My incertitude did not last long, for he added: "Mrs.Fyne urges me to go to London at once." One could guess at, almost see, his profound distaste for the journey, his distress at a difference of feeling with his wife.

With his serious view of the sublunary comedy Fyne suffered from not being able to agree solemnly with her sentiment as he was accustomed to do, in recognition of having had his way in one supreme instance; when he made her elope with him--the most momentous step imaginable in a young lady's life.

He had been really trying to acknowledge it by taking the rightness of her feeling for granted on every other occasion.

It had become a sort of habit at last.

And it is never pleasant to break a habit.