‘What are you thinking of, dearest?’

’I was thinking that supposing you were mistaken—­if I failed to help you in your work.’

‘And I never succeeded in writing my play?’

’No; I don’t mean that.  Of course you will write your play; all you have to do is to be less critical.’

’Yes, I know—­I have heard that before; but, unfortunately, we cannot change ourselves.  I’ll either carry my play through completely, realise my ideal, or——­’

‘Remain for ever unsatisfied?’

‘Whether I write it or no, I shall be happy in your love.’

‘Yes, yes; let us be happy.’

They looked at each other.  He did not speak, but his thought said—­

‘There is no happiness on earth for him who has not accomplished his task.’

‘Shall we be happy?  I wonder.  We have both suffered,’ she said, ’we are both tired of suffering, and it is only right that we should be happy.’

’Yes, we shall be happy, I will be happy.  It shall be my pleasure to attend to you, to give you all your desire.  But you said just now that you had suffered.  I have told you my past.  Tell me yours.  I know nothing except that you were unhappily married.’

’There is little else to know; a woman’s life is not adventurous, like a man’s.  I have not known the excitement of “first nights,” nor the striving and the craving for an artistic ideal.  My life has been essentially a woman’s life,—­suppression of self and monotonous duty, varied by heart-breaking misfortune.  I married when I was very young; before I had even begun to think about life I found——­ But why distress these hours with painful memories?’

‘It is pleasant to look back on the troubles we have passed through.’

’Well, I learnt in one year the meaning of three terrible words—­poverty, neglect, and cruelty.  In the second year of my marriage my husband died of drink, and I was left a widow at twenty, entirely penniless.  I went to live with my sister, and she was so poor that I had to support myself by giving music-lessons.  You think you know the meaning of poverty:  you may; but you do not know what a young woman who wants to earn her bread honestly has to put up with, trudging through wet and cold, mile after mile, to give a lesson, paid for at the rate of one-and-sixpence or two shillings an hour.’

Julia took her eyes from her husband’s face, and looked dreamily into the fire.  Then, raising her face from the flame, she looked around with the air of one seeking for some topic of conversation.  At that moment she caught sight of the corner of a letter lying on the mantelpiece.  Reaching forth her hand, she took it.  It was addressed to her husband.

’Here is a letter for you, Hubert....  Why, it comes from Ashwood.  Yes, and it is in the hand-writing of one of the servants.  Oh, it is Black’s writing!  It may be about Emily.  Something may have happened to her.  Open it quickly.’