disposal; as soon as he had furnished it there was no longer
a reason for delaying his marriage. In appearance, that is to say;
inwardly there had been growing for some weeks reasons manifold. They
tormented him. For the first time in his life he had begun to sleep
indifferently; when he had resolutely put from his mind thought of Alice
and 'Arry, and seemed ready for repose, there crept out of less obvious
lurking-places subtle temptations and suggestions which fevered his
blood and only allured the more, the more they disquieted him. This
Sunday night was the worst he had yet known. When he left the Walthams,
he occupied himself for an hour or two in writing letters, resolutely
subduing his thoughts to the subjects of his correspondence. Then he
ate supper, and after that walked to the top of Stanbury Hill, hoping to
tire himself. But he returned as little prepared for sleep as he had set
out. Now he endeavoured to think of Emma Vine; by way of help, he
sat down and began a letter to her. But composition had never been so
difficult; he positively had nothing to say. Still he must think of her.
When he went up to town on Tuesday or Wednesday one of his first duties
would be to appoint a day for his marriage. And he felt that it would be
a duty harder to perform than any he had ever known. She seemed to have
drifted so far from him, or he from her. It was difficult even to see
her face in imagination; another face always came instead, and indeed
needed no summoning.

He rose next morning with a stern determination to marry Emma Vine in
less than a month from that date.

On Tuesday he went to London. A hansom put him down before the house
in Highbury about six o'clock. It was a semidetached villa, stuccoed,
bow-windowed, of two storeys, standing pleasantly on a wide road skirted
by similar dwellings, and with a row of acacias in front. He admitted
himself with a latch-key and walked at once into the front room; it was
vacant. He went to the dining-room and there found his mother at tea
with Alice and 'Arry.

Mrs. Mutimer and her younger son were in appearance very much what
they had been in their former state. The mother's dress was of better
material, but she was not otherwise outwardly changed. 'Arry was attired
nearly as when we saw him in a festive condition on the evening of
Easter Sunday; the elegance then reserved for high days and holidays
now distinguished him every evening when the guise of the workshop was