in as he could. He
discovered his friend putting away some books from which he had been
giving evening lessons. The light of the paraffin lamp fell on
Phillotson's face--pale and wretched by contrast with his friend's,
who had a cool, practical look. They had been schoolmates in
boyhood, and fellow-students at Wintoncester Training College, many
years before this time.

"Glad to see you, Dick! But you don't look well? Nothing the
matter?"

Phillotson advanced without replying, and Gillingham closed the
cupboard and pulled up beside his visitor.

"Why you haven't been here--let me see--since you were married?
I called, you know, but you were out; and upon my word it is such a
climb after dark that I have been waiting till the days are longer
before lumpering up again. I am glad you didn't wait, however."

Though well-trained and even proficient masters, they occasionally
used a dialect-word of their boyhood to each other in private.

"I've come, George, to explain to you my reasons for taking a step
that I am about to take, so that you, at least, will understand my
motives if other people question them anywhen--as they may, indeed
certainly will... But anything is better than the present condition
of things. God forbid that you should ever have such an experience
as mine!"

"Sit down. You don't mean--anything wrong between you and Mrs.
Phillotson?"

"I do... My wretched state is that I've a wife I love who not
only does not love me, but--but-- Well, I won't say. I know her
feeling! I should prefer hatred from her!"

"Ssh!"

"And the sad part of it is that she is not so much to blame as I. She
was a pupil-teacher under me, as you know, and I took advantage of
her inexperience, and toled her out for walks, and got her to agree
to a long engagement before she well knew her own mind. Afterwards
she saw somebody else, but she blindly fulfilled her engagement."

"Loving the other?"

"Yes; with a curious tender solicitude seemingly; though her exact
feeling for him is a riddle to me--and to him too, I think--possibly
to herself. She is one of the oddest creatures I ever met. However,
I have been struck with these two facts; the extraordinary sympathy,
or similarity, between the pair. He is her cousin, which perhaps
accounts for some of it. They seem to be one person split in two!
And with her unconquerable aversion to myself as a husband, even
though she may like me as a friend, 'tis too much