ause they are so horrid and cruel!"

"Well, it is no use talking like that. Making a man's house so
unseemly at this time o' night! Eliza will hear if we don't mind."
(He meant the servant.) "Just think if either of the parsons in this
town was to see us now! I hate such eccentricities, Sue. There's no
order or regularity in your sentiments! ... But I won't intrude on
you further; only I would advise you not to shut the door too tight,
or I shall find you stifled to-morrow."

On rising the next morning he immediately looked into the closet, but
Sue had already gone downstairs. There was a little nest where she
had lain, and spiders' webs hung overhead. "What must a woman's
aversion be when it is stronger than her fear of spiders!" he said
bitterly.

He found her sitting at the breakfast-table, and the meal began
almost in silence, the burghers walking past upon the pavement--or
rather roadway, pavements being scarce here--which was two or three
feet above the level of the parlour floor. They nodded down to the
happy couple their morning greetings, as they went on.

"Richard," she said all at once; "would you mind my living away from
you?"

"Away from me? Why, that's what you were doing when I married you.
What then was the meaning of marrying at all?"

"You wouldn't like me any the better for telling you."

"I don't object to know."

"Because I thought I could do nothing else. You had got my promise a
long time before that, remember. Then, as time went on, I regretted
I had promised you, and was trying to see an honourable way to break
it off. But as I couldn't I became rather reckless and careless
about the conventions. Then you know what scandals were spread, and
how I was turned out of the training school you had taken such time
and trouble to prepare me for and get me into; and this frightened
me and it seemed then that the one thing I could do would be to let
the engagement stand. Of course I, of all people, ought not to have
cared what was said, for it was just what I fancied I never did care
for. But I was a coward--as so many women are--and my theoretic
unconventionality broke down. If that had not entered into the case
it would have been better to have hurt your feelings once for all
then, than to marry you and hurt them all my life after... And you
were so generous in never giving credit for a moment to the rumour."

"I am bound in honesty to tell you that I weighed its probability