ith visions of the
books he would henceforth write, but his hand was incapable of anything
but a love-letter. And what letters! Reardon never published anything
equal to those. 'I have received your poem,' Amy replied to one of them.
And she was right; not a letter, but a poem he had sent her, with every
word on fire.

The hours of talk! It enraptured him to find how much she had read, and
with what clearness of understanding. Latin and Greek, no. Ah! but
she should learn them both, that there might be nothing wanting in the
communion between his thought and hers. For he loved the old writers
with all his heart; they had been such strength to him in his days of
misery.

They would go together to the charmed lands of the South. No, not now
for their marriage holiday--Amy said that would be an imprudent
expense; but as soon as he had got a good price for a book. Will not the
publishers be kind? If they knew what happiness lurked in embryo within
their foolish cheque-books!

He woke of a sudden in the early hours of one morning, a week before the
wedding-day. You know that kind of awaking, so complete in an instant,
caused by the pressure of some troublesome thought upon the dreaming
brain. 'Suppose I should not succeed henceforth? Suppose I could never
get more than this poor hundred pounds for one of the long books which
cost me so much labour? I shall perhaps have children to support; and
Amy--how would Amy bear poverty?'

He knew what poverty means. The chilling of brain and heart, the
unnerving of the hands, the slow gathering about one of fear and shame
and impotent wrath, the dread feeling of helplessness, of the world's
base indifference. Poverty! Poverty!

And for hours he could not sleep. His eyes kept filling with tears, the
beating of his heart was low; and in his solitude he called upon Amy
with pitiful entreaty: 'Do not forsake me! I love you! I love you!'

But that went by. Six days, five days, four days--will one's heart burst
with happiness? The flat is taken, is furnished, up there towards the
sky, eight flights of stone steps.

'You're a confoundedly lucky fellow, Reardon,' remarked Milvain, who had
already become very intimate with his new friend. 'A good fellow, too,
and you deserve it.'

'But at first I had a horrible suspicion.'

'I guess what you mean. No; I wasn't even in love with her, though I
admired her. She would never have cared for me in any case; I am not
sentimental enough.'