When Margaret awoke the next morning her first impulse was to go away for a time.

She was disgusted with New York, and desired nothing so much as the sensation of being free from Mr.Barker.A moment, however, sufficed to banish any such thoughts.

In the first place, if she were away from the metropolis it would take just so many hours longer for the Doctor's letters to reach her.

There had been a lacuna in the correspondence of late, and it seemed to her that the letters she had received were always dated some days before the time stamped on the Heidelberg postmark.

He spoke always of leaving very soon; but though he said many loving and tender things, he was silent as to his own doings.
She supposed he was occupied with the important matter he described as the "other reason," and so in the two or three short notes she wrote him she abstained from questioning any more.
Furthermore, she reflected that however much she might wish to be away, it was most emphatically not the thing to do.