spouse: but the excellent lady never suspected the true cause of that
habit of sadness which had grown upon her husband during the last few
years, a melancholy which anticipated his decline in health. John Jacks
had made the mistake natural to such a man; wedding at nearly sixty a
girl of much less than half his age, he found, of course, that his wife
had nothing to give him but duty and respect, and before long he
bitterly reproached himself with the sacrifice of which he was guilty.

"Soar on thy manhood clear of those
Whose toothless Winter claws at May,
And take her as the vein of rose
Athwart an evening grey."

These lines met his eye one day in a new volume which bore the name of
George Meredith, and they touched him nearly; the poem they closed gave
utterance to the manful resignation of one who has passed the age of
love, yet is tempted by love's sweetness, and John Jacks took to heart
the reproach it seemed to level at himself. Putting aside the point of
years, he had not chosen with any discretion; he married a handsome
face, a graceful figure, just as any raw boy might have done. His wife,
he suspected, was not the woman to suffer greatly in her false
position; she had very temperate blood, and a thoroughly English
devotion to the proprieties; none the less he had done her wrong, for
she belonged to a gentle family in mediocre circumstances, and his
prospective "M.P.," his solid wealth, were sore temptations to put
before such a girl. He had known--yes, he assuredly knew--that it was
nothing but a socially sanctioned purchase. Beauty should have become
to him but the "vein of rose," to be regarded with gentle admiration
and with reverence, from afar. He yielded to an unworthy temptation,
and, being a man of unusual sensitiveness, very soon paid the penalty
in self-contempt.

He could not love his wife; he could scarce honour her--for she too
must consciously have sinned against the highest law. Her
irreproachable behaviour only saddened him. Now that he found himself
under sentence of death, his solace was the thought that his widow
would still be young enough to redeem her error--if she were capable of
redeeming it.

Alone with his guest in the large dining-room, and compelled to make
only pretence of eating and drinking, he talked of many things with the
old spontaneity, the accustomed liberal kindliness, and dropped at
length upon the subject Piers was waiting for.

"You know, I