s what he wanted, that was what she could and should and
must give, or he would have nothing from her. Here was the truth; but the
truth was what she had struggled so hard to deny and feared so terribly
to find true. He was not indeed led by a sense of obligation towards her;
the need was for himself. It was not that he felt in her a right to call
on him for exertions or for a performance of his side of the bargain; it
was that he could not bear to lose his tribute from her. But still she
stood self-condemned. Again the thought came--with a woman who loved him
there might have been another tribute that she could have paid and he
been content to levy. He would have believed such a woman if she told him
that he would be as much to her, and she as much absorbed in him, in the
villa at Torquay as ever in the great world; and perhaps--oh, only
perhaps, it is true--he would have made shift with that and fed his
appetite on the homage of one, since his wretched body denied him the
rows on rows of applauding spectators that he loved. But from his wife's
lips he would not accept any such assurance, and from her no such homage
could be hoped for to solace him.

Then the strange creature began to talk to her, not of what he had done,
nor even of what he had hoped to do, but of what he meant and was going
to do; how he would grow greater and richer, of schemes in politics and
in business, of the fervour and devotion of the fighting men behind him
and how they were sick of the old gang and would have no leader but
Alexander Quisante; of the prosperity of the Alethea, how the shares
rose, how big orders came in, how utterly poor old Maturin had blundered.
He spoke like a strong man with a wealth of years and store-houses of
force, who sees life stretched long before him, material to be shaped by
his hand and forced into what he will make it. He talked low and fast,
his eyes again roaming over the prospect; the evening fell while he still
talked. Almost it seemed then that the doctors were wrong, that his
courage was no folly, that indeed he would not die. O for the faith to
believe that! For his spell was on her again now, and now she would not
have him die. Once again he had his desire; once more her heart beat and
her eyes gleamed for him. But then it came on her, with a sudden fierce
light of conviction, that all this was hollow, useless, vain, that the
sentence was written and the doom pronounced. No pleading however
eloquent coul