems interminable. He flings a pile of papers unread on the opposite seat, puts a cigar between his teeth, and forgets to light it, closes his tired eyes, which only quickens and excites his overwrought imagination, till finally the train steams into the drowsy little station of Copthorne.