So on, over several pages.  Reading it, the husband stood aghast at this new revelation of female possibilities; at the end, he hurriedly threw it into the fire, fearing, and with good reason, that weakness in his own character to which the woman addressed herself.

Every day for a week there arrived a replica of this epistle, and at length he answered.  It was the fatal concession.  Though he wrote with almost savage severity, Ada replied in terms of exuberant gratitude.  Oh, how delighted she was to see his dear handwriting once more!  How it reminded her of happy days, when they loved each other so tenderly!  Then came two strophes of a sentimental drawing-room song, and lastly, an impassioned appeal to be allowed to see her husband, were it only for five minutes.

Another week of such besieging, and the poor fellow’s foolish heart gave way.  He would see the wretched woman, and tell her that, though never could he consent to live with her again, he had no malicious feeling, and was willing to be her friend at a distance.  So, at six o’clock one evening, behold him tremulously approaching the house in De Crespigny Park,—­tremulously, because he dreaded the assault upon his emotions to which he so recklessly exposed himself.  He was admitted by a very young servant, in a very clean cap and apron.  Silence possessed the dwelling; he did not venture to tread with natural step.  He entered the drawing-room, and there, from amid a heap of household linen which required the needle, rose the penitent wife.  Ostentatiously she drew from her finger a thimble, then advanced with head bent.

‘How kind of you, Arthur!  How—­how very—­’

And she was dissolved in tears—­so genuine, that they marked pale rillets across the bloom of her cheeks.

About a month after that the furniture was removed from De Crespigny Park to a much smaller house at Brixton, where Mr. and Mrs. Peachey took up their abode together.  A medical man shortly called, and Ada, not without secret disgust, smilingly made known to her husband that she must now be very careful of her health.

On one point only the man had held to a rational resolve; he would not allow his little son to be brought back to London, away from the home where he was happy and thriving.  Out of mere self-will Ada strove for a long time to overcome this decision; finding argument and artifice of no avail, she dropped the matter.  Peachey owed this triumph largely to the firm commonsense of his sister, who plainly refused to let the little fellow quit her care for that of such a woman as he was unfortunate enough to call mother.