s. Edwin was one of those who
learn quickly, by the acceptance of facts. And he now learnt that
profound lesson that an individual must be taken or left in entirety,
and that you cannot change an object merely because you love it. Indeed
he saw in her phrase, "You must take me as I am," the accents of
original and fundamental wisdom, springing from the very roots of life.
And he submitted. At intervals he would say resentfully: "But surely
she could find five minutes each day to drop me a line! What's five
minutes?" But he submitted. Submission was made easier when he
co-ordinated with Hilda's idiosyncrasy the fact that Maggie, his own
unromantic sister, could never begin to write a letter with less than
from twelve to twenty-four hours' bracing of herself to the task.
Maggie would be saying and saying: "I really must write that letter...
Dear me! I haven't written that letter yet."

His whole life seemed to be lived in the post, and postmen were the
angels of the creative spirit. His unhappiness increased with the
deepening of the impression that the loved creature was treating him
with cruelty. Time dragged. At length he had been engaged a fortnight.
On Thursday a letter should have come. It came not. Nor on Friday nor
Saturday. On Sunday it must come. But it did not come on Sunday. He
determined to telegraph to her on the Monday morning. His loyalty,
though valorous, needed aid against all those pricking battalions of
ephemeral doubts. On the Sunday evening he suddenly had the idea of
strengthening himself by a process that resembled boat-burning. He
would speak to his father. His father's mentality was the core of a
difficulty that troubled him exceedingly, and he took it into his head
to attack the difficulty at once, on the spot.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TWO.

For years past Darius Clayhanger had not gone to chapel on Sunday
evening. In the morning he still went fairly regularly, but in the
evening he would now sit in the drawing-room, generally alone, to read.
On weekdays he never used the drawing-room, where indeed there was
seldom a fire. He had been accustomed to only one living-room, and save
on Sunday, when he cared to bend the major part of his mind to the
matter, he scorned to complicate existence by utilising all the
resources of the house which he had built. His children might do so;
but not he. He was proud enough to see to it