Was he committing himself to a criminality which the law would visit?  Hardly that—­until he entered into possession of money fraudulently obtained.

In miserable night-watchings, he fell to the most sordid calculations.  Supposing their plot revealed, would Nancy in fact be left without resources?  Surely not,—­with her brother, her aunt, her lifelong friends the Barmbys, to take thought for her.  She could not suffer extremities.  And upon this he blushed relief.

Better to make up his mind that the secret must inevitably out.  For the moment, Nancy believed she had resigned herself to his departure, and that she had strength to go through with the long ordeal.  But a woman in her situation cannot be depended upon to pursue a consistent course.  It is Nature’s ordinance that motherhood shall be attained through phases of mental disturbance, which leave the sufferer scarce a pretence of responsibility.  Nancy would play strange pranks, by which, assuredly, he would be driven to exasperation if they passed under his eyes.  He had no mind to be called father; perhaps even his humanity might fail under the test to which, as a lover, he had given scarce a casual thought.  By removing himself, and awaiting the issue afar off, he gained time and opportunity for reflection.  Of course his wife could not come to want; that, after all, was the one clearly comforting thought.  Her old servant would take good care of her, happen what might.

He must taste of liberty again before sinking into the humdrum of married life.  The thought of an ocean voyage, of the new life amid tropic splendours, excited his imagination all the more because it blended with the thought of recovered freedom.  Marriage had come upon him with unfair abruptness; for such a change as that, even the ordinary bachelor demands a season preparative; much more, then, the young man who revelled in a philosophic sense of detachment, who wrote his motto ‘Vixi hodie!’ For marriage he was simply unfit; forced together, he and his wife would soon be mutually detestable.  A temporary parting might mature in the hearts of both that affection of which the seed was undeniably planted.  With passion they had done; the enduring tenderness of a reasonable love must now unite them, were they to be united at all.  And to give such love a chance of growing in him, Tarrant felt that he must lose sight of Nancy until her child was born.

Yes, it had begun already, the trial he dreaded.  A letter from Nancy, written and posted only an hour or two after her return home —­a long, distracted letter.  Would he forgive her for seeming to be an obstacle in the way of what he had proposed?  Would he promise her to be faithful?  Would he—­

He had hardly patience to read it through.

The next evening, on returning home about ten o’clock, he was startled by the sight of Nancy’s figure at the foot of his staircase.

‘What has happened?’