about. Tell me you will try to be as you used to be. Give me only that
hope, Amy; I will ask nothing except that, now.'

'I can't say anything except that I will come to Croydon if you wish
it.'

'And reproach me always because you have to live in such a place, away
from your friends, without a hope of the social success which was your
dearest ambition?'

Her practical denial that she loved him wrung this taunt from his
anguished heart. He repented the words as soon as they were spoken.

'What is the good?' exclaimed Amy in irritation, rising and moving away
from him. 'How can I pretend that I look forward to such a life with any
hope?'

He stood in mute misery, inwardly cursing himself and his fate.

'I have said I will come,' she continued, her voice shaken with nervous
tension. 'Ask me or not, as you please, when you are ready to go there.
I can't talk about it.'

'I shall not ask you,' he replied. 'I will have no woman slave dragging
out a weary life with me. Either you are my willing wife, or you are
nothing to me.'

'I am married to you, and that can't be undone. I repeat that I shan't
refuse to obey you. I shall say no more.'

She moved to a distance, and there seated herself, half turned from him.

'I shall never ask you to come,' said Reardon, breaking a short silence.
'If our married life is ever to begin again it must be of your seeking.
Come to me of your own will, and I shall never reject you. But I will
die in utter loneliness rather than ask you again.'

He lingered a few moments, watching her; she did not move. Then he took
his hat, went in silence from the room, and left the house.

It rained harder than before. As no trains were running at this hour,
he walked in the direction where he would be likely to meet with an
omnibus. But it was a long time before one passed which was any use to
him. When he reached home he was in cheerless plight enough; to make
things pleasanter, one of his boots had let in water abundantly.

'The first sore throat of the season, no doubt,' he muttered to himself.

Nor was he disappointed. By Tuesday the cold had firm grip of him. A
day or two of influenza or sore throat always made him so weak that with
difficulty he supported the least physical exertion; but at present he
must go to his work at the hospital. Why stay at home? To what purpose
spare himself? It was not as if life had any promise for him. He was
a machine for earning so much money a week, and