ity and nobility and capacity for
devotion--_could such a woman love a second time?_

The thirst to be loved, to be the object of an exquisite tenderness,
what man has not, consciously or unconsciously longed for that? What
woman has not had her dream of giving that and more, full measure,
running over?

To find favour in a woman's eyes a man need only do his stupid bungling
best. But it is doubtful whether Wentworth had a best of any kind in him
to do.

At twenty-five he would not have risked as much for love as even
cautious men of robuster fibre will still ruefully but determinedly risk
in the forties. And now at forty he would risk almost nothing.

Where Michael was concerned Wentworth's love had reached the strength
where it could act, indefatigably, if need be. Michael had been so far
the only creature who could move his brother's egotism beyond the
refinements of bedridden sentiment.

It was as well for Fay that she did not realise, and absolutely
essential for Wentworth that he did not realise either, that in spite of
an undoubted natural attraction towards her he would have seen no more
of her unless she had come within easy reach.

A common trouble had drawn them towards each other. A common interest, a
common joy or sorrow, a house within easy distance--these are some of
the match makers between the invalids of life, who are not strong enough
to want anything very much, or to work for what they want. For them
favourable circumstance is everything.

Wentworth could ride four and a half miles down a picturesque lane to
see Fay. But he could not have taken a journey by rail.

A few years before Wentworth met Fay he had been tepidly interested in
the youthful sister of one of his college friends and contemporaries, an
Oxford Don at whose house he stayed every year. The sister kept house
for her brother. It was the usual easy commonplace combination of
circumstances that has towed lazy men into marriage since the
institution was first formed. He saw her without any effort on his part.
He arrived at a kind of knowledge of her. He found her to be what he
liked. She was sympathetic, refined, shy, cultivated, unselfish, and of
a wild rose prettiness. After a time he kept up, mainly on her account,
a regular intercourse with the brother, who was becoming rather prosy,
as was Wentworth himself. Presently the brother married, and the sister
ceased to live with him.

Wentworth's visits to Oxford gradually cease