’I’m afraid you are not well, dear.  You have had no appetite for several days.’

‘As much as usual, I think,’ she replied absently.

They went into the library, commonly their resort of an evening.  Widdowson possessed several hundred volumes of English literature, most of them the works which are supposed to be indispensible to a well-informed man, though very few men even make a pretence of reading them.  Self-educated, Widdowson deemed it his duty to make acquaintance with the great, the solid authors.  Nor was his study of them affectation.  For the poets he had little taste; the novelists he considered only profitable in intervals of graver reading; but history, political economy, even metaphysics, genuinely appealed to him.  He had always two or three solid books on hand, each with its marker; he studied them at stated hours, and always sitting at a table, a notebook open beside him.  A little work once well-known, Todd’s ‘Student’s Manual,’ had formed his method and inspired him with zeal.

To-night, it being Sunday, he took down a volume of Barrow’s Sermons.  Though not strictly orthodox in religious faith, he conformed to the practices of the Church of England, and since his marriage had been more scrupulous on this point than before.  He abhorred unorthodoxy in a woman, and would not on any account have suffered Monica to surmise that he had his doubts concerning any article of the Christian faith.  Like most men of his kind, he viewed religion as a precious and powerful instrument for directing the female conscience.  Frequently he read aloud to his wife, but this evening he showed no intention of doing so.  Monica, however, sat unoccupied.  After glancing at her once or twice, he said reprovingly,—­

‘Have you finished your Sunday book?’

‘Not quite.  But I don’t care to read just now.’

The silence that followed was broken by Monica herself.

‘Have you accepted Mrs. Luke’s invitation to dinner?’ she asked.

‘I have declined it,’ was the reply, carelessly given.

Monica bit her lip.

‘But why?’

‘Surely we needn’t discuss that over again, Monica.’

His eyes were still on the book, and he stirred impatiently.

‘But,’ urged his wife, ’do you mean to break with her altogether?  If so, I think it’s very unwise, Edmund.  What an opinion you must have of me, if you think I can’t see people’s faults!  I know it’s very true, all you say about her.  But she wishes to be kind to us, I’m sure—­and I like to see something of a life so different from our own.’

Widdowson drummed on the floor with his foot.  In a few moments, ignoring Monica’s remarks, he stroked his beard, and asked, with a show of casual interest—­

‘How was it you knew that Mr. Barfoot?’

‘I had met him before—­when I went there on the Saturday.’

Widdowson’s eyes fell; his brow was wrinkled.