nphilosophic. I don't think I should be unhappy in the workhouse.
I should have a certain satisfaction in the thought that I had forced
society to support me. And then the absolute freedom from care! Why,
it's very much the same as being a man of independent fortune.'

It was about a week after this, midway in November, that there at length
came to Manville Street a letter addressed in Amy's hand. It arrived
at three one afternoon; Reardon heard the postman, but he had ceased to
rush out on every such occasion, and to-day he was feeling ill. Lying
upon the bed, he had just raised his head wearily when he became aware
that someone was mounting to his room. He sprang up, his face and neck
flushing.

This time Amy began 'Dear Edwin'; the sight of those words made his
brain swim.

'You must, of course, have heard [she wrote] that my uncle John has left
me ten thousand pounds. It has not yet come into my possession, and
I had decided that I would not write to you till that happened, but
perhaps you may altogether misunderstand my silence.

'If this money had come to me when you were struggling so hard to earn
a living for us, we should never have spoken the words and thought the
thoughts which now make it so difficult for me to write to you. What I
wish to say is that, although the property is legally my own, I quite
recognise that you have a right to share in it. Since we have lived
apart you have sent me far more than you could really afford, believing
it your duty to do so; now that things are so different I wish you, as
well as myself, to benefit by the change.

'I said at our last meeting that I should be quite prepared to return to
you if you took that position at Croydon. There is now no need for you
to pursue a kind of work for which you are quite unfitted, and I repeat
that I am willing to live with you as before. If you will tell me where
you would like to make a new home I shall gladly agree. I do not think
you would care to leave London permanently, and certainly I should not.

'Please to let me hear from you as soon as possible. In writing like
this I feel that I have done what you expressed a wish that I should
do. I have asked you to put an end to our separation, and I trust that I
have not asked in vain.

'Yours always,

'AMY REARDON.'

The letter fell from his hand. It was such a letter as he might have
expected, but the beginning misled him, and as his agitation throbbed
itself away he suffered a