'I think you had better go with Maud this afternoon.'

'But I can't. I expect Marian at three.'

'That's just why I want you to go.'

She looked her surprise.

'I want to have a talk with Marian. We'll manage it in this way. At a quarter to three you two shall start, and as you go out you can tell the landlady that if Miss Yule comes she is to wait for you, as you won't be long. She'll come upstairs, and I shall be there. You see?'

Dora turned half away, disturbed a little, but not displeased.

'And what about Miss Rupert?' she asked.

'Oh, Miss Rupert may go to Jericho for all I care. I'm in a magnanimous mood.'

'Very, I've no doubt.'

'Well, you'll do this? One of the results of poverty, you see; one can't even have a private conversation with a friend without plotting to get the use of a room. But there shall be an end of this state of things.'

He nodded significantly. Thereupon Dora left the room to speak with her sister.

The device was put into execution, and Jasper saw his sisters depart knowing that they were not likely to return for some three hours. He seated himself comfortably by the fire and mused. Five minutes had hardly gone by when he looked at his watch, thinking Marian must be unpunctual. He was nervous, though he had believed himself secure against such weakness. His presence here with the purpose he had in his mind seemed to him distinctly a concession to impulses he ought to have controlled; but to this resolve he had come, and it was now too late to recommence the arguments with himself. Too late? Well, not strictly so; he had committed himself to nothing; up to the last moment of freedom he could always—

That was doubtless Marian's knock at the front door. He jumped up, walked the length of the room, sat down on another chair, returned to his former seat. Then the door opened and Marian came in.

She was not surprised; the landlady had mentioned to her that Mr Milvain was upstairs, waiting the return of his sisters.

'I am to make 'Dora's excuses,' Jasper said. 'She begged you would forgive her—that you would wait.'

'Oh yes.'

'And you were to be sure to take off your hat,' he added in a laughing tone; 'and to let me put your umbrella in the corner—like that.'

He had always admired the shape of Marian's head, and the beauty of her short, soft, curly hair. As he watched her uncovering it, he was pleased with the grace of her arms and the pliancy of her slight figure.

'Which is usually your chair?'

'I'm sure I don't know.'

'When one goes to see a friend frequently, one gets into regular habits in these matters. In Biffen's garret I used to have the most uncomfortable chair it was ever my lot to sit upon; still, I came to feel an affection for it. At Reardon's I always had what was supposed to be the most luxurious seat, but it was too small for me, and I eyed it resentfully on sitting down and rising.'

'Have you any news about the Reardons?'

'Yes. I am told that Reardon has had the offer of a secretaryship to a boys' home, or something of the kind, at Croydon. But I suppose there'll be no need for him to think of that now.'

'Surely not!'

'Oh there's no saying.'

'Why should he do work of that kind now?'

'Perhaps his wife will tell him that she wants her money all for herself.'

Marian laughed. It was very rarely that Jasper had heard her laugh at all, and never so spontaneously as this. He liked the music.

'You haven't a very good opinion of Mrs Reardon,' she said.

'She is a difficult person to judge. I never disliked her, by any means; but she was decidedly out of place as the wife of a struggling author. Perhaps I have been a little prejudiced against her since Reardon quarrelled with me on her account.'

Marian was astonished at this unlooked-for explanation of the rupture between Milvain and his friend. That they had not seen each other for some months she knew from Jasper himself but no definite cause had been assigned.

'I may as well let you know all about it,' Milvain continued, seeing that he had disconcerted the girl, as he meant to. 'I met Reardon not long after they had parted, and he charged me with being in great part the cause of his troubles.'

The listener did not raise her eyes.

'You would never imagine what my fault was. Reardon declared that the tone of my conversation had been morally injurious to his wife. He said I was always glorifying worldly success, and that this had made her discontented with her lot. Sounds rather ludicrous, don't you think?'

'It was very strange.'

'Reardon was in desperate earnest, poor fellow. And, to tell you the truth, I fear there may have been something in his complaint.

I told him at once that I should henceforth keep away from Mrs Edmund Yule's; and so I have done, with the result, of course, that they suppose I condemn Mrs Reardon's behaviour. The affair was a nuisance, but I had no choice, I think.'

'You say that perhaps your talk really was harmful to her.'

'It may have been, though such a danger never occurred to me.'

'Then Amy must be very weak-minded.'

'To be influenced by such a paltry fellow?'

'To be influenced by anyone in such a way.'

'You think the worse of me for this story?' Jasper asked.

'I don't quite understand it. How did you talk to her?'

'As I talk to everyone. You have heard me say the same things many a time. I simply declare my opinion that the end of literary work—unless one is a man of genius—is to secure comfort and repute. This doesn't seem to me very scandalous. But Mrs Reardon was perhaps too urgent in repeating such views to her husband. She saw that in my case they were likely to have solid results, and it was a misery to her that Reardon couldn't or wouldn't work in the same practical way.

'It was very unfortunate.'

'And you are inclined to blame me?'

'No; because I am so sure that you only spoke in the way natural to you, without a thought of such consequences.'

Jasper smiled.

'That's precisely the truth. Nearly all men who have their way to make think as I do, but most feel obliged to adopt a false tone, to talk about literary conscientiousness, and so on. I simply say what I think, with no pretences. I should like to be conscientious, but it's a luxury I can't afford. I've told you all this often enough, you know.'

'Yes.'

'But it hasn't been morally injurious to you,' he said with a laugh.

'Not at all. Still I don't like it.'

Jasper was startled. He gazed at her. Ought he, then, to have dealt with her less frankly? Had he been mistaken in thinking that the unusual openness of his talk was attractive to her? She spoke with quite unaccustomed decision; indeed, he had noticed from her entrance that there was something unfamiliar in her way of conversing. She was so much more self-possessed than of wont, and did not seem to treat him with the same deference, the same subdual of her own personality.

'You don't like it?' he repeated calmly. 'It has become rather tiresome to you?'

'I feel sorry that you should always represent yourself in an unfavourable light.'

He was an acute man, but the self-confidence with which he had entered upon this dialogue, his conviction that he had but to speak when he wished to receive assurance of Marian's devotion, prevented him from understanding the tone of independence she had suddenly adopted. With more modesty he would have felt more subtly at this juncture, would have divined that the girl had an exquisite pleasure in drawing back now that she saw him approaching her with unmistakable purpose, that she wished to be wooed in less off-hand fashion before confessing what was in her heart. For the moment he was disconcerted. Those last words of hers had a slight tone of superiority, the last thing he would have expected upon her lips.

'Yet I surely haven't always appeared so—to you?' he said.

'No, not always.'

'But you are in doubt concerning the real man?'

'I'm not sure that I understand you. You say that you do really think as you speak.'

'So I do. I think that there is no choice for a man who can't bear poverty. I have never said, though, that I had pleasure in mean necessities; I accept them because I can't help it.'

It was a delight to Marian to observe the anxiety with which he turned to self-defence. Never in her life had she felt this joy of holding a position of command. It was nothing to her that Jasper valued her more because of her money; impossible for it to be otherwise. Satisfied that he did value her, to begin with, for her own sake, she was very willing to accept money as her ally in the winning of his love. He scarcely loved her yet, as she understood the feeling, but she perceived her power over him, and passion taught her how to exert it.

'But you resign yourself very cheerfully to the necessity,' she said, looking at him with merely intellectual eyes.

'You had rather I lamented my fate in not being able to devote myself to nobly unremunerative work?'

There was a note of irony here. It caused her a tremor, but she held her position.

'That you never do so would make one think—but I won't speak unkindly.'

'That I neither care for good work nor am capable of it,' Jasper finished her sentence. 'I shouldn't have thought it would make you think so.'

Instead of replying she turned her look towards the door. There was a footstep on the stairs, but it passed.

'I thought it might be Dora,' she said.

'She won't be here for another couple of hours at least,' replied Jasper with a slight smile.

'But you said—?'

'I sent her to Mrs Boston Wright's that I might have an opportunity of talking to you. Will you forgive the stratagem?'

Marian resumed her former attitude, the faintest smile hovering about her lips.

'I'm glad there's plenty of time,' he continued. 'I begin to suspect that you have been misunderstanding me of late. I must set that right.'

'I don't think I have misunderstood you.'

'That may mean something very disagreeable. I know that some people whom I esteem have a very poor opinion of me, but I can't allow you to be one of them. What do I seem to you? What is the result on your mind of all our conversations?'

'I have already told you.'

'Not seriously. Do you believe I am capable of generous feeling?'

'To say no, would be to put you in the lowest class of men, and that a very small one.''Good! Then I am not among the basest. But that doesn't give me very distinguished claims upon your consideration. Whatever I am, I am high in some of my ambitions.'

'Which of them?'

'For instance, I have been daring enough to hope that you might love me.'

Marian delayed for a moment, then said quietly:

'Why do you call that daring?'

'Because I have enough of old-fashioned thought to believe that a woman who is worthy of a man's love is higher than he, and condescends in giving herself to him.'

His voice was not convincing; the phrase did not sound natural on his lips. It was not thus that she had hoped to hear him speak. Whilst he expressed himself thus conventionally he did not love her as she desired to be loved.

'I don't hold that view,' she said.

'It doesn't surprise me. You are very reserved on all subjects, and we have never spoken of this, but of course I know that your thought is never commonplace. Hold what view you like of woman's position, that doesn't affect mine.'

'Is yours commonplace, then?'

'Desperately. Love is a very old and common thing, and I believe I love you in the old and common way. I think you beautiful, you seem to me womanly in the best sense, full of charm and sweetness. I know myself a coarse being in comparison. All this has been felt and said in the same way by men infinite in variety. Must I find some new expression before you can believe me?'

Marian kept silence.

'I know what you are thinking,' he said. 'The thought is as inevitable as my consciousness of it.'

For an instant she looked at him.

'Yes, you look the thought. Why have I not spoken to you in this way before? Why have I waited until you are obliged to suspect my sincerity?'

'My thought is not so easily read, then,' said Marian.

'To be sure it hasn't a gross form, but I know you wish—whatever your real feeling towards me—that I had spoken a fortnight ago. You would wish that of any man in my position, merely because it is painful to you to see a possible insincerity. Well, I am not insincere. I have thought of you as of no other woman for some time. But—yes, you shall have the plain, coarse truth, which is good in its way, no doubt. I was afraid to say that I loved you. You don't flinch; so far, so good. Now what harm is there in this confession? In the common course of things I shouldn't be in a position to marry for perhaps three or four years, and even then marriage would mean difficulties, restraints, obstacles. I have always dreaded the thought of marriage with a poor income. You remember?

Love in a hut, with water and a crust, Is—Love forgive us!—cinders, ashes, dust.

You know that is true.'

'Not always, I dare say.'

'But for the vast majority of mortals. There's the instance of the Reardons. They were in love with each other, if ever two people were; but poverty ruined everything. I am not in the confidence of either of them, but I feel sure each has wished the other dead. What else was to be expected? Should I have dared to take a wife in my present circumstances—a wife as poor as myself?'

'You will be in a much better position before long,' said Marian. 'If you loved me, why should you have been afraid to ask me to have confidence in your future?'

'It's all so uncertain. It may be another ten years before I can count on an income of five or six hundred pounds—if I have to struggle on in the common way.'

'But tell me, what is your aim in life? What do you understand by success?'

'Yes, I will tell you. My aim is to have easy command of all the pleasures desired by a cultivated man. I want to live among beautiful things, and never to be troubled by a thought of vulgar difficulties. I want to travel and enrich my mind in foreign countries. I want to associate on equal terms with refined and interesting people. I want to be known, to be familiarly referred to, to feel when I enter a room that people regard me with some curiosity.'

He looked steadily at her with bright eyes.

'And that's all?' asked Marian.

'That is very much. Perhaps you don't know how I suffer in feeling myself at a disadvantage. My instincts are strongly social, yet I can't be at my ease in society, simply because I can't do justice to myself. Want of money makes me the inferior of the people I talk with, though I might be superior to them in most things. I am ignorant in many ways, and merely because I am poor. Imagine my never having been out of England! It shames me when people talk familiarly of the Continent. So with regard to all manner of amusements and pursuits at home. Impossible for me to appear among my acquaintances at the theatre, at concerts. I am perpetually at a disadvantage; I haven't fair play. Suppose me possessed of money enough to live a full and active life for the next five years; why, at the end of that time my position would be secure. To him that hath shall be given—you know how universally true that is.'

'And yet,' came in a low voice from Marian, 'you say that you love me.'

'You mean that I speak as if no such thing as love existed. But you asked me what I understood by success. I am speaking of worldly things. Now suppose I had said to you:

My one aim and desire in life is to win your love. Could you have believed me? Such phrases are always untrue; I don't know how it can give anyone pleasure to hear them. But if I say to you: All the satisfactions I have described would be immensely heightened if they were shared with a woman who loved me—there is the simple truth.'

Marian's heart sank. She did not want truth such as this; she would have preferred that he should utter the poor, common falsehoods. Hungry for passionate love, she heard with a sense of desolation all this calm reasoning. That Jasper was of cold temperament she had often feared; yet there was always the consoling thought that she did not see with perfect clearness into his nature. Now and then had come a flash, a hint of possibilities. She had looked forward with trembling eagerness to some sudden revelation; but it seemed as if he knew no word of the language which would have called such joyous response from her expectant soul.

'We have talked for a long time,' she said, turning her head as if his last words were of no significance. 'As Dora is not coming, I think I will go now.'

She rose, and went towards the chair on which lay her out-of-door things. At once Jasper stepped to her side.

'You will go without giving me any answer?'

'Answer? To what?'

'Will you be my wife?'

'It is too soon to ask me that.'

'Too soon? Haven't you known for months that I thought of you with far more than friendliness?'

'How was it possible I should know that? You have explained to me why you would not let your real feelings be understood.'

The reproach was merited, and not easy to be outfaced. He turned away for an instant, then with a sudden movement caught both her hands.

'Whatever I have done or said or thought in the past, that is of no account now. I love you, Marian. I want you to be my wife. I have never seen any other girl who impressed me as you did from the first. If I had been weak enough to try to win anyone but you, I should have known that I had turned aside from the path of my true happiness. Let us forget for a moment all our circumstances. I hold your hands, and look into your face, and say that I love you. Whatever answer you give, I love you!'

Till now her heart had only fluttered a little; it was a great part of her distress that the love she had so long nurtured seemed shrinking together into some far corner of her being whilst she listened to the discourses which prefaced Jasper's declaration. She was nervous, painfully self-conscious, touched with maidenly shame, but could not abandon herself to that delicious emotion which ought to have been the fulfilment of all her secret imaginings. Now at length there began a throbbing in her bosom. Keeping her face averted, her eyes cast down, she waited for a repetition of the note that was in that last 'I love you.' She felt a change in the hands that held hers—a warmth, a moist softness; it caused a shock through her veins.

He was trying to draw her nearer, but she kept at full arm's length and looked irresponsive.

'Marian?'

She wished to answer, but a spirit of perversity held her tongue.

'Marian, don't you love me? Or have I offended you by my way of speaking?'

Persisting, she at length withdrew her hands. Jasper's face expressed something like dismay.

'You have not offended me,' she said. 'But I am not sure that you don't deceive yourself in thinking, for the moment, that I am necessary to your happiness.'

The emotional current which had passed from her flesh to his whilst their hands were linked, made him incapable of standing aloof from her. He saw that her face and neck were warmer hued, and her beauty became more desirable to him than ever yet.

'You are more to me than anything else in the compass of life!' he exclaimed, again pressing forward. 'I think of nothing but you—you yourself—my beautiful, gentle, thoughtful Marian!'

His arm captured her, and she did not resist. A sob, then a strange little laugh, betrayed the passion that was at length unfolded in her.

'You do love me, Marian?'

'I love you.'

And there followed the antiphony of ardour that finds its first utterance—a subdued music, often interrupted, ever returning upon the same rich note.

Marian closed her eyes and abandoned herself to the luxury of the dream. It was her first complete escape from the world of intellectual routine, her first taste of life. All the pedantry of her daily toil slipped away like a cumbrous garment; she was clad only in her womanhood. Once or twice a shudder of strange self-consciousness went through her, and she felt guilty, immodest; but upon that sensation followed a surge of passionate joy, obliterating memory and forethought.

'How shall I see you?' Jasper asked at length. 'Where can we meet?'

It was a difficulty. The season no longer allowed lingerings under the open sky, but Marian could not go to his lodgings, and it seemed impossible for him to visit her at her home.

'Will your father persist in unfriendliness to me?'

She was only just beginning to reflect on all that was involved in this new relation.

'I have no hope that he will change,' she said sadly.

'He will refuse to countenance your marriage?'

'I shall disappoint him and grieve him bitterly. He has asked me to use my money in starting a new review.'

'Which he is to edit?'

'Yes. Do you think there would be any hope of its success?'

Jasper shook his head.

'Your father is not the man for that, Marian. I don't say it disrespectfully; I mean that he doesn't seem to me to have that kind of aptitude. It would be a disastrous speculation.'

'I felt that. Of course I can't think of it now.'

She smiled, raising her face to his.

'Don't trouble,' said Jasper. 'Wait a little, till I have made myself independent of Fadge and a few other men, and your father shall see how heartily I wish to be of use to him. He will miss your help, I'm afraid?'

'Yes. I shall feel it a cruelty when I have to leave him. He has only just told me that his sight is beginning to fail. Oh, why didn't his brother leave him a little money? It was such unkindness! Surely he had a much better right than Amy, or than myself either. But literature has been a curse to father all his life. My uncle hated it, and I suppose that was why he left father nothing.'

'But how am I to see you often? That's the first question. I know what I shall do. I must take new lodgings, for the girls and myself, all in the same house. We must have two sitting-rooms; then you will come to my room without any difficulty. These astonishing proprieties are so easily satisfied after all.'

'You will really do that?'

'Yes. I shall go and look for rooms to-morrow. Then when you come you can always ask for Maud or Dora, you know. They will be very glad of a change to more respectable quarters.'

'I won't stay to see them now, Jasper,' said Marian, her thoughts turning to the girls.

'Very well. You are safe for another hour, but to make certain you shall go at a quarter to five. Your mother won't be against us?'

'Poor mother—no. But she won't dare to justify me before father.'

'I feel as if I should play a mean part in leaving it to you to tell your father. Marian, I will brave it out and go and see him.'

'Oh, it would be better not to.'

'Then I will write to him—such a letter as he can't possibly take in ill part.'

Marian pondered this proposal.

'You shall do that, Jasper, if you are willing. But not yet; presently.'

'You don't wish him to know at once?'

'We had better wait a little. You know,' she added laughing, 'that my legacy is only in name mine as yet. The will hasn't been proved. And then the money will have to be realised.'

She informed him of the details; Jasper listened with his eyes on the ground.

They were now sitting on chairs drawn close to each other. It was with a sense of relief that Jasper had passed from dithyrambs to conversation on practical points; Marian's excited sensitiveness could not but observe this, and she kept watching the motions of his countenance. At length he even let go her hand.

'You would prefer,' he said reflectively, 'that nothing should be said to your father until that business is finished?'

'If you consent to it.'

'Oh, I have no doubt it's as well.'

Her little phrase of self-subjection, and its tremulous tone, called for another answer than this. Jasper fell again into thought, and clearly it was thought of practical things.

'I think I must go now, Jasper,' she said.

'Must you? Well, if you had rather.'

He rose, though she was still seated. Marian moved a few steps away, but turned and approached him again.

'Do you really love me?' she asked, taking one of his hands and folding it between her own.

'I do indeed love you, Marian. Are you still doubtful?'

'You're not sorry that I must go?'

'But I am, dearest. I wish we could sit here undisturbed all through the evening.'

Her touch had the same effect as before. His blood warmed again, and he pressed her to his side, stroking her hair and kissing her forehead.

'Are you sorry I wear my hair short?' she asked, longing for more praise than he had bestowed on her.

'Sorry? It is perfect. Everything else seems vulgar compared with this way of yours. How strange you would look with plaits and that kind of thing!'

'I am so glad it pleases you.'

'There is nothing in you that doesn't please me, my thoughtful girl.'

'You called me that before. Do I seem so very thoughtful?'

'So grave, and sweetly reserved, and with eyes so full of meaning.'

She quivered with delight, her face hidden against his breast.

'I seem to be new-born, Jasper. Everything in the world is new to me, and I am strange to myself. I have never known an hour of happiness till now, and I can't believe yet that it has come to me.'

She at length attired herself, and they left the house together, of course not unobserved by the landlady. Jasper walked about half the way to St Paul's Crescent. It was arranged that he should address a letter for her to the care of his sisters; but in a day or two the change of lodgings would be effected.

When they had parted, Marian looked back. But Jasper was walking quickly away, his head bent, in profound meditation.



CHAPTER XXV. A FRUITLESS MEETING

Refuge from despair is often found in the passion of self-pity and that spirit of obstinate resistance which it engenders. In certain natures the extreme of self-pity is intolerable, and leads to self-destruction; but there are less fortunate beings whom the vehemence of their revolt against fate strengthens to endure in suffering. These latter are rather imaginative than passionate; the stages of their woe impress them as the acts of a drama, which they cannot bring themselves to cut short, so various are the possibilities of its dark motive. The intellectual man who kills himself is most often brought to that decision by conviction of his insignificance; self-pity merges in self-scorn, and the humiliated soul is intolerant of existence. He who survives under like conditions does so because misery magnifies him in his own estimate.

It was by force of commiserating his own lot that Edwin Reardon continued to live through the first month after his parting from Amy. Once or twice a week, sometimes early in the evening, sometimes at midnight or later, he haunted the street at Westbourne Park where his wife was dwelling, and on each occasion he returned to his garret with a fortified sense of the injustice to which he was submitted, of revolt against the circumstances which had driven him into outer darkness, of bitterness against his wife for saving her own comfort rather than share his downfall. At times he was not far from that state of sheer distraction which Mrs Edmund Yule preferred to suppose that he had reached. An extraordinary arrogance now and then possessed him; he stood amid his poor surroundings with the sensations of an outraged exile, and laughed aloud in furious contempt of all who censured or pitied him.

On hearing from Jasper Milvain that Amy had fallen ill, or at all events was suffering in health from what she had gone through, he felt a momentary pang which all but determined him to hasten to her side. The reaction was a feeling of distinct pleasure that she had her share of pain, and even a hope that her illness might become grave; he pictured himself summoned to her sick chamber, imagined her begging his forgiveness. But it was not merely, nor in great part, a malicious satisfaction; he succeeded in believing that Amy suffered because she still had a remnant of love for him. As the days went by and he heard nothing, disappointment and resentment occupied him. At length he ceased to haunt the neighbourhood. His desires grew sullen; he became fixed in the resolve to hold entirely apart and doggedly await the issue.

At the end of each month he sent half the money he had received from Carter, simply enclosing postal orders in an envelope addressed to his wife. The first two remittances were in no way acknowledged; the third brought a short note from Amy:

'As you continue to send these sums of money, I had perhaps better let you know that I cannot use them for any purposes of my own. Perhaps a sense of duty leads you to make this sacrifice, but I am afraid it is more likely that you wish to remind me every month that you are undergoing privations, and to pain me in this way. What you have sent I have deposited in the Post Office Savings' Bank in Willie's name, and I shall continue to do so.—A.R.'

For a day or two Reardon persevered in an intention of not replying, but the desire to utter his turbid feelings became in the end too strong. He wrote:

'I regard it as quite natural that you should put the worst interpretation on whatever I do. As for my privations, I think very little of them; they are a trifle in comparison with the thought that I am forsaken just because my pocket is empty. And I am far indeed from thinking that you can be pained by whatever I may undergo; that would suppose some generosity in your nature.'

This was no sooner posted than he would gladly have recalled it. He knew that it was undignified, that it contained as many falsehoods as lines, and he was ashamed of himself for having written so. But he could not pen a letter of retractation, and there remained with him a new cause of exasperated wretchedness.

Excepting the people with whom he came in contact at the hospital, he had no society but that of Biffen. The realist visited him once a week, and this friendship grew closer than it had been in the time of Reardon's prosperity. Biffen was a man of so much natural delicacy, that there was a pleasure in imparting to him the details of private sorrow; though profoundly sympathetic, he did his best to oppose Reardon's harsher judgments of Amy, and herein he gave his friend a satisfaction which might not be avowed.

'I really do not see,' he exclaimed, as they sat in the garret one night of midsummer, 'how your wife could have acted otherwise. Of course I am quite unable to judge the attitude of her mind, but I think, I can't help thinking, from what I knew of her, that there has been strictly a misunderstanding between you.

It was a hard and miserable thing that she should have to leave you for a time, and you couldn't face the necessity in a just spirit. Don't you think there's some truth in this way of looking at it?'

'As a woman, it was her part to soften the hateful necessity; she made it worse.'

'I'm not sure that you don't demand too much of her. Unhappily, I know little or nothing of delicately-bred women, but I have a suspicion that one oughtn't to expect heroism in them, any more than in the women of the lower classes. I think of women as creatures to be protected. Is a man justified in asking them to be stronger than himself?'

'Of course,' replied Reardon, 'there's no use in demanding more than a character is capable of. But I believed her of finer stuff. My bitterness comes of the disappointment.'

'I suppose there were faults of temper on both sides, and you saw at last only each other's weaknesses.'

'I saw the truth, which had always been disguised from me.' Biffen persisted in looking doubtful, and in secret Reardon thanked him for it.

As the realist progressed with his novel, 'Mr Bailey, Grocer,' he read the chapters to Reardon, not only for his own satisfaction, but in great part because he hoped that this example of productivity might in the end encourage the listener to resume his own literary tasks. Reardon found much to criticise in his friend's work; it was noteworthy that he objected and condemned with much less hesitation than in his better days, for sensitive reticence is one of the virtues wont to be assailed by suffering, at all events in the weaker natures. Biffen purposely urged these discussions as far as possible, and doubtless they benefited Reardon for the time; but the defeated novelist could not be induced to undertake another practical illustration of his own views. Occasionally he had an impulse to plan a story, but an hour's turning it over in his mind sufficed to disgust him. His ideas seemed barren, vapid; it would have been impossible for him to write half a dozen pages, and the mere thought of a whole book overcame him with the dread of insurmountable difficulties, immeasurable toil.

In time, however, he was able to read. He had a pleasure in contemplating the little collection of sterling books that alone remained to him from his library; the sight of many volumes would have been a weariness, but these few—when he was again able to think of books at all—were as friendly countenances. He could not read continuously, but sometimes he opened his Shakespeare, for instance, and dreamed over a page or two. From such glimpses there remained in his head a line or a short passage, which he kept repeating to himself wherever he went; generally some example of sweet or sonorous metre which had a soothing effect upon him.

With odd result on one occasion. He was walking in one of the back streets of Islington, and stopped idly to gaze into the window of some small shop. Standing thus, he forgot himself and presently recited aloud:

'Caesar, 'tis his schoolmaster: An argument that he is pluck'd, when hither He sends so poor a pinion of his wing, Which had superfluous kings for messengers Not many moons gone by.'

The last two lines he uttered a second time, enjoying their magnificent sound, and then was brought back to consciousness by the loud mocking laugh of two men standing close by, who evidently looked upon him as a strayed lunatic.

He kept one suit of clothes for his hours of attendance at the hospital; it was still decent, and with much care would remain so for a long time. That which he wore at home and in his street wanderings declared poverty at every point; it had been discarded before he left the old abode. In his present state of mind he cared nothing how disreputable he looked to passers-by. These seedy habiliments were the token of his degradation, and at times he regarded them (happening to see himself in a shop mirror) with pleasurable contempt. The same spirit often led him for a meal to the poorest of eating-houses, places where he rubbed elbows with ragged creatures who had somehow obtained the price of a cup of coffee and a slice of bread and butter. He liked to contrast himself with these comrades in misfortune. 'This is the rate at which the world esteems me; I am worth no better provision than this.' Or else, instead of emphasising the contrast, he defiantly took a place among the miserables of the nether world, and nursed hatred of all who were well-to-do.

One of these he desired to regard with gratitude, but found it difficult to support that feeling. Carter, the vivacious, though at first perfectly unembarrassed in his relations with the City Road clerk, gradually exhibited a change of demeanour. Reardon occasionally found the young man's eye fixed upon him with a singular expression, and the secretary's talk, though still as a rule genial, was wont to suffer curious interruptions, during which he seemed to be musing on something Reardon had said, or on some point of his behaviour. The explanation of this was that Carter had begun to think there might be a foundation for Mrs Yule's hypothesis—that the novelist was not altogether in his sound senses. At first he scouted the idea, but as time went on it seemed to him that Reardon's countenance certainly had a gaunt wildness which suggested disagreeable things. Especially did he remark this after his return from an August holiday in Norway. On coming for the first time to the City Road branch he sat down and began to favour Reardon with a lively description of how he had enjoyed himself abroad; it never occurred to him that such talk was not likely to inspirit the man who had passed his August between the garret and the hospital, but he observed before long that his listener was glancing hither and thither in rather a strange way.

'You haven't been ill since I saw you?' he inquired.

'Oh no!'

'But you look as if you might have been. I say, we must manage for you to have a fortnight off, you know, this month.'

'I have no wish for it,' said Reardon. 'I'll imagine I have been to Norway. It has done me good to hear of your holiday.'

'I'm glad of that; but it isn't quite the same thing, you know, as having a run somewhere yourself.'

'Oh, much better! To enjoy myself may be mere selfishness, but to enjoy another's enjoyment is the purest satisfaction, good for body and soul. I am cultivating altruism.'

'What's that?'

'A highly rarefied form of happiness. The curious thing about it is that it won't grow unless you have just twice as much faith in it as is required for assent to the Athanasian Creed.'

'Oh!'

Carter went away more than puzzled. He told his wife that evening that Reardon had been talking to him in the most extraordinary fashion—no understanding a word he said.

All this time he was on the look-out for employment that would be more suitable to his unfortunate clerk. Whether slightly demented or not, Reardon gave no sign of inability to discharge his duties; he was conscientious as ever, and might, unless he changed greatly, be relied upon in positions of more responsibility than his present one. And at length, early in October, there came to the secretary's knowledge an opportunity with which he lost no time in acquainting Reardon. The latter repaired that evening to Clipstone Street, and climbed to Biffen's chamber. He entered with a cheerful look, and exclaimed:

'I have just invented a riddle; see if you can guess it. Why is a London lodging-house like the human body?'

Biffen looked with some concern at his friend, so unwonted was a sally of this kind.

'Why is a London lodging-house—? Haven't the least idea.'

'Because the brains are always at the top. Not bad, I think, eh?'

'Well, no; it'll pass. Distinctly professional though. The general public would fail to see the point, I'm afraid. But what has come to you?'

'Good tidings. Carter has offered me a place which will be a decided improvement. A house found—or rooms, at all events—and salary a hundred and fifty a year.

'By Plutus! That's good hearing. Some duties attached, I suppose?'

'I'm afraid that was inevitable, as things go. It's the secretaryship of a home for destitute boys at Croydon. The post is far from a sinecure, Carter assures me. There's a great deal of purely secretarial work, and there's a great deal of practical work, some of it rather rough, I fancy. It seems doubtful whether I am exactly the man. The present holder is a burly fellow over six feet high, delighting in gymnastics, and rather fond of a fight now and then when opportunity offers. But he is departing at Christmas—going somewhere as a missionary; and I can have the place if I choose.'

'As I suppose you do?'

'Yes. I shall try it, decidedly.'

Biffen waited a little, then asked:

'I suppose your wife will go with you?'

'There's no saying.'

Reardon tried to answer indifferently, but it could be seen that he was agitated between hopes and fears.

'You'll ask her, at all events?'

'Oh yes,' was the half-absent reply.

'But surely there can be no doubt that she'll come. A hundred and fifty a year, without rent to pay. Why, that's affluence!'

'The rooms I might occupy are in the home itself. Amy won't take very readily to a dwelling of that kind. And Croydon isn't the most inviting locality.'

'Close to delightful country.'

'Yes, yes; but Amy doesn't care about that.'

'You misjudge her, Reardon. You are too harsh. I implore you not to lose the chance of setting all right again! If only you could be put into my position for a moment, and then be offered the companionship of such a wife as yours!'

Reardon listened with a face of lowering excitement.

'I should be perfectly within my rights,' he said sternly, 'if I merely told her when I have taken the position, and let her ask me to take her back—if she wishes.'

'You have changed a great deal this last year,' replied Biffen, shaking his head, 'a great deal. I hope to see you your old self again before long. I should have declared it impossible for you to become so rugged. Go and see your wife, there's a good fellow.'

'No; I shall write to her.'

'Go and see her, I beg you! No good ever came of letter-writing between two people who have misunderstood each other. Go to Westbourne Park to-morrow. And be reasonable; be more than reasonable. The happiness of your life depends on what you do now. Be content to forget whatever wrong has been done you. To think that a man should need persuading to win back such a wife!'

In truth, there needed little persuasion. Perverseness, one of the forms or issues of self-pity, made him strive against his desire, and caused him to adopt a tone of acerbity in excess of what he felt; but already he had made up his mind to see Amy. Even if this excuse had not presented itself he must very soon have yielded to the longing for a sight of his wife's face which day by day increased among all the conflicting passions of which he was the victim. A month or two ago, when the summer sunshine made his confinement to the streets a daily torture, he convinced himself that there remained in him no trace of his love for Amy; there were moments when he thought of her with repugnance, as a cold, selfish woman, who had feigned affection when it seemed her interest to do so, but brutally declared her true self when there was no longer anything to be hoped from him. That was the self-deception of misery. Love, even passion, was still alive in the depths of his being; the animation with which he sped to his friend as soon as a new hope had risen was the best proof of his feeling.

He went home and wrote to Amy.

'I have a reason for wishing to see you. Will you have the kindness to appoint an hour on Sunday morning when I can speak with you in private? It must be understood that I shall see no one else.'

She would receive this by the first post to-morrow, Saturday, and doubtless would let him hear in reply some time in the afternoon. Impatience allowed him little sleep, and the next day was a long weariness of waiting. The evening he would have to spend at the hospital; if there came no reply before the time of his leaving home, he knew not how he should compel himself to the ordinary routine of work. Yet the hour came, and he had heard nothing. He was tempted to go at once to Westbourne Park, but reason prevailed with him. When he again entered the house, having walked at his utmost speed from the City Road, the letter lay waiting for him; it had been pushed beneath his door, and when he struck a match he found that one of his feet was upon the white envelope.

Amy wrote that she would be at home at eleven to-morrow morning. Not another word.

In all probability she knew of the offer that had been made to him; Mrs Carter would have told her. Was it of good or of ill omen that she wrote only these half-dozen words? Half through the night he plagued himself with suppositions, now thinking that her brevity promised a welcome, now that she wished to warn him against expecting anything but a cold, offended demeanour. At seven he was dressed; two hours and a half had to be killed before he could start on his walk westward. He would have wandered about the streets, but it rained.

He had made himself as decent as possible in appearance, but he must necessarily seem an odd Sunday visitor at a house such as Mrs Yule's. His soft felt hat, never brushed for months, was a greyish green, and stained round the band with perspiration. His necktie was discoloured and worn. Coat and waistcoat might pass muster, but of the trousers the less said the better. One of his boots was patched, and both were all but heelless.

Very well; let her see him thus. Let her understand what it meant to live on twelve and sixpence a week.

Though it was cold and wet he could not put on his overcoat. Three years ago it had been a fairly good ulster; at present, the edges of the sleeves were frayed, two buttons were missing, and the original hue of the cloth was indeterminable.

At half-past nine he set out and struggled with his shabby umbrella against wind and rain. Down Pentonville Hill, up Euston Road, all along Marylebone Road, then north-westwards towards the point of his destination. It was a good six miles from the one house to the other, but he arrived before the appointed time, and had to stray about until the cessation of bell-clanging and the striking of clocks told him it was eleven. Then he presented himself at the familiar door.

On his asking for Mrs Reardon, he was at once admitted and led up to the drawing-room; the servant did not ask his name.

Then he waited for a minute or two, feeling himself a squalid wretch amid the dainty furniture. The door opened. Amy, in a simple but very becoming dress, approached to within a yard of him; after the first glance she had averted her eyes, and she did not offer to shake hands. He saw that his muddy and shapeless boots drew her attention.

'Do you know why I have come?' he asked.

He meant the tone to be conciliatory, but he could not command his voice, and it sounded rough, hostile.

'I think so,' Amy answered, seating herself gracefully. She would have spoken with less dignity but for that accent of his.

'The Carters have told you?'

'Yes; I have heard about it.'

There was no promise in her manner. She kept her face turned away, and Reardon saw its beautiful profile, hard and cold as though in marble.

'It doesn't interest you at all?'

'I am glad to hear that a better prospect offers for you.'

He did not sit down, and was holding his rusty hat behind his back.

'You speak as if it in no way concerned yourself. Is that what you wish me to understand?'

'Won't it be better if you tell me why you have come here? As you are resolved to find offence in whatever I say, I prefer to keep silence. Please to let me know why you have asked to see me.'

Reardon turned abruptly as if to leave her, but checked himself at a little distance.

Both had come to this meeting prepared for a renewal of amity, but in these first few moments each was so disagreeably impressed by the look and language of the other that a revulsion of feeling undid all the more hopeful effects of their long severance. On entering, Amy had meant to offer her hand, but the unexpected meanness of Reardon's aspect shocked and restrained her. All but every woman would have experienced that shrinking from the livery of poverty. Amy had but to reflect, and she understood that her husband could in no wise help this shabbiness; when he parted from her his wardrobe was already in a long-suffering condition, and how was he to have purchased new garments since then? None the less such attire degraded him in her eyes; it symbolised the melancholy decline which he had suffered intellectually. On Reardon his wife's elegance had the same repellent effect, though this would not have been the case but for the expression of her countenance. Had it been possible for them to remain together during the first five minutes without exchange of words, sympathies might have prevailed on both sides; the first speech uttered would most likely have harmonised with their gentler thoughts. But the mischief was done so speedily.

A man must indeed be graciously endowed if his personal appearance can defy the disadvantage of cheap modern clothing worn into shapelessness. Reardon had no such remarkable physique, and it was not wonderful that his wife felt ashamed of him. Strictly ashamed; he seemed to her a social inferior; the impression was so strong that it resisted all memory of his spiritual qualities. She might have anticipated this state of things, and have armed herself to encounter it, but somehow she had not done so. For more than five months she had been living among people who dressed well; the contrast was too suddenly forced upon her. She was especially susceptible in such matters, and had become none the less so under the demoralising influence of her misfortunes. True, she soon began to feel ashamed of her shame, but that could not annihilate the natural feeling and its results.

'I don't love him. I can't love him.' Thus she spoke to herself, with immutable decision. She had been doubtful till now, but all doubt was at an end. Had Reardon been practical man enough to procure by hook or by crook a decent suit of clothes for this interview, that ridiculous trifle might have made all the difference in what was to result.

He turned again, and spoke with the harshness of a man who feels that he is despised, and is determined to show an equal contempt.

'I came to ask you what you propose to do in case I go to Croydon.'

'I have no proposal to make whatever.'

'That means, then, that you are content to go on living here?'

'If I have no choice, I must make myself content.'

'But you have a choice.'

'None has yet been offered me.'

'Then I offer it now,' said Reardon, speaking less aggressively. 'I shall have a dwelling rent free, and a hundred and fifty pounds a year—perhaps it would be more in keeping with my station if I say that I shall have something less than three pounds a week. You can either accept from me half this money, as up to now, or come and take your place again as my wife. Please to decide what you will do.'

'I will let you know by letter in a few days.'

It seemed impossible to her to say she would return, yet a refusal to do so involved nothing less than separation for the rest of their lives. Postponement of decision was her only resource.

'I must know at once,' said Reardon.

'I can't answer at once.'

'If you don't, I shall understand you to mean that you refuse to come to me. You know the circumstances; there is no reason why you should consult with anyone else. You can answer me immediately if you will.'

'I don't wish to answer you immediately,' Amy replied, paling slightly.

'Then that decides it. When I leave you we are strangers to each other.'

Amy made a rapid study of his countenance. She had never entertained for a moment the supposition that his wits were unsettled, but none the less the constant recurrence of that idea in her mother's talk had subtly influenced her against her husband. It had confirmed her in thinking that his behaviour was inexcusable. And now it seemed to her that anyone might be justified in holding him demented, so reckless was his utterance.

It was difficult to know him as the man who had loved her so devotedly, who was incapable of an unkind word or look.

'If that is what you prefer,' she said, 'there must be a formal separation. I can't trust my future to your caprice.'

'You mean it must be put into the hands of a lawyer?'

'Yes, I do.'

'That will be the best, no doubt.'

'Very well; I will speak with my friends about it.'

'Your friends!' he exclaimed bitterly. 'But for those friends of yours, this would never have happened. I wish you had been alone in the world and penniless.'

'A kind wish, all things considered.'

'Yes, it is a kind wish. Then your marriage with me would have been binding; you would have known that my lot was yours, and the knowledge would have helped your weakness. I begin to see how much right there is on the side of those people who would keep women in subjection. You have been allowed to act with independence, and the result is that you have ruined my life and debased your own. If I had been strong enough to treat you as a child, and bid you follow me wherever my own fortunes led, it would have been as much better for you as for me. I was weak, and I suffer as all weak people do.'

'You think it was my duty to share such a home as you have at present?'

'You know it was. And if the choice had lain between that and earning your own livelihood you would have thought that even such a poor home might be made tolerable. There were possibilities in you of better things than will ever come out now.'

There followed a silence. Amy sat with her eyes gloomily fixed on the carpet; Reardon looked about the room, but saw nothing. He had thrown his hat into a chair, and his fingers worked nervously together behind his back.

'Will you tell me,' he said at length, 'how your position is regarded by these friends of yours? I don't mean your mother and brother, but the people who come to this house.'

'I have not asked such people for their opinion.'

'Still, I suppose some sort of explanation has been necessary in your intercourse with them. How have you represented your relations with me?'

'I can't see that that concerns you.'

'In a manner it does. Certainly it matters very little to me how I am thought of by people of this kind, but one doesn't like to be reviled without cause. Have you allowed it to be supposed that I have made life with me intolerable for you?'

'No, I have not. You insult me by asking the question, but as you don't seem to understand feelings of that kind I may as well answer you simply.'

'Then have you told them the truth? That I became so poor you couldn't live with me?'

'I have never said that in so many words, but no doubt it is understood. It must be known also that you refused to take the step which might have helped you out of your difficulties.'

'What step?'

She reminded him of his intention to spend half a year in working at the seaside.

'I had utterly forgotten it,' he returned with a mocking laugh. 'That shows how ridiculous such a thing would have been.'

'You are doing no literary work at all?' Amy asked.

'Do you imagine that I have the peace of mind necessary for anything of that sort?'

This was in a changed voice. It reminded her so strongly of her husband before his disasters that she could not frame a reply.

'Do you think I am able to occupy myself with the affairs of imaginary people?'

'I didn't necessarily mean fiction.'

'That I can forget myself, then, in the study of literature?—I wonder whether you really think of me like that. How, in Heaven's name, do you suppose I spend my leisure time?'

She made no answer.

'Do you think I take this calamity as light-heartedly as you do, Amy?'

'I am far from taking it light-heartedly.'

'Yet you are in good health. I see no sign that you have suffered.'

She kept silence. Her suffering had been slight enough, and chiefly due to considerations of social propriety; but she would not avow this, and did not like to make admission of it to herself. Before her friends she frequently affected to conceal a profound sorrow; but so long as her child was left to her she was in no danger of falling a victim to sentimental troubles.

'And certainly I can't believe it,' he continued, 'now you declare your wish to be formally separated from me.'

'I have declared no such wish.'

'Indeed you have. If you can hesitate a moment about returning to me when difficulties are at an end, that tells me you would prefer final separation.'

'I hesitate for this reason,' Amy said after reflecting. 'You are so very greatly changed from what you used to be, that I think it doubtful if I could live with you.'

'Changed?—Yes, that is true, I am afraid. But how do you think this change will affect my behaviour to you?'

'Remember how you have been speaking to me.'

'And you think I should treat you brutally if you came into my power?'

'Not brutally, in the ordinary sense of the word. But with faults of temper which I couldn't bear. I have my own faults. I can't behave as meekly as some women can.'

It was a small concession, but Reardon made much of it.

'Did my faults of temper give you any trouble during the first year of our married life?' he asked gently.

'No,' she admitted.

'They began to afflict you when I was so hard driven by difficulties that I needed all your sympathy, all your forbearance. Did I receive much of either from you, Amy?'

'I think you did—until you demanded impossible things of me.'

'It was always in your power to rule me. What pained me worst, and hardened me against you, was that I saw you didn't care to exert your influence. There was never a time when I could have resisted a word of yours spoken out of your love for me. But even then, I am afraid, you no longer loved me, and now—'

He broke off, and stood watching her face.

'Have you any love for me left?' burst from his lips, as if the words all but choked him in the utterance.

Amy tried to shape some evasive answer, but could say nothing.

'Is there ever so small a hope that I might win some love from you again?'

'If you wish me to come and live with you when you go to Croydon I will do so.'

'But that is not answering me, Amy.'

'It's all I can say.'

'Then you mean that you would sacrifice yourself out of—what? Out of pity for me, let us say.'

'Do you wish to see Willie?' asked Amy, instead of replying.

'No. It is you I have come to see. The child is nothing to me, compared with you. It is you, who loved me, who became my wife—you only I care about. Tell me you will try to be as you used to be. Give me only that hope, Amy; I will ask nothing except that, now.'

'I can't say anything except that I will come to Croydon if you wish it.'

'And reproach me always because you have to live in such a place, away from your friends, without a hope of the social success which was your dearest ambition?'

Her practical denial that she loved him wrung this taunt from his anguished heart. He repented the words as soon as they were spoken.

'What is the good?' exclaimed Amy in irritation, rising and moving away from him. 'How can I pretend that I look forward to such a life with any hope?'

He stood in mute misery, inwardly cursing himself and his fate.

'I have said I will come,' she continued, her voice shaken with nervous tension. 'Ask me or not, as you please, when you are ready to go there. I can't talk about it.'

'I shall not ask you,' he replied. 'I will have no woman slave dragging out a weary life with me. Either you are my willing wife, or you are nothing to me.'

'I am married to you, and that can't be undone. I repeat that I shan't refuse to obey you. I shall say no more.'

She moved to a distance, and there seated herself, half turned from him.

'I shall never ask you to come,' said Reardon, breaking a short silence. 'If our married life is ever to begin again it must be of your seeking. Come to me of your own will, and I shall never reject you. But I will die in utter loneliness rather than ask you again.'

He lingered a few moments, watching her; she did not move. Then he took his hat, went in silence from the room, and left the house.

It rained harder than before. As no trains were running at this hour, he walked in the direction where he would be likely to meet with an omnibus. But it was a long time before one passed which was any use to him. When he reached home he was in cheerless plight enough; to make things pleasanter, one of his boots had let in water abundantly.

'The first sore throat of the season, no doubt,' he muttered to himself.

Nor was he disappointed. By Tuesday the cold had firm grip of him. A day or two of influenza or sore throat always made him so weak that with difficulty he supported the least physical exertion; but at present he must go to his work at the hospital. Why stay at home? To what purpose spare himself? It was not as if life had any promise for him. He was a machine for earning so much money a week, and would at least give faithful work for his wages until the day of final breakdown.

But, midway in the week, Carter discovered how ill his clerk was.

'You ought to be in bed, my dear fellow, with gruel and mustard plasters and all the rest of it. Go home and take care of yourself—I insist upon it.'

Before leaving the office, Reardon wrote a few lines to Biffen, whom he had visited on the Monday. 'Come and see me if you can. I am down with a bad cold, and have to keep in for the rest of the week. All the same, I feel far more cheerful. Bring a new chapter of your exhilarating romance.'



CHAPTER XXVI. MARRIED WOMAN'S PROPERTY

On her return from church that Sunday Mrs Edmund Yule was anxious to learn the result of the meeting between Amy and her husband. She hoped fervently that Amy's anomalous position would come to an end now that Reardon had the offer of something better than a mere clerkship. John Yule never ceased to grumble at his sister's permanence in the house, especially since he had learnt that the money sent by Reardon each month was not made use of; why it should not be applied for household expenses passed his understanding.

'It seems to me,' he remarked several times, 'that the fellow only does his bare duty in sending it. What is it to anyone else whether he lives on twelve shillings a week or twelve pence? It is his business to support his wife; if he can't do that, to contribute as much to her support as possible. Amy's scruples are all very fine, if she could afford them; it's very nice to pay for your delicacies of feeling out of other people's pockets.'

'There'll have to be a formal separation,' was the startling announcement with which Amy answered her mother's inquiry as to what had passed.

'A separation? But, my dear—!'

Mrs Yule could not express her disappointment and dismay.

'We couldn't live together; it's no use trying.'

'But at your age, Amy! How can you think of anything so shocking? And then, you know it will be impossible for him to make you a sufficient allowance.'

'I shall have to live as well as I can on the seventy-five pounds a year. If you can't afford to let me stay with you for that, I must go into cheap lodgings in the country, like poor Mrs Butcher did.'

This was wild talking for Amy. The interview had upset her, and for the rest of the day she kept apart in her own room. On the morrow Mrs Yule succeeded in eliciting a clear account of the conversation which had ended so hopelessly.

'I would rather spend the rest of my days in the workhouse than beg him to take me back,' was Amy's final comment, uttered with the earnestness which her mother understood but too well.

'But you are willing to go back, dear?'

'I told him so.'

'Then you must leave this to me. The Carters will let us know how things go on, and when it seems to be time I must see Edwin myself.'

'I can't allow that. Anything you could say on your own account would be useless, and there is nothing to say from me.'

Mrs Yule kept her own counsel. She had a full month before her during which to consider the situation, but it was clear to her that these young people must be brought together again. Her estimate of Reardon's mental condition had undergone a sudden change from the moment when she heard that a respectable post was within his reach; she decided that he was 'strange,' but then all men of literary talent had marked singularities, and doubtless she had been too hasty in interpreting the peculiar features natural to a character such as his.

A few days later arrived the news of their relative's death at Wattleborough.

This threw Mrs Yule into a commotion. At first she decided to accompany her son and be present at the funeral; after changing her mind twenty times, she determined not to go. John must send or bring back the news as soon as possible. That it would be of a nature sensibly to affect her own position, if not that of her children, she had little doubt; her husband had been the favourite brother of the deceased, and on that account there was no saying how handsome a legacy she might receive. She dreamt of houses in South Kensington, of social ambitions gratified even thus late.

On the morning after the funeral came a postcard announcing John's return by a certain train, but no scrap of news was added.

'Just like that irritating boy! We must go to the station to meet him. You'll come, won't you, Amy?'

Amy readily consented, for she too had hopes, though circumstances blurred them. Mother and daughter were walking about the platform half an hour before the train was due; their agitation would have been manifest to anyone observing them. When at length the train rolled in and John was discovered, they pressed eagerly upon him.

'Don't you excite yourself,' he said gruffly to his mother. 'There's no reason whatever.'

Mrs Yule glanced in dismay at Amy. They followed John to a cab, and took places with him.

'Now don't be provoking, Jack. Just tell us at once.'

'By all means. You haven't a penny.'

'I haven't? You are joking, ridiculous boy!'

'Never felt less disposed to, I assure you.'

After staring out of the window for a minute or two, he at length informed Amy of the extent to which she profited by her uncle's decease, then made known what was bequeathed to himself. His temper grew worse every moment, and he replied savagely to each successive question concerning the other items of the will.

'What have you to grumble about?' asked Amy, whose face was exultant notwithstanding the drawbacks attaching to her good fortune. 'If Uncle Alfred receives nothing at all, and mother has nothing, you ought to think yourself very lucky.'

'It's very easy for you to say that, with your ten thousand.'

'But is it her own?' asked Mrs Yule. 'Is it for her separate use?'

'Of course it is. She gets the benefit of last year's Married Woman's Property Act. The will was executed in January this year, and I dare say the old curmudgeon destroyed a former one.

'What a splendid Act of Parliament that is!' cried Amy. 'The only one worth anything that I ever heard of.'

'But my dear—' began her mother, in a tone of protest. However, she reserved her comment for a more fitting time and place, and merely said: 'I wonder whether he had heard what has been going on?'

'Do you think he would have altered his will if he had?' asked Amy with a smile of security.

'Why the deuce he should have left you so much in any case is more than I can understand,' growled her brother. 'What's the use to me of a paltry thousand or two? It isn't enough to invest; isn't enough to do anything with.'

'You may depend upon it your cousin Marian thinks her five thousand good for something,' said Mrs Yule. 'Who was at the funeral? Don't be so surly, Jack; tell us all about it. I'm sure if anyone has cause to be ill-tempered it's poor me.'

Thus they talked, amid the rattle of the cab-wheels. By when they reached home silence had fallen upon them, and each one was sufficiently occupied with private thoughts.

Mrs Yule's servants had a terrible time of it for the next few days. Too affectionate to turn her ill-temper against John and Amy, she relieved herself by severity to the domestic slaves, as an English matron is of course justified in doing. Her daughter's position caused her even more concern than before; she constantly lamented to herself: 'Oh, why didn't he die before she was married!'—in which case Amy would never have dreamt of wedding a penniless author. Amy declined to discuss the new aspect of things until twenty-four hours after John's return; then she said:

'I shall do nothing whatever until the money is paid to me. And what I shall do then I don't know.'

'You are sure to hear from Edwin,' opined Mrs Yule.

'I think not. He isn't the kind of man to behave in that way.'

'Then I suppose you are bound to take the first step?'

'That I shall never do.'

She said so, but the sudden happiness of finding herself wealthy was not without its softening effect on Amy's feelings. Generous impulses alternated with moods of discontent. The thought of her husband in his squalid lodgings tempted her to forget injuries and disillusions, and to play the part of a generous wife. It would be possible now for them to go abroad and spend a year or two in healthful travel; the result in Reardon's case might be wonderful. He might recover all the energy of his imagination, and resume his literary career from the point he had reached at the time of his marriage.

On the other hand, was it not more likely that he would lapse into a life of scholarly self-indulgence, such as he had often told her was his ideal? In that event, what tedium and regret lay before her! Ten thousand pounds sounded well, but what did it represent in reality? A poor four hundred a year, perhaps; mere decency of obscure existence, unless her husband could glorify it by winning fame. If he did nothing, she would be the wife of a man who had failed in literature. She would not be able to take a place in society. Life would be supported without struggle; nothing more to be hoped.

This view of the future possessed her strongly when, on the second day, she went to communicate her news to Mrs Carter. This amiable lady had now become what she always desired to be, Amy's intimate friend; they saw each other very frequently, and conversed of most things with much frankness. It was between eleven and twelve in the morning when Amy paid her visit, and she found Mrs Carter on the point of going out.

'I was coming to see you,' cried Edith. 'Why haven't you let me know of what has happened?'

'You have heard, I suppose?'

'Albert heard from your brother.'

'I supposed he would. And I haven't felt in the mood for talking about it, even with you.'

They went into Mrs Carter's boudoir, a tiny room full of such pretty things as can be purchased nowadays by anyone who has a few shillings to spare, and tolerable taste either of their own or at second-hand. Had she been left to her instincts, Edith would have surrounded herself with objects representing a much earlier stage of artistic development; but she was quick to imitate what fashion declared becoming. Her husband regarded her as a remarkable authority in all matters of personal or domestic ornamentation.

'And what are you going to do?' she inquired, examining Amy from head to foot, as if she thought that the inheritance of so substantial a sum must have produced visible changes in her friend.

'I am going to do nothing.'

'But surely you're not in low spirits?'

'What have I to rejoice about?'

They talked for a while before Amy brought herself to utter what she was thinking.

'Isn't it a most ridiculous thing that married people who both wish to separate can't do so and be quite free again?'

'I suppose it would lead to all sorts of troubles—don't you think?'

'So people say about every new step in civilisation. What would have been thought twenty years ago of a proposal to make all married women independent of their husbands in money matters? All sorts of absurd dangers were foreseen, no doubt. And it's the same now about divorce. In America people can get divorced if they don't suit each other—at all events in some of the States—and does any harm come of it? Just the opposite I should think.'

Edith mused. Such speculations were daring, but she had grown accustomed to think of Amy as an 'advanced' woman, and liked to imitate her in this respect.

'It does seem reasonable,' she murmured.

'The law ought to encourage such separations, instead of forbidding them,' Amy pursued. 'If a husband and wife find that they have made a mistake, what useless cruelty it is to condemn them to suffer the consequences for the whole of their lives!'

'I suppose it's to make people careful,' said Edith, with a laugh.

'If so, we know that it has always failed, and always will fail; so the sooner such a profitless law is altered the better. Isn't there some society for getting that kind of reform? I would subscribe fifty pounds a year to help it. Wouldn't you?'

'Yes, if I had it to spare,' replied the other.

Then they both laughed, but Edith the more naturally.

'Not on my own account, you know,' she added.

'It's because women who are happily married can't and won't understand the position of those who are not that there's so much difficulty in reforming marriage laws.'

'But I understand you, Amy, and I grieve about you. What you are to do I can't think.'

'Oh, it's easy to see what I shall do. Of course I have no choice really. And I ought to have a choice; that's the hardship and the wrong of it. Perhaps if I had, I should find a sort of pleasure in sacrificing myself.'

There were some new novels on the table; Amy took up a volume presently, and glanced over a page or two.

'I don't know how you can go on reading that sort of stuff, book after book,' she exclaimed.

'Oh, but people say this last novel of Markland's is one of his best.'

'Best or worst, novels are all the same. Nothing but love, love, love; what silly nonsense it is! Why don't people write about the really important things of life? Some of the French novelists do; several of Balzac's, for instance. I have just been reading his "Cousin Pons," a terrible book, but I enjoyed it ever so much because it was nothing like a love story. What rubbish is printed about love!'

'I get rather tired of it sometimes,' admitted Edith with amusement.

'I should hope you do, indeed. What downright lies are accepted as indisputable! That about love being a woman's whole life; who believes it really? Love is the most insignificant thing in most women's lives. It occupies a few months, possibly a year or two, and even then I doubt if it is often the first consideration.'

Edith held her head aside, and pondered smilingly.

'I'm sure there's a great opportunity for some clever novelist who will never write about love at all.'

'But then it does come into life.'

'Yes, for a month or two, as I say. Think of the biographies of men and women; how many pages are devoted to their love affairs? Compare those books with novels which profess to be biographies, and you see how false such pictures are. Think of the very words "novel," "romance"—what do they mean but exaggeration of one bit of life?'

'That may be true. But why do people find the subject so interesting?'

'Because there is so little love in real life. That's the truth of it. Why do poor people care only for stories about the rich? The same principle.'

'How clever you are, Amy!'

'Am I? It's very nice to be told so. Perhaps I have some cleverness of a kind; but what use is it to me? My life is being wasted. I ought to have a place in the society of clever people. I was never meant to live quietly in the background. Oh, if I hadn't been in such a hurry, and so inexperienced!'

'Oh, I wanted to ask you,' said Edith, soon after this. 'Do you wish Albert to say anything about you—at the hospital?'

'There's no reason why he shouldn't.'

'You won't even write to say—?'

'I shall do nothing.'

Since the parting from her husband, there had proceeded in Amy a noticeable maturing of intellect. Probably the one thing was a consequence of the other. During that last year in the flat her mind was held captive by material cares, and this arrest of her natural development doubtless had much to do with the appearance of acerbity in a character which had displayed so much sweetness, so much womanly grace. Moreover, it was arrest at a critical point. When she fell in love with Edwin Reardon her mind had still to undergo the culture of circumstances; though a woman in years she had seen nothing of life but a few phases of artificial society, and her education had not progressed beyond the final schoolgirl stage. Submitting herself to Reardon's influence, she passed through what was a highly useful training of the intellect; but with the result that she became clearly conscious of the divergence between herself and her husband. In endeavouring to imbue her with his own literary tastes, Reardon instructed Amy as to the natural tendencies of her mind, which till then she had not clearly understood. When she ceased to read with the eyes of passion, most of the things which were Reardon's supreme interests lost their value for her. A sound intelligence enabled her to think and feel in many directions, but the special line of her growth lay apart from that in which the novelist and classical scholar had directed her.

When she found herself alone and independent, her mind acted like a spring when pressure is removed. After a few weeks of desoeuvrement she obeyed the impulse to occupy herself with a kind of reading alien to Reardon's sympathies. The solid periodicals attracted her, and especially those articles which dealt with themes of social science. Anything that savoured of newness and boldness in philosophic thought had a charm for her palate. She read a good deal of that kind of literature which may be defined as specialism popularised; writing which addresses itself to educated, but not strictly studious, persons, and which forms the reservoir of conversation for society above the sphere of turf and west-endism. Thus, for instance, though she could not undertake the volumes of Herbert Spencer, she was intelligently acquainted with the tenor of their contents; and though she had never opened one of Darwin's books, her knowledge of his main theories and illustrations was respectable. She was becoming a typical woman of the new time, the woman who has developed concurrently with journalistic enterprise.

Not many days after that conversation with Edith Carter, she had occasion to visit Mudie's, for the new number of some periodical which contained an appetising title. As it was a sunny and warm day she walked to New Oxford Street from the nearest Metropolitan station. Whilst waiting at the library counter, she heard a familiar voice in her proximity; it was that of Jasper Milvain, who stood talking with a middle-aged lady. As Amy turned to look at him his eye met hers; clearly he had been aware of her. The review she desired was handed to her; she moved aside, and turned over the pages. Then Milvain walked up.

He was armed cap-a-pie in the fashions of suave society; no Bohemianism of garb or person, for Jasper knew he could not afford that kind of economy. On her part, Amy was much better dressed than usual, a costume suited to her position of bereaved heiress.

'What a time since we met!' said Jasper, taking her delicately gloved hand and looking into her face with his most effective smile.

'And why?' asked Amy.

'Indeed, I hardly know. I hope Mrs Yule is well?'

'Quite, thank you.'

It seemed as if he would draw back to let her pass, and so make an end of the colloquy. But Amy, though she moved forward, added a remark:

'I don't see your name in any of this month's magazines.'

'I have nothing signed this month. A short review in The Current, that's all.'

'But I suppose you write as much as ever?'

'Yes; but chiefly in weekly papers just now. You don't see the Will-o'-the-Wisp?'

'Oh yes. And I think I can generally recognise your hand.'

They issued from the library.

'Which way are you going?' Jasper inquired, with something more of the old freedom.

'I walked from Gower Street station, and I think, as it's so fine, I shall walk back again.'

He accompanied her. They turned up Museum Street, and Amy, after a short silence, made inquiry concerning his sisters.

'I am sorry I saw them only once, but no doubt you thought it better to let the acquaintance end there.'

'I really didn't think of it in that way at all,' Jasper replied.'We naturally understood it so, when you even ceased to call, yourself.'

'But don't you feel that there would have been a good deal of awkwardness in my coming to Mrs Yule's?'

'Seeing that you looked at things from my husband's point of view?'

'Oh, that's a mistake! I have only seen your husband once since he went to Islington.'

Amy gave him a look of surprise.

'You are not on friendly terms with him?'

'Well, we have drifted apart. For some reason he seemed to think that my companionship was not very profitable. So it was better, on the whole, that I should see neither you nor him.'

Amy was wondering whether he had heard of her legacy. He might have been informed by a Wattleborough correspondent, even if no one in London had told him.

'Do your sisters keep up their friendship with my cousin Marian?' she asked, quitting the previous difficult topic.

'Oh yes!' He smiled. 'They see a great deal of each other.'

'Then of course you have heard of my uncle's death?'

'Yes. I hope all your difficulties are now at an end.'

Amy delayed a moment, then said: 'I hope so,' without any emphasis.

'Do you think of spending this winter abroad?'

It was the nearest he could come to a question concerning the future of Amy and her husband.

'Everything is still quite uncertain. But tell me something about our old acquaintances. How does Mr Biffen get on?'

'I scarcely ever see him, but I think he pegs away at an interminable novel, which no one will publish when it's done. Whelpdale I meet occasionally.'

He talked of the latter's projects and achievements in a lively strain.

'Your own prospects continue to brighten, no doubt,' said Amy.

'I really think they do. Things go fairly well. And I have lately received a promise of very valuable help.'

'From whom?'

'A relative of yours.'

Amy turned to interrogate him with a look.

'A relative? You mean—?'

'Yes; Marian.'

They were passing Bedford Square. Amy glanced at the trees, now almost bare of foliage; then her eyes met Jasper's, and she smiled significantly.

'I should have thought your aim would have been far more ambitious,' she said, with distinct utterance.

'Marian and I have been engaged for some time—practically.'

'Indeed? I remember now how you once spoke of her. And you will be married soon?'

'Probably before the end of the year. I see that you are criticising my motives. I am quite prepared for that in everyone who knows me and the circumstances. But you must remember that I couldn't foresee anything of this kind. It enables us to marry sooner, that's all.'

'I am sure your motives are unassailable,' replied Amy, still with a smile. 'I imagined that you wouldn't marry for years, and then some distinguished person. This throws new light upon your character.'

'You thought me so desperately scheming and cold-blooded?'

'Oh dear no! But—well, to be sure, I can't say that I know Marian. I haven't seen her for years and years. She may be admirably suited to you.'

'Depend upon it, I think so.'

'She's likely to shine in society? She is a brilliant girl, full of tact and insight?'

'Scarcely all that, perhaps.'

He looked dubiously at his companion.

'Then you have abandoned your old ambitions?' Amy pursued.

'Not a bit of it. I am on the way to achieve them.'

'And Marian is the ideal wife to assist you?'

'From one point of view, yes. Pray, why all this ironic questioning?'

'Not ironic at all.'

'It sounded very much like it, and I know from of old that you have a tendency that way.'

'The news surprised me a little, I confess. But I see that I am in danger of offending you.'

'Let us wait another five years, and then I will ask your opinion as to the success of my marriage. I don't take a step of this kind without maturely considering it. Have I made many blunders as yet?'

'As yet, not that I know of.'

'Do I impress you as one likely to commit follies?'

'I had rather wait a little before answering that.'

'That is to say, you prefer to prophesy after the event. Very well, we shall see.'

In the length of Gower Street they talked of several other things less personal. By degrees the tone of their conversation had become what it was used to be, now and then almost confidential.

'You are still at the same lodgings?' asked Amy, as they drew near to the railway station.

'I moved yesterday, so that the girls and I could be under the same roof—until the next change.'

'You will let us know when that takes place?'

He promised, and with exchange of smiles which were something like a challenge they took leave of each other.



CHAPTER XXVII. THE LONELY MAN

A touch of congestion in the right lung was a warning to Reardon that his half-year of insufficient food and general waste of strength would make the coming winter a hard time for him, worse probably than the last. Biffen, responding in person to the summons, found him in bed, waited upon by a gaunt, dry, sententious woman of sixty—not the landlady, but a lodger who was glad to earn one meal a day by any means that offered.

'It wouldn't be very nice to die here, would it?' said the sufferer, with a laugh which was cut short by a cough. 'One would like a comfortable room, at least. Why, I don't know. I dreamt last night that I was in a ship that had struck something and was going down; and it wasn't the thought of death that most disturbed me, but a horror of being plunged in the icy water. In fact, I have had just the same feeling on shipboard. I remember waking up midway between Corfu and Brindisi, on that shaky tub of a Greek boat; we were rolling a good deal, and I heard a sort of alarmed rush and shouting up on deck. It was so warm and comfortable in the berth, and I thought with intolerable horror of the possibility of sousing into the black depths.'

'Don't talk, my boy,' advised Biffen. 'Let me read you the new chapter of "Mr Bailey." It may induce a refreshing slumber.'

Reardon was away from his duties for a week; he returned to them with a feeling of extreme shakiness, an indisposition to exert himself, and a complete disregard of the course that events were taking. It was fortunate that he had kept aside that small store of money designed for emergencies; he was able to draw on it now to pay his doctor, and provide himself with better nourishment than usual. He purchased new boots, too, and some articles of warm clothing of which he stood in need—an alarming outlay.

A change had come over him; he was no longer rendered miserable by thoughts of Amy—seldom, indeed, turned his mind to her at all. His secretaryship at Croydon was a haven within view; the income of seventy-five pounds (the other half to go to his wife) would support him luxuriously, and for anything beyond that he seemed to care little. Next Sunday he was to go over to Croydon and see the institution.

One evening of calm weather he made his way to Clipstone Street and greeted his friend with more show of light-heartedness than he had been capable of for at least two years.

'I have been as nearly as possible a happy man all to-day,' he said, when his pipe was well lit. 'Partly the sunshine, I suppose. There's no saying if the mood will last, but if it does all is well with me. I regret nothing and wish for nothing.'

'A morbid state of mind,' was Biffen's opinion.

'No doubt of that, but I am content to be indebted to morbidness. One must have a rest from misery somehow. Another kind of man would have taken to drinking; that has tempted me now and then, I assure you. But I couldn't afford it. Did you ever feel tempted to drink merely for the sake of forgetting trouble?'

'Often enough. I have done it. I have deliberately spent a certain proportion of the money that ought to have gone for food in the cheapest kind of strong liquor.'

'Ha! that's interesting. But it never got the force of a habit you had to break?'

'No. Partly, I dare say, because I had the warning of poor Sykes before my eyes.'

'You never see that poor fellow?'

'Never. He must be dead, I think. He would die either in the hospital or the workhouse.'

'Well,' said Reardon, musing cheerfully, 'I shall never become a drunkard; I haven't that diathesis, to use your expression. Doesn't it strike you that you and I are very respectable persons? We really have no vices. Put us on a social pedestal, and we should be shining lights of morality. I sometimes wonder at our inoffensiveness. Why don't we run amuck against law and order? Why, at the least, don't we become savage revolutionists, and harangue in Regent's Park of a Sunday?'

'Because we are passive beings, and were meant to enjoy life very quietly. As we can't enjoy, we just suffer quietly, that's all. By-the-bye, I want to talk about a difficulty in one of the Fragments of Euripides. Did you ever go through the Fragments?'

This made a diversion for half an hour. Then Reardon returned to his former line of thought.

'As I was entering patients yesterday, there came up to the table a tall, good-looking, very quiet girl, poorly dressed, but as neat as could be. She gave me her name, then I asked "Occupation?" She said at once, "I'm unfortunate, sir." I couldn't help looking up at her in surprise; I had taken it for granted she was a dressmaker or something of the kind. And, do you know, I never felt so strong an impulse to shake hands, to show sympathy, and even respect, in some way. I should have liked to say, "Why, I am unfortunate, too!" such a good, patient face she had.'

'I distrust such appearances,' said Biffen in his quality of realist.

'Well, so do I, as a rule. But in this case they were convincing. And there was no need whatever for her to make such a declaration; she might just as well have said anything else; it's the merest form. I shall always hear her voice saying, "I'm unfortunate, sir." She made me feel what a mistake it was for me to marry such a girl as Amy. I ought to have looked about for some simple, kind-hearted work-girl; that was the kind of wife indicated for me by circumstances. If I had earned a hundred a year she would have thought we were well-to-do. I should have been an authority to her on everything under the sun—and above it. No ambition would have unsettled her. We should have lived in a couple of poor rooms somewhere, and—we should have loved each other.'

'What a shameless idealist you are!' said Biffen, shaking his head. 'Let me sketch the true issue of such a marriage. To begin with, the girl would have married you in firm persuasion that you were a "gentleman" in temporary difficulties, and that before long you would have plenty of money to dispose of. Disappointed in this hope, she would have grown sharp-tempered, querulous, selfish. All your endeavours to make her understand you would only have resulted in widening the impassable gulf. She would have misconstrued your every sentence, found food for suspicion in every harmless joke, tormented you with the vulgarest forms of jealousy. The effect upon your nature would have been degrading. In the end, you must have abandoned every effort to raise her to your own level, and either have sunk to hers or made a rupture. Who doesn't know the story of such attempts? I myself ten years ago, was on the point of committing such a folly, but, Heaven be praised! an accident saved me.'

'You never told me that story.'

'And don't care to now. I prefer to forget it.'

'Well, you can judge for yourself but not for me. Of course I might have chosen the wrong girl, but I am supposing that I had been fortunate. In any case there would have been a much better chance than in the marriage that I made.'

'Your marriage was sensible enough, and a few years hence you will be a happy man again.'

'You seriously think Amy will come back to me?'

'Of course I do.'

'Upon my word, I don't know that I desire it.'

'Because you are in a strangely unhealthy state.'

'I rather think I regard the matter more sanely than ever yet. I am quite free from sexual bias. I can see that Amy was not my fit intellectual companion, and all emotion at the thought of her has gone from me. The word "love" is a weariness to me. If only our idiotic laws permitted us to break the legal bond, how glad both of us would be!'

'You are depressed and anaemic. Get yourself in flesh, and view things like a man of this world.'

'But don't you think it the best thing that can happen to a man if he outgrows passion?'

'In certain circumstances, no doubt.'

'In all and any. The best moments of life are those when we contemplate beauty in the purely artistic spirit—objectively. I have had such moments in Greece and Italy; times when I was a free spirit, utterly remote from the temptations and harassings of sexual emotion. What we call love is mere turmoil. Who wouldn't release himself from it for ever, if the possibility offered?'