their attention to the
parcel he had left. He wrote it, and closed with a request that they
would let him hear as soon as they conveniently could. As he was
putting on his hat and coat to go out and post the letter Amy opened the
dining-room door.

'You're going out?'

'Yes.'

'Shall you be long?'

'I think not.'

He was away only a few minutes. On returning he went first of all into
the study, but the thought of Amy alone in the other room would not let
him rest. He looked in and saw that she was sitting without a fire.

'You can't stay here in the cold, Amy.'

'I'm afraid I must get used to it,' she replied, affecting to be closely
engaged upon some sewing.

That strength of character which it had always delighted him to read in
her features was become an ominous hardness. He felt his heart sink as
he looked at her.

'Is poverty going to have the usual result in our case?' he asked,
drawing nearer.

'I never pretended that I could be indifferent to it.'

'Still, don't you care to try and resist it?'

She gave no answer. As usual in conversation with an aggrieved woman it
was necessary to go back from the general to the particular.

'I'm afraid,' he said, 'that the Carters already knew pretty well how
things were going with us.'

'That's a very different thing. But when it comes to asking them for
money--'

'I'm very sorry. I would rather have done anything if I had known how it
would annoy you.'

'If we have to wait a month, five pounds will be very little use to us.'

She detailed all manner of expenses that had to be met--outlay there was
no possibility of avoiding so long as their life was maintained on its
present basis.

'However, you needn't trouble any more about it. I'll see to it. Now you
are free from your book try to rest.'

'Come and sit by the fire. There's small chance of rest for me if we are
thinking unkindly of each other.'

A doleful Christmas. Week after week went by and Reardon knew that Amy
must have exhausted the money he had given her. But she made no more
demands upon him, and necessaries were paid for in the usual way. He
suffered from a sense of humiliation; sometimes he found it difficult to
look in his wife's face.

When the publishers' letter came it contained an offer of seventy-five
pounds for the copyright of 'Margaret Home,' twenty-five more to be
paid if the sale in three-volume form should reach a certain number of
copies.

Here was failure put into un