He hastened to reassure her, and say that he had not seriously thought of
it, but he noticed that during the rest of the evening she cast furtive
glances of apprehension at him, as if suspicious that he had some plot
against her. She had fled from home because she could not bear her
mother's eyes.

Meanwhile he was becoming almost as preoccupied and gloomy as she, and
their dreary interviews grew more dreary than ever, for she was now
scarcely more silent than he. His constant and increasing anxiety, in
addition to the duties of a responsible business position, began to tell
on his health. The owner of the manufactory of which he was
superintendent, called him into his office one day, and told him he was
working too hard, and must take a little vacation. But he declined. Soon
after a physician whom he knew buttonholed him on the street, and managed
to get in some shrewd questions about his health. Henry owned he did not
sleep much nights. The doctor said he must take a vacation, and, this
being declared impossible, forced a box of sleeping powders on him, and
made him promise to try them.

All this talk about his health; as well as his own sensations, set him to
thinking of the desperate position in which Madeline would be left in the
event of his serious sickness or death.

That very day he made up his mind that it would not do to postpone their
marriage any longer. It seemed almost brutal to urge it on her in her
present frame of mind, and yet it was clearly out of the question to
protract the present situation.

The quarter of the city in which he resided was suburban, and he went