bly dear, was
he right in allowing her to leave him, if only for a few months? He knew
very well that a man of strong character would never have entertained
this project. He had got into the way of thinking of himself as too weak
to struggle against the obstacles on which Amy insisted, and of looking
for safety in retreat; but what was to be the end of this weakness if
the summer did not at all advance him? He knew better than Amy could how
unlikely it was that he should recover the energies of his mind in
so short a time and under such circumstances; only the feeble man's
temptation to postpone effort had made him consent to this step, and
now that he was all but beyond turning back, the perils of which he had
thought too little forced themselves upon his mind.

He rose in anguish, and stood looking about him as if aid might
somewhere be visible.

Presently there was a knock at the front door, and on opening he beheld
the vivacious Mr Carter. This gentleman had only made two or three calls
here since Reardon's marriage; his appearance was a surprise.

'I hear you are leaving town for a time,' he exclaimed. 'Edith told me
yesterday, so I thought I'd look you up.'

He was in spring costume, and exhaled fresh odours. The contrast between
his prosperous animation and Reardon's broken-spirited quietness could
not have been more striking.

'Going away for your health, they tell me. You've been working too hard,
you know. You mustn't overdo it. And where do you think of going to?'

'It isn't at all certain that I shall go,' Reardon replied. 'I thought
of a few weeks--somewhere at the seaside.'

'I advise you to go north,' went on Carter cheerily. 'You want a tonic,
you know. Get up into Scotland and do some boating and fishing--that
kind of thing. You'd come back a new man. Edith and I had a turn up
there last year, you know; it did me heaps of good.'

'Oh, I don't think I should go so far as that.'

'But that's just what you want--a regular change, something bracing. You
don't look at all well, that's the fact. A winter in London tries any
man--it does me, I know. I've been seedy myself these last few weeks.
Edith wants me to take her over to Paris at the end of this month, and
I think it isn't a bad idea; but I'm so confoundedly busy. In the autumn
we shall go to Norway, I think; it seems to be the right thing to do
nowadays. Why shouldn't you have a run over to Norway? They say it can
be done very cheaply; the st