school would allow her; and when that became impossible,
would fall back upon literature.

One other question Alan ventured gently to raise,--the question of
children. Fools always put that question, and think it a crushing
one. Alan was no fool, yet it puzzled him strangely. He did not
see for himself how easy is the solution; how absolutely Herminia's
plan leaves the position unaltered. But Herminia herself was as
modestly frank on the subject as on every other. It was a moral
and social point of the deepest importance; and it would be wrong
of them to rush into it without due consideration. She had duly
considered it. She would give her children, should any come, the
unique and glorious birthright of being the only human beings ever
born into this world as the deliberate result of a free union,
contracted on philosophical and ethical principles. Alan hinted
certain doubts as to their up-bringing and education. There, too,
Herminia was perfectly frank. They would be half hers, half his;
the pleasant burden of their support, the joy of their education,
would naturally fall upon both parents equally. But why discuss
these matters like the squalid rich, who make their marriages a
question of settlements and dowries and business arrangements?
They two were friends and lovers; in love, such base doubts could
never arise. Not for worlds would she import into their mutual
relations any sordid stain of money, any vile tinge of bargaining.
They could trust one another; that alone sufficed for them.

So Alan gave way bit by bit all along the line, overborne by
Herminia's more perfect and logical conception of her own
principles. She knew exactly what she felt and wanted; while he
knew only in a vague and formless way that his reason agreed with
her.

A week later, he knocked timidly one evening at the door of a
modest little workman-looking cottage, down a small side street in
the back-wastes of Chelsea. 'Twas a most unpretending street;
Bower Lane by name, full of brown brick houses, all as like as
peas, and with nothing of any sort to redeem their plain fronts
from the common blight of the London jerry-builder. Only a soft
serge curtain and a pot of mignonette on the ledge of the window,
distinguished the cottage at which Alan Merrick knocked from the
others beside it. Externally that is to say; for within it was as
dainty as Morris wall-papers and merino hangings and a delicate
feminine taste in form an