was not to the true welfare of Morris when through lack of
further ambition, or rather of the sting of that spur of necessity which
drives most men on, he rested upon his oars, and in practice abandoned
his labours, drifting down the tide. No man of high intelligence and
acquisitive brain can toil arduously for a period of years and suddenly
cease from troubling to find himself, as he expects, at rest. For then
into the swept and garnished chambers of that empty mind enter seven
or more blue devils. Depression marks him for its own; melancholy
forebodings haunt him; remorse for past misdeeds long repented of is
his daily companion. With these Erinnyes, more felt perhaps than any of
them, comes the devastating sense that he is thwarting the best instinct
of his own nature and the divine command to labour while there is still
light, because the night draws on apace in which no man can labour.

Mary was fond of society, in which she liked to be accompanied by her
husband, so Morris, whose one great anxiety was to please his wife
and fall in with her every wish, went to a great many parties which he
hated. Mary liked change also, so it came about that three months in the
season were spent in London, where they had purchased a house in Green
Street that was much frequented by the Colonel, and another two, or
sometimes three, months at the villa on the Riviera, which Mary was very
fond of on account of its associations with her parents.

Also in the summer and shooting seasons, when they were at home, the old
Abbey was kept full of guests; for we may be sure that people so rich
and distinguished did not lack for friends, and Mary made the very best
of hostesses.

Thus it happened that except at the seasons when his wife retired under
the pressure of domestic occurrences, Morris found that he had but
little time left in which to be quiet; that his life in short was no
longer the life of a worker, but that of a commonplace country gentleman
of wealth and fashion.

Now it was Mary who had brought these things about, and by design; for
she was not a woman to act without reasons and an object. It is true
that she liked a gay and pleasant life, for gaiety and pleasure were
agreeable to her easy and somewhat indolent mind, also they gave her
opportunities of exercising her faculties of observation, which were
considerable.

But Mary was far fonder of her husband than of those and other vanities;
indeed, her affection for him sh