ar as possible, separate lives; Mrs.
Dagworthy spent the days with her mother and sister, Richard at the
mill, and the evenings were got through with as little friction as might
be between two people neither of whom could speak half a dozen words
without irritating or disgusting the other. The interesting feature of
the case was the unexpectedness of Dagworthy's choice. It evinced so
much more originality than one looked for in such a man. It was, indeed,
the outcome of ambitions which were not at all clear to their possessor.
Miss Hanmer had impressed him as no other woman had done, simply because
she had graces and accomplishments of a kind hitherto unknown to him;
Richard felt that for the first time in his life he was in familiar
intercourse with a 'lady.' Her refined modes of speech, her little
personal delicacies, her unconscious revelation of knowledge which he
deemed the result of deep study, even her pretty and harmless witticisms
at the expense of Dunfield dignitaries, touched his slumbering
imagination with singular force. Miss Hanmer, speedily observing her
power, made the most of it; she was six-and-twenty, and poverty rendered
her position desperate. Dagworthy at first amused her as a specimen of
the wealthy boor, but the evident delight he found in her society
constrained her to admit that the boor possessed the elements of good
taste. The courtship was of rapid progress, the interests at stake being
so simply defined on either side, and circumstances presenting no kind
of obstacle. The lady accepted him without hesitation, and triumphed in
her good fortune.

Dagworthy conceived that his end was gained; in reality it was the
beginning of his disillusion. It speedily became clear to him that he
did not really care for his wife, that he had been the victim of some
self-deception, which was all the more exasperating because difficult to
be explained. The danger of brutality on his part really lay in this
first discovery of his mistake; the presence of his father in the house
was a most fortunate circumstance; it necessitated self-control at a
time when it was hardest to maintain. Later, he was too much altered
from the elementary creature he had been to stand in danger of grossly
ill-using his wife. His marriage developed the man surprisingly; it made
him self-conscious in a degree he could not formerly have conceived. He
had fully believed that this woman was in love with him, and the belief
had flattered h