s fault that
he hadn't gone. He felt a dull anger against her as against a woman
who had wrecked his chance.

He had a chance of going now if he cared to take it.

He had had a letter that morning from Dr. Harker asking if he had
meant what he had said a year ago, and if he'd care to exchange his
Rathdale practice for his old practice in Leeds. Harker's wife was
threatened with lung trouble, and they would have to live in the
country somewhere, and Harker himself wouldn't be sorry for the
exchange. His present practice was worth twice what it had been ten
years ago and it was growing. There were all sorts of interesting
things to be done in Leeds by a man of Rowcliffe's keenness and
energy.

"Do you know, Steven, you're getting quite stout?"

"I do know," he said almost with bitterness.

"I don't mean horridly stout, dear, just nicely and comfortably
stout."

"I'm _too_ comfortable," he said. "I don't do enough work to keep me
fit."

"Is that what's bothering you?"

He frowned. It was Harker's letter that was bothering him. He said so.

For one instant Mary looked impatient.

"I thought we'd settled that," she said.

Rowcliffe sighed.

"What on earth makes you want to go and leave this place when you've
spent hundreds on it?"

"I should make pots of money in Leeds."

"But we couldn't live there."

"Why not?"

"It would be too awful. My dear, if it were a big London practice I
shouldn't say no. That might be worth while. But whatever should we
have in Leeds?"

"We haven't much here."

"We've got the county. You might think of the children."

"I do," he said mournfully. "I do. I think of nothing else but the
children--and you. If you wouldn't like it there's an end of it."

"You might think of yourself, dear. You really are not strong enough
for it."

He felt that he really was not.

He changed the subject.

"I saw Gwenda the other day."

"Looking as young as ever, I suppose?"

"No. Not quite so young. I thought she was looking rather ill."

He meditated.

"I wonder why she never comes."

He really did wonder.

* * * * *

"It's a quarter past seven, Steven."

He rose and stretched himself. They went together to the night nursery
where the three children lay in their cots, the little red-haired
girls awake and restless, and the dark-haired baby in his first sleep.
They bent over them together. Mary's lips touched the red hair and the
dark where St