pretty much to his own rank of life; he was appalled at the thought of bidding her scrub floors and wash plates; and indeed it had begun to dawn upon him that, for a man with more than nine hundred a year, he was living in a needlessly uncomfortable way.  On his reply that he thought of removing, Mrs. Handover fell into profound depression, and began to disclose her history.  Very early in life she had married a man much beneath her in station, with the natural result.  After some years of quarrelling, which culminated in personal violence on her husband’s part, she obtained a judicial separation.  For a long time the man had ceased to send her money, and indeed he was become a vagabond pauper, from whom nothing could be obtained; she depended upon her son, and on the kindness of Buncombe, who asked no rent.  If she could earn a little money by work, she would be much happier, and with tremulous hope she had taken this step of appealing to her neighbour in the house.

Harvey could not resist these representations.  When the new arrangement had been in operation for a week or so, Harvey began to reflect upon Mrs Handover’s personal narrative, and in some respects to modify his first impulsive judgment thereon.  It seemed to him not impossible that Mr Handover’s present condition of vagabond pauper might be traceable to his marriage with a woman who had never learnt the elements of domestic duty.  Thoroughly well-meaning, Mrs. Handover was the most incompetent of housewives.  Yet such was Harvey Rolfe’s delicacy, and so intense his moral cowardice, that year after year he bore with Mrs. Handover’s defects, and paid her with a smile the wages of two first-rate servants.  Dust lay thick about him; he had grown accustomed to it, as to many another form of sluttishness.  After all, he possessed a quiet retreat for studious hours, and a tolerable sleeping-place, with the advantage of having his correspondence forwarded to him when he chose to wander.  To be sure, it was not final; one would not wish to grow old and die amid such surroundings; sooner or later, circumstance would prompt the desirable change.  Circumstance, at this stage of his career, was Harvey’s god; he waited upon its direction with an air of wisdom, of mature philosophy.

Of his landlord, Buncombe, he gradually learnt all that he cared to know.  The moment came when Buncombe grew confidential, and he, too, had a matrimonial history to disclose.  Poverty played no part in it; his business flourished, and Mrs. Buncombe, throughout a cohabitation of five years, made no complaint of her lot.  All at once —­ so asserted Buncombe —­ the lady began to talk of dullness; for a few months she moped, then of a sudden left home, and in a day or two announced by letter that she had taken a place as barmaid at a music-hall.  There followed an interview between husband and wife, with the result, said Buncombe, that they parted the best of friends, but with an understanding that Mrs