The Curious Quest by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Bliss awoke, shivering, on the following morning, after a night of fatigued and spasmodic slumber, and, having performed his ablutions with the maximum of discomfort, sat down to await the arrival of his frugal breakfast. It was a fortnight since he had earned more than an odd shilling or two, and the fifty-one days which still remained before the anniversary of his visit to the physician seemed like an unbridgeable chasm of time. His limbs ached, his head felt hot. The thought of the forthcoming weak tea and thick bread and butter was more than usually distasteful. Amongst his dreary surroundings he sat for a moment or two and dreamed of his empty flat in Arleton Court, the soft, luxurious warmth of it, the thick carpets, the diligent care of a trained man servant. He even fancied that he could smell his coffee. He thought of the crisp hot rolls, the yellow butter and the dish of marmalade.

Fifty-one days more! It was for Frances as well as himself that he suffered now. He had not ventured to go near her, and his task of writing those cheerful little notes had become day by day more difficult. He set his teeth and clenched his fists. Every impulse in his body seemed drawing him towards the door, down the bare stairway into the street, to throw himself into a taxicab, to go and call for Frances and take her back with him into the life from which his own whim had exiled him, to confess himself beaten, for her sake as well as his own.