’Pooh!  What could I do?  Oh, don’t we live absurdly artificial lives?  Now why should a family who, through no fault of their own, are in the most wretched straits, shut themselves up and hide it like a disgrace?  Don’t you think we hold a great many very nonsensical ideas about self-respect and independence and so on?  If I were in want, I know two or three people to whom I should forthwith go and ask for succour; if they thought the worse of me for it, I should tell them they ought to be ashamed of themselves.  We act, indeed, as if we ourselves had made the world and were bound to pretend it an admirable piece of work, without a screw loose anywhere.  I always say the world’s about as bad a place as one could well imagine, at all events for most people who live in it, and that it’s our plain duty to help each other without grimacings.  The death of this poor man has distressed me more than I can tell you; it does seem such a monstrously cruel thing.  There’s his employer, a man called Dagworthy, who never knew what it was to be without luxuries,—­I’m not in the habit of listening to scandal, but I believe there’s a great deal of truth in certain stories told about his selfishness and want of feeling.  I consider Mr. Dagworthy this poor man’s murderer; it was his bounden duty to see that a man in his employment was paid enough to live upon,—­and Mr. Hood was not.  Imagine what suffering must have brought about such an end as this.  A sad case,—­say people.  I call it a case of crime that enjoys impunity.’

Wilfrid listened gloomily.  The broad question stirred him to no strong feeling, but the more he heard the more passionate was his longing to bear Emily away from the scenes of such a past.  With what devotion would he mould his life to the one task of healing her memory!  Yet he knew it must be very long before her heart could recover from the all but deadly wound it had received.  A feeling which one may not call jealousy,—­that were too inhuman,—­but still one of the million forms which jealousy assumes to torture us, drove him to ask himself what the effect of such a crisis in her life might be on Emily’s love for him.  There would always remain in her inmost soul one profound sadness in which he had no part, and which by its existence would impugn the supremacy of that bond which united him and her.

‘How does Mrs. Hood bear it?’ he asked, when he found Mrs. Baxendale again examining his face.

’I think Emily’s illness has been her great help,—­poor creatures that we are, needing one great grief to balance another.  But she seems in a very weak state; I didn’t like her look yesterday.’

‘Will you describe her to me?’ asked Wilfrid.

’She is not the kind of mother you would give to Emily.  I’m afraid her miserable life has told upon her greatly, both in mind and body.’

‘Emily never spoke of her, though so often of her father.’

’That is what I should have expected.  Still, you must not think her quite unworthy.  She speaks as an educated woman, and is certainly very devoted.’