“When I came back from the law-school, I went to see them as soon as I was settled.  They had sold the house, and were living in a rented cottage out in East Lincoln.  Nannie, their baby, was quite if not more than a year old then; and, though I had known that Grace would be a fond mother, I was unprepared to see the way in which she seemed absolutely to worship the child.  I immediately asked myself if it meant that she was not so happy with Herbert as she had been.  I met him at tea, to which Grace insisted on my staying.  His dress was as neat and as carefully arranged as ever, and he was cordial enough toward me; but he did not kiss Grace when he came in, and hardly looked at the baby.  He laughed a good deal, and told several amusing incidents of his newspaper experience.  I noticed that his old habit of looking at one’s chin or cravat instead of at one’s eyes when he spoke to one had grown upon him.  He excused himself soon after tea on the ground of having to be at the office, and went away smoking a cigarette.

“Grace complained of the way in which his work kept him up nights.  He was never home until after midnight, she said, and sometimes not before morning.  She was afraid it was telling upon his health.  ’You must come and see me often.  George.’ she said, as she gave me her hand at parting.  ’I see very little of my husband now, and, if it were not for Nannie, I feel as if I should be almost unhappy.  Then he would have to do some other work, though he likes journalism so well.’  That was the nearest she ever came to complaining to me, though I soon knew that she had plenty of cause.  She was not entirely deceived by Herbert’s assertions and excuses.  I learned before long, for I made a point of finding out, that he was never obliged to be at the office after nine o’clock, that he gambled and drank, and was looked on with unpleasant suspicions by his employers, so that he might at any time find himself without a position.  He owned no property, and Grace’s little patrimony had disappeared, even to the money they had received for the house, without leaving the slightest trace.  Herbert’s ill reputation was common property in the town, and he and Grace went nowhere together.  She had even given up going to church, that she might be with him for a few hours on Sundays; and now and then if he took her for a walk and pushed the baby-carriage through the Capitol-grounds for an hour, she cared more for it than for a whole stack of Mr. Gittner’s sermons.  She had no friends at all, and but few acquaintances, and altogether had much to bear up under.  Right nobly she did it, too; never a word of complaint to any one:  I believe not even to herself would she admit that she was treated basely.