o change his boots
before going upstairs to Edith.

The bookcase told the same story. It held histories and standard works
inherited from Majendie's father; the works of Dickens, and Thackeray,
and Hardy, read over and over again in the days when he had time for
reading; several poets whom, by his own confession, he could not have
read in any circumstances. One Meredith, partly uncut, testified to an
honest effort and a baulked accomplishment. On a shelf apart stood the
books that he had loved when he was a boy, the Annuals, the tales of
travel and adventure, and one or two school prizes gorgeously bound.

As she looked at them his boyhood rose before her; its dead innocence
appealed to her comprehension and compassion.

She knew that he had been disappointed in his ambition. Instead of being
sent to Oxford he had been sent into business, that he might early
support himself. He had supported himself. And he had stuck to the
business that he might the better support Edith.

She could not deny him the virtue of unselfishness.

She remembered one Sunday, three weeks before their wedding-day, when she
had stood alone with him in this room, at the closing of their happy day.
It was then that he had asked her why she cared for him, and she had
answered: "Because you are good. You always have been good."

And he had said (how it came back to her!), "And if I hadn't always?
Wouldn't you have cared then?"

She had answered, "I would have cared, but I couldn't marry you."

And he had turned away from her, and looked out of the window, keeping
his back to her, and had stood so without speaking for a moment. She had
wondered what had come over him.

Now she knew. He had not been good. And she had married him.

At the recollection the thoughts she had quieted stirred again and stung
her, and again she trampled them down.

She faced the question how she was going to build up the wedded life that
her knowledge of him had laid low. She told herself that, after all, much
remained. She had loved Walter for his unhappiness as well as for his
goodness. He had needed her, and she had felt that there was no other
woman who could have borne his burden half so well. Edith was too sweet
to be thought of as a burden, but it could not be denied she weighed. In
marrying Walter she would lift half the weight. Anne was strong, and she
glorified in her strength. That was what she was there for.

How much more was she prepared to do? Keep