me such lying doggerel. We must educate them out of
that, and, meanwhile, push forward the international association
of laborers diligently. I am at present occupied in propagating its
principles. Capitalism, organized for repressive purposes under pretext
of governing the nation, would very soon stop the association if it
understood our aim, but it thinks that we are engaged in gunpowder plots
and conspiracies to assassinate crowned heads; and so, whilst the police
are blundering in search of evidence of these, our real work goes on
unmolested. Whether I am really advancing the cause is more than I can
say. I use heaps of postage stamps, pay the expenses of many indifferent
lecturers, defray the cost of printing reams of pamphlets and hand-bills
which hail the laborer flatteringly as the salt of the earth, write and
edit a little socialist journal, and do what lies in my power generally.
I had rather spend my ill-gotten wealth in this way than upon an
expensive house and a retinue of servants. And I prefer my corduroys and
my two-roomed chalet here to our pretty little house, and your pretty
little ways, and my pretty little neglect of the work that my heart is
set upon. Some day, perhaps, I will take a holiday; and then we shall
have a new honeymoon."

For a moment Henrietta seemed about to cry. Suddenly she exclaimed
with enthusiasm: "I will stay with you, Sidney. I will share your work,
whatever it may be. I will dress as a dairymaid, and have a little pail
to carry milk in. The world is nothing to me except when you are with
me; and I should love to live here and sketch from nature."

He blenched, and partially rose, unable to conceal his dismay. She,
resolved not to be cast off, seized him and clung to him. This was the
movement that excited the derision of Wickens's boy in the adjacent
gravel pit. Trefusis was glad of the interruption; and, when he gave
the boy twopence and bade him begone, half hoped that he would insist
on remaining. But though an obdurate boy on most occasions, he proved
complaisant on this, and withdrew to the high road, where he made over
one of his pennies to a phantom gambler, and tossed with him until
recalled from his dual state by the appearance of Fairholme's party.

In the meantime, Henrietta urgently returned to her proposition.

"We should be so happy," she said. "I would housekeep for you, and you
could work as much as you pleased. Our life would be a long idyll."

"My love," h