ot, besides, a moral shaking from which he could not recover. He
sat and bit his little-finger nail to the quick. Was he, he savagely
asked himself, going to linger on until the little he had managed to
save was snatched from him?

He dashed off a letter to John, asking his brother-in-law to recommend
a reliable broker. And this done, he got up to look for Mary,
determined to come to grips with her at last.

Chapter XI

How to begin, how reduce to a few plain words his subtle tangle of
thought and feeling, was the problem.

He did not find his wife on her usual seat in the arbour. In searching
for her, upstairs and down, he came to a rapid decision. He would lay
chief stress on his poor state of health.

"I feel I'm killing myself. I can't go on."

"But Richard dear!" ejaculated Mary, and paused in her sewing, her
needle uplifted, a bead balanced on its tip. Richard had run her to
earth in the spare bedroom, to which at this time she often repaired.
For he objected to the piece of work she had on hand--that of covering
yards of black cashmere with minute jet beads--vowing that she would
ruin her eyesight over it. So, having set her heart on a fashionable
polonaise, she was careful to keep out of his way.

"I'm not a young man any longer, wife. When one's past forty ..."

"Poor mother used to say forty-five was a man's prime of life."

"Not for me. And not here in this God-forsaken hole!"

"Oh dear me! I do wonder why you have such a down on Ballarat. I'm sure
there must be many worse places in the world to live in", and lowering
her needle, Mary brought the bead to its appointed spot. "Of course you
have a lot to do, I know, and being such a poor sleeper doesn't improve
matters." But she was considering her pattern sideways as she spoke,
thinking more of it than of what she said. Every one had to work hard
out here; compared with some she could name, Richard's job of driving
round in a springy buggy seemed ease itself. "Besides I told you at the
time you were wrong not to take a holiday in winter, when you had the
chance. You need a thorough change every year to set you up. You came
back from the last as fresh as a daisy."

"The only change that will benefit me is one for good and all," said
Mahony with extreme gloom. He had thrown up the bed-curtain and
stretched himself on the bed, where he lay with his hands clasped under
his neck.

Tutored by experience, Mary did not contradict him.

"And it's