d the question of Audrey's money, they had never thought of
it--"but, as she said herself, in five years' time, when she's thirty
and I'm twenty-five, the difference in our ages won't be so marked."

"It will be as marked as ever, even if your intellect grows at its
present rate of development."

"I've admitted that she's a little deficient in parts; and, as you
justly observe, stupidity, like death, is levelling. We should suit
each other exactly in time."

"Ah, if you can see that, why, oh why, did you fall in love with her?"

"_She_ asked me that this afternoon. I said it was because she was so
clever. It was because I was a fool--stupidity came upon me like a
madness--I wish to heaven I'd never done it. It's played the devil with
my chances. I was sitting calmly on the highroad to success, with my
camp-stool and my little portable easel, not interfering in the least
with the traffic, when she came along like a steam-roller, knocked me
down, crushed me, and rolled me out flat. I shall never recover my
natural shape; and as for the camp-stool and the portable easel--these
things are an allegory. But I love her all the same."

Katherine laughed in spite of herself, but she understood the allegory.
Would he ever recover his natural shape? To that end she was determined
to make him face the worst.

"Ted, what would you do, supposing--only supposing--she were to fling
you over for--for some one else?"

"I should blow my brains out, if I had any left. Verdict, suicide while
in a state of temporary insanity."

"Suicide of a genius! That would be a fine feather in Audrey's cap."

"She always had exquisite taste in dress. Besides, she's welcome to
it--or to any little trifle of the kind."

It was useless attempting to make any impression on him. She gave it up.
Ted, however, was so charmed with the idea of suicide that he spent the
rest of the evening discussing ways and means. He was not going to blow
his brains out, or to take poison in his bedroom, or do anything
disagreeable that would depreciate Mrs. Rogers's property. On the whole,
drowning was the cheapest, and would suit him best, if he could summon
up spirits for it. Only he didn't want to spoil the river for _her_. It
must be somewhere below London Bridge, say Wapping Old Stairs. Here
Katherine suggested that he had better go to bed.

He went, and lay awake all night in a half-fever. When Katherine went
into his room the next morning (ten o'clock had str