The few books he owned were placed on hanging shelves; among them those which he had purchased for Clara since their marriage.  But reading was as much a thing of the past as drawing.  Never a moment when his mind was sufficiently at ease to refresh itself with other men’s thoughts or fancies.  As with John Hewett, so with himself; the circle of his interests had shrivelled, until it included nothing but the cares of his family, the cost of house and food and firing.  As a younger man, he had believed that he knew what was meant by the struggle for existence in the nether world; it seemed to him now as if such knowledge had been only theoretical.  Oh, it was easy to preach a high ideal of existence for the poor, as long as one had a considerable margin over the week’s expenses; easy to rebuke the men and women who tried to forget themselves in beer-shops and gin-houses, as long as one could take up some rational amusement with a quiet heart.  Now, on his return home from labour, it was all he could do not to sink in exhaustion and defeat of spirit.  Shillings and pence; shillings and pence—­never a question of pounds, unfortunately; and always too few of them.  He understood how men have gone mad under pressure of household cares; he realised the horrible temptation which has made men turn dastardly from the path leading homeward and leave those there to shift for themselves.

When on the point of lowering the lamp he heard someone coming downstairs.  The door opened, and, to his surprise, Clara came in.  Familiarity could not make him insensible to that disfigurement of her once beautiful face; his eyes always fell before her at the first moment of meeting.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.  ‘Why don’t you come up?’

‘I was that minute coming.’

His hand went again to the lamp, but she checked him.  In a low, wailing, heart-breaking voice, and with a passionate gesture, she exclaimed, ’Oh, I feel as if I should go mad I can’t bear it much longer!’

Sidney was silent at first, then said quietly, ’Let’s sit here for a little.  No wonder you feel low-spirited, lying in that room all day.  I’d gladly have come and sat with you, but my company only seems to irritate you.’

’What good can you do me?  You only think I’m making you miserable without a cause.  You won’t say it, but that’s what you always think; and when I feel that, I can’t bear to have you near.  If only I could die and come to the end of it!  How can you tell what I suffer?  Oh yes, you speak so calmly—­as good as telling me I am unreasonable because I can’t do the same.  I hate to hear your voice when it’s like that!  I’d rather you raged at me or struck me!’

The beauty of her form had lost nothing since the evening when he visited her in Farringdon Road Buildings; now, as then, all her movements were full of grace and natural dignity.  Whenever strong feeling was active in her, she could not but manifest it in motion unlike that of ordinary women.  Her hair hung in disorder, though net at its full length, massing itself upon her shoulders, shadowing her forehead.  Half-consumed by the fire that only death would extinguish, she looked the taller for her slenderness.  Ah, had the face been untouched!