He had often thought of her, and kindly.  But he knew her not at all, took no interest in her existence.  She, on the other hand, had treasured every miserable little letter his idleness vouchsafed; she had hoped so for his future, ever believing in him.  When Amy lay dead, he saw the sheet of paper on which she had written the few lines necessary to endow him with all she left —­ everything ‘to my dear brother’.  What words could have reproached him so keenly?

His steps turned to the churchyard, where on a plain upright stone he read the names of his mother, of his father.  Amy’s grave was hard by.  He, too, if he had his wish, would some day rest here; and here his own son would stand, and read his name, and think of him.  Ah, but with no such remorse and self-contempt!  That was inconceivable.  The tenderness which dimmed his eyes would have changed to misery had be dreamed it possible that his own boy could palter so ignobly with the opportunities of life.

Upon these deep emotions intruded the thought of Alma.  Intruded; for he neither sought nor welcomed his wife’s companionship at such a moment, and he was disturbed by a perception of the little claim she had to be present with him in spirit.  He could no longer pretend to himself that he loved Alma; whatever the right name for his complex of feelings —­ interest, regard, admiration, sexual attachment —­ assuredly it must be another word than that sacred to the memory of his parents, to the desires and hopes centring in his child.  For all that, he had no sense of a hopeless discord in his wedded life; he suffered from no disillusion, with its attendant bitterness.  From this he was saved by the fact, easy at length to recognise, that in wooing Alma he had obeyed no dictate of the nobler passion; here, too, as at every other crisis of life, he had acted on motives which would not bear analysis, so large was the alloy of mere temperament, of weak concession to circumstance.  Rather than complain that Alma fell short of the ideal in wifehood, should he not marvel, and be grateful that their marriage might still be called a happy one?  Happiness in marriage is a term of such vague application:  Basil Morton, one in ten thousand, might call himself happy; even so, all things considered, must the husband who finds it just possible to endure the contiguity of his wife.  Midway between these extremes of the definition stood Harvey’s measure of matrimonial bliss.  He saw that he had no right to grumble.

He saw, moreover, and reflected constantly upon it in these days, how largely he was himself to blame for the peril of estrangement which threatened his life with Alma.  Meaning well, and thinking himself a pattern of marital wisdom, he had behaved, as usual, with gross lack of discretion.  The question now was, could he mend the harm that he had done?  Love did not enter into the matter; his difficulty called for common-sense —­ for rational methods in behaviour towards a wife whom he could still respect, and who was closely bound to him by common interest in their child.