curring annoyance;
but, on the other hand, if they had continued to come, he would not
have been thus completely in the dark as to her intercourse with Jasper;
scraps of information must now and then have been gathered by his wife
from the girls' talk.

Throughout the month of July he suffered much from his wonted bilious
attacks, and Mrs Yule had to endure a double share of his ill-temper,
that which was naturally directed against her, and that of which Marian
was the cause. In August things were slightly better; but with the
return to labour came a renewal of Yule's sullenness and savageness.
Sundry pieces of ill-luck of a professional kind--warnings, as he too
well understood, that it was growing more and more difficult for him
to hold his own against the new writers--exasperated his quarrel with
destiny. The gloom of a cold and stormy September was doubly wretched
in that house on the far borders of Camden Town, but in October the sun
reappeared and it seemed to mollify the literary man's mood. Just when
Mrs Yule and Marian began to hope that this long distemper must surely
come to an end, there befell an incident which, at the best of times,
would have occasioned misery, and which in the present juncture proved
disastrous.

It was one morning about eleven. Yule was in his study; Marian was at
the Museum; Mrs Yule had gone shopping. There came a sharp knock at
the front door, and the servant, on opening, was confronted with a
decently-dressed woman, who asked in a peremptory voice if Mrs Yule was
at home.

'No? Then is Mr Yule?'

'Yes, mum, but I'm afraid he's busy.'

'I don't care, I must see him. Say that Mrs Goby wants to see him at
once.'

The servant, not without apprehensions, delivered this message at the
door of the study.

'Mrs Goby? Who is Mrs Goby?' exclaimed the man of letters, irate at the
disturbance.

There sounded an answer out of the passage, for the visitor had followed
close.

'I am Mrs Goby, of the 'Olloway Road, wife of Mr C. O. Goby,
'aberdasher. I just want to speak to you, Mr Yule, if you please, seeing
that Mrs Yule isn't in.'

Yule started up in fury, and stared at the woman, to whom the servant
had reluctantly given place.

'What business can you have with me? If you wish to see Mrs Yule, come
again when she is at home.'

'No, Mr Yule, I will not come again!' cried the woman, red in the face.
'I thought I might have had respectable treatment here, at all events;
but I se