, once married, he would have been far safer if he had confessed the
fact to his only true friend, since it must surely come to light some
time or other, but he had bred himself up in the habit of schoolboy
shuffling, hiding everything to the last moment, and he could not bear to
be cast off by the Charterises, be pitied and laughed at by his Oxford
friends, nor to risk Honor Charlecote's favour, perhaps her inheritance.
Return to Oxford the victim of an attachment to a village schoolmistress!
Better never return thither at all, as would be but too probably the
case! No! the secret must be kept till his first start in life should be
secure; and he talked to Edna of his future curacy, while she fed her
fancy with visions of lovely parsonages and 'clergymen's ladies' in a
world of pensive bliss, and after the honeymoon in Ireland, promised to
wait patiently, provided her mother might know all.

Owen had not realized the home to which he was obliged to resign his
wife, nor his mother-in-law's powers of tongue. There were real
difficulties in the way of his visiting her. It was the one
neighbourhood in London where his person might be known, and if he
avoided daylight, he became the object of espial to the disappointed
lodgers, who would have been delighted to identify the 'Mr. Brook' who
had monopolized the object of their admiration. These perils, the
various disagreeables, and especially Mrs. Murrell's complaints and
demands for money, had so much annoyed Owen, who felt himself the injured
party in the connection, that he had not only avoided the place, but
endeavoured to dismiss the whole humiliating affair from his mind, trying
to hinder himself from being harassed by letters, and when forced to
attend to the representations of the women, sending a few kind words and
promises, with such money as he could spare, always backed, however, by
threats of the consequences of a disclosure, which he vaguely intimated
would ruin his prospects for life.

Little did the thoughtless boy comprehend the cruelty of his neglect. In
the underground rooms of the City lodging-house, the voluntary prison of
the shame-faced, half-owned wife, the overwrought headache, incidental to
her former profession, made her its prey; nervous fever came on as the
suspense became more trying, and morbid excitement alternated with torpor
and depression. Medical advice was long deferred, and that which was at
last sought was not equal to her needs.