Things were very serious indeed.

His absence at Harmouth had entailed consequences that he had not foreseen.  During those four weeks, owing to the perturbation of his mind and the incessant demands on his time, he had written nothing.  True, while he was away his poems had found a publisher; but he had nothing to expect from them; it would be lucky if they paid their expenses.  On his return to town he found that his place on The Planet had been filled up.  At the most he could only reckon on placing now and then, at infrequent intervals, an article or a poem.  The places would be few, for from the crowd of popular magazines he was excluded by the very nature of his genius.  To make matters worse, he owed about thirty pounds to Dicky Pilkington.  The sum of two guineas, which The Museion owed him for his sonnet, would, if he accepted Mrs. Downey’s last offer, keep him for exactly two weeks.  And afterwards?  Afterwards, of course, he would have to borrow another ten pounds from Dicky, hire some den at a few shillings a week, and try his luck for as many months as his money held out.  Then there would be another “afterwards,” but that need not concern him now.

The only thing that concerned him was the occult tie between him and Miss Roots.  Up to the day fixed for his departure he was drawn by an irresistible fascination to Miss Roots.  His manner to her became marked by an extreme gentleness and sympathy.  Of course it was impossible to believe that it was Miss Roots who lit the intellectual flame that burnt in Lucia.  Enough to know that she had sat with her in the library and in the room where she made music; that she had walked with her in the old green garden, and on Harcombe Hill and Muttersmoor.  Enough to sit beside Miss Roots and know that all the time her heart was where his was, and that if he were to speak of these things she would kindle and understand.  But he did not speak of them; for from the way Miss Roots had referred to Lucia Harden and to Court House, it was evident that she knew nothing of what had happened to them, and he did not feel equal to telling her.  Lucia’s pain was so great a part of his pain that as yet he could not touch it.  But though he never openly approached the subject of Harmouth, he was for ever skirting it, keeping it in sight.

He came very near to it one evening, when, finding himself alone with Miss Roots in the back drawing-room, he asked her how long it was since she had been in Devonshire.  It seemed that it was no longer ago than last year.  Only last year?  It was still warm then, the link between her and the woman whom he loved.  He found himself looking at Miss Roots, scanning the lines of her plain face as if it held for him some new and wonderful significance.  For him that faced flamed transfigured as in the moment when she had first spoken of Lucia.  The thin lips which had seemed to him so utterly unattractive had touched Lucia’s, and were baptized into her freshness and her charm; her eyes had looked into Lucia’s and carried something of their light.  In her presence he drifted into a sort of mysticism peculiar to lovers, seeing the hand of a holy destiny in the chance that had seated him beside her.  Though her shrewdness might divine his secret he felt that with her it would be safe.