He had drawn forth his watch.

"I had no idea of this.

And we are ten miles from the city!" A thought of his anxiously waiting wife flitted across his mind.

He remembered her last pleading injunction for him to come home early, and the promise he had given.

Alas! like so many more of his promises to her, made to be broken.
"Shall we return now; or order supper here ?" said Carlton, in his bland way.
"I must go back immediately," replied Wilkinson.