Year: 1875

| SenQS MIN IufJler OH lnSIedu u uIaW IuS
him nearer. However, tears were too
scarce yet for me to disregard or with
| stand them, so kissed my wife and dld
| my best to soothe her, and by degrees
brought her round SO far that she left OFT
crying, and began to kiss the baby as II
it was something quite new and she had
| never kissed it before.


Though / was sorry to see her cry this
veXed me again. She had not seen me
all the day, and she had had the hoy. /
thought she might have paid little at
tention to the one who had been absent,
to put it on no other ground.


But when / demonstrated she only
answered: "l know, George, you do not
care for baby. You never have cared for
him, and if it were not for me he might
die of neglect"


| began to laugh at this. 1t struck me
as too comical that a wife should reproach
her husband for not taking care of the
baby; for surely if there is such thing
as womans work" in the world, and
they are not meant by nature and the
eternal fitness of things to be soldiers
and sailors and lawyers and doctors and
the Lord knows what besides, that work
is to be found in the home and the
nursery. But she was angry when |
laughed and raising herself on her elbow
drew such picture of the infamy, ruin,
degradation that was to follow on my
taking to bad courses, founded on my
not caring for baby and my having won
fifty pounds at the Derby, that seemed
to be listening to a maniac, not the
Edith / had left in the morning and had
loved for so long. Perhaps | was too
impatient and ought to have remembered
that if found my life dull hers was not
too gay;I ought to have made allowance
for the morbid nervousness and brooding
fancies of woman left alone for the
whole day; but was younger then than
l am now, and the thing ended by our
having our first grave quarrel, wherein
we were both silly, both unjust, and
neither of us would give way.


The bad blood made between us to-
night grew worse as time went on; and
the circle we were in was vicious one.
| kept away more and more from home
because my wife made it too miserable
for me by her coldness, her tears, her
complaints, her ill-humor; and the more
| kept away the more she resented it.
She took an almost insane hatred and
suspicion of my friends and my actions,
and did not scruple to accuse me and
them of vices and crimes because l was
often late, from no worse cause than
playing pool and billiards. Her re-
proaches first wearied and then hardened
ME; and by degrees kind of fierce feeling
took possession of me-a kind of revenge
ful determination that would be what she
imagined me to be, and give her cause to
denounce me as she did.


Harmless amusement became amuse-
0f n w
of half-a crown and shilling grew to
gold; the glass of beer became the glass
Of brandy-and more than one; and the
fdcShs descenSus had one more self-direct-
ed victim on its slippery way. Work
was intolerable to me. What did did
badly, and | shirked all / could. was
often late as often left too early; and
my employers we're really good and len
tent. As it was, however, wearied out
their patience, and they demonstrated
with me firmly but kindly.


This sobered me for moment; but
had gone too far to retreat-until | came
out at the other side / must go on.


The fortune which had SO long be-
friended Jack Langhorne deserted him
now, and with his fortune his nerve.
Where he had staked with judgment he
now backed wildly, recklessly, and the
more he lost the more recklessly he
staked. His fortune seemed to influence
mine. Hitherto had been immensely
successful; now the luck ran dead against
me, and / lost more than could afford,
and soon more than could pay, and so
came face to face with ruin.


During all this time the estrangement
between Edith and myself grew daily
wider. She took the wrong method with
me, and being woman she kept to it.
She thought to dragon me back to the
quiet of my former life, and made my
private actions personal to herself; seek
ing to force me into rendering an account
of all my doings, and of every item OF eX-
penditure, then taking it as an affront
when ] refused to answer questions. But
now there was no hope for it. l must
perforce confess. With that writ out
against me it was useless to attempt con-
cealment, and if marriage is not feminine
superiority yet it is partnership.


You may be sure it was a bitter mo-
ment for me when l had to tell my wife
that all her worst anticipations were
realized; that she had been right
throughout and | wrong, and that the
destruction she had prophesied had over
taken us. In her temper of so many
months now it was doubly hard. But it
seems that I knew as little of women as
she of men, and had miscalculated the
! depth of her goodness underneath all
| her wrong g-headedness, just as she had
miscalculated my power of will and
truth of love when fairly pulled up. r,


She heard me out to the end without
making sign. There was no Interrupt
ton, no angry expression, no scornful
| look. | saw the hand with which she
| held the child tighten round his body,
the one playing with his curls tremble.
But that was all.


When I had finished she looked UP
and said suietly cit is better to know
the worst George, for then we can meet
it. Now that know the worst know
what to do"


"And you do not reproach me, Edish?"
/ asked


She rose from her seat and came over
to me. Her eyes were full of tears, her
lips were quivering, and yet there was
more love, more softness in her face
through it's sorrow than there had been
for all these long, bad, dreary months,
| passing now into years.


! She slid the boy from her arms and


pressed them round my neck.


"Wby should | reproach you?" she


said. els not your burden heavy enough


without that? 'WhiieI thought could


help to keep you straight | tried--ii


clumsily and to no good, yet Loyalty


Now l know that all is over have only


to try and help you both by my work anc


my love-"


Something seemed to choke me while
!, she spoke. [ could have been hare


enough if she had been angry, but thi


sudden return to the old love--this un
expected magnanimity-w too mucl
: for me. Still, am thankful to say dit
t. not break down. / was man enough TO