place? Artful fencing
would have stamped her of coarse nature. But coarseness she had never
betrayed; he had never judged her worse than intellectually shallow. Her
self-surrender might, then, indicate a trait worthy of admiration. Her
subsequent behaviour undeniably pleaded for respect. She acquainted
him with the circumstances of her home life, very modestly, perhaps
pathetically. He learnt that her father was not ill to do, heard of her
domestic and social troubles, that her mother had been long dead, things
weighing in her favour, to be sure.

If only she had loved him less!

It was all over; he was married. In acting honourably, it seemed
probable that he had spoilt his life. He must be prepared for anything.
Nancy said that she should not, could not, tell her father, yet awhile;
but that resolution was of doubtful stability. For his own part, he
thought it clearly advisable that the fact should not become known at
Champion Hill; but could he believe Nancy's assurance that Miss. Morgan
remained in the dark? Upon one catastrophe, others might naturally
follow.

Here, Saturday at noon, came a letter of Nancy's writing. A long letter,
and by no means a bad one; superior, in fact, to anything he thought
she could have written. It moved him somewhat, but would have moved him
more, had he not been legally bound to the writer. On Sunday she could
not come to see him; but on Monday, early in the afternoon--

Well, there were consolations. A wise man makes the best of the
inevitable.

CHAPTER 3

Since his return he had seen no one, and none of his friends knew where
he had been. A call from some stray Hodiernal would be very unseasonable
this Monday afternoon; but probably they were all enjoying their elegant
leisure in regions remote from town. As the hour of Nancy's arrival drew
near, he sat trying to compose himself--with indifferent success. At
one moment his thoughts found utterance, and he murmured in a strange,
bewildered tone--'My wife.' Astonishing words! He laughed at their
effect upon him, but unmirthfully. And his next murmur was--'The devil!'
A mere ejaculation, betokening his state of mind.

He reached several times for his pipe, and remembered when he had
touched it that the lips with which he greeted Nancy ought not to be
redolent of tobacco. In outward respect, at all events, he would not
fall short.

Just when his nervousness was becoming intolerable, there sounded a
knock. The knock he