gods were so
gracious? I, without warning, flung from sheltered comfort on to the
bare road side, where I must either toil or beg?' The thing seemed
unintelligible. He had never imagined such ruin of his hopes.

For the first time, he turned anxious thoughts upon the money to which
his wife was--would be--might be--entitled. He computed the chances of
success in the deception he and she were practising, and knew with
shame that he must henceforth be party to a vulgar fraud. Could Nancy
be trusted to carry through this elaborate imposition--difficult for the
strongest-minded woman? Was it not a certainty that some negligence, or
some accident, must disclose her secret? Then had he a wife and child
upon his hands, to support even as common men support wife and child, by
incessant labour. The prospect chilled him.

If he went to the West Indies, his absence would heighten the
probability of Nancy's detection. Yet he desired to escape from her.
Not to abandon her; of that thought he was incapable; but to escape
the duty--repulsive to his imagination--of encouraging her through the
various stages of their fraud. From the other side of the Atlantic he
would write affectionate, consolatory letters; face to face with her,
could he support the show of tenderness, go through an endless series of
emotional interviews, always reminding himself that the end in view was
hard cash? Not for love's sake; he loved her less than before she proved
herself his wife in earnest. Veritable love--no man knew better--would
have impelled him to save himself and her from a degrading position.

Was he committing himself to a criminality which the law would visit?
Hardly that--until he entered into possession of money fraudulently
obtained.

In miserable night-watchings, he fell to the most sordid calculations.
Supposing their plot revealed, would Nancy in fact be left without
resources? Surely not,--with her brother, her aunt, her lifelong friends
the Barmbys, to take thought for her. She could not suffer extremities.
And upon this he blushed relief.

Better to make up his mind that the secret must inevitably out. For the
moment, Nancy believed she had resigned herself to his departure, and
that she had strength to go through with the long ordeal. But a woman in
her situation cannot be depended upon to pursue a consistent course. It
is Nature's ordinance that motherhood shall be attained through phases
of mental disturbance, which leave the su