e to Italy
and Greece? How can that ever be if you fail utterly in literature? How
can you ever hope to earn more than bare sustenance at any other kind of
work?'

He all but lost consciousness of her words in gazing at the face she
held up to his.

'You love me? Say again that you love me!'

'Dear, I love you with all my heart. But I am so afraid of the future.
I can't bear poverty; I have found that I can't bear it. And I dread to
think of your becoming only an ordinary man--'

Reardon laughed.

'But I am NOT "only an ordinary man," Amy! If I never write another
line, that won't undo what I have done. It's little enough, to be sure;
but you know what I am. Do you only love the author in me? Don't you
think of me apart from all that I may do or not do? If I had to earn my
living as a clerk, would that make me a clerk in soul?'

'You shall not fall to that! It would be too bitter a shame to lose all
you have gained in these long years of work. Let me plan for you; do as
I wish. You are to be what we hoped from the first. Take all the summer
months. How long will it be before you can finish this short book?'

'A week or two.'

'Then finish it, and see what you can get for it. And try at once
to find a tenant to take this place off our hands; that would be
twenty-five pounds saved for the rest of the year. You could live on so
little by yourself, couldn't you?'

'Oh, on ten shillings a week, if need be.'

'But not to starve yourself, you know. Don't you feel that my plan is a
good one? When I came to you to-night I meant to speak of this, but you
were so cruel--'

'Forgive me, dearest love! I was half a madman. You have been so cold to
me for a long time.'

'I have been distracted. It was as if we were drawing nearer and nearer
to the edge of a cataract.'

'Have you spoken to your mother about this?' he asked uneasily.

'No--not exactly this. But I know she will help us in this way.'

He had seated himself and was holding her in his arms, his face laid
against hers.

'I shall dread to part from you, Amy. That's such a dangerous thing to
do. It may mean that we are never to live as husband and wife again.'

'But how could it? It's just to prevent that danger. If we go on here
till we have no money--what's before us then? Wretched lodgings at the
best. And I am afraid to think of that. I can't trust myself if that
should come to pass.'

'What do you mean?' he asked anxiously.

'I hate poverty so. I