f the
volumes he sent her! She thought it a kindness to write to him so
appreciatively, to exaggerate her approval. The poor fellow was so
lonely. Yes, but his loneliness only became intolerable when a beautiful
woman had smiled upon him, and so forced him to dream perpetually of
that supreme joy of life which to him was forbidden.

It was a fatal day, that on which Amy put herself under his guidance
to visit Reardon's poor room at Islington. In the old times, Harold had
been wont to regard his friend's wife as the perfect woman; seldom in
his life had he enjoyed female society, and when he first met Amy it
was years since he had spoken with any woman above the rank of a
lodging-house keeper or a needle-plier. Her beauty seemed to him of a
very high order, and her mental endowments filled him with an exquisite
delight, not to be appreciated by men who have never been in his
position. When the rupture came between Amy and her husband, Harold
could not believe that she was in any way to blame; held to Reardon by
strong friendship, he yet accused him of injustice to Amy. And what
he saw of her at Brighton confirmed him in this judgment. When he
accompanied her to Manville Street, he allowed her, of course, to remain
alone in the room where Reardon had lived; but Amy presently summoned
him, and asked him questions. Every tear she shed watered a growth of
passionate tenderness in the solitary man's heart. Parting from her at
length, he went to hide his face in darkness and think of her--think of
her.

A fatal day. There was an end of all his peace, all his capacity
for labour, his patient endurance of penury. Once, when he was about
three-and-twenty, he had been in love with a girl of gentle nature and
fair intelligence; on account of his poverty, he could not even hope
that his love might be returned, and he went away to bear the misery as
best he might. Since then the life he had led precluded the forming of
such attachments; it would never have been possible for him to support
a wife of however humble origin. At intervals he felt the full weight
of his loneliness, but there were happily long periods during which his
Greek studies and his efforts in realistic fiction made him indifferent
to the curse laid upon him. But after that hour of intimate speech with
Amy, he never again knew rest of mind or heart.

Accepting what Reardon had bequeathed to him, he removed the books and
furniture to a room in that part of the town