My ideal of the wife perfectly suited to me is far liker that girl at the public-house bar than Monica.  Monica’s independence of thought is a perpetual irritation to me.  I don’t know what her thoughts really are, what her intellectual life signifies.  And yet I hold her to me with the sternest grasp.  If she endeavoured to release herself I should feel capable of killing her.  Is not this a strange, a brutal thing?’

Widdowson had never before reached this height of speculation.  In the moment, by the very fact, of admitting that Monica and he ought not to be living together, he became more worthy of his wife’s companionship than ever hitherto.

Well, he would exercise greater forebearance.  He would endeavour to win her respect by respecting the freedom she claimed.  His recent suspicions of her were monstrous.  If she knew them, how her soul would revolt from him!  What if she took an interest in other men, perchance more her equals than he?  Why, had he not just been thinking of another woman, reflecting that she, or one like her, would have made him a more suitable wife than Monica?  Yet this could not reasonably be called unfaithfulness.

They were bound together for life, and their wisdom lay in mutual toleration, the constant endeavour to understand each other aright—­not in fierce restraint of each other’s mental liberty.  How many marriages were anything more than mutual forbearance?  Perhaps there ought not to be such a thing as enforced permanence of marriage.  This was daring speculation; he could not have endured to hear it from Monica’s lips.  But—­perhaps, some day, marriage would be dissoluble at the will of either party to it.  Perhaps the man who sought to hold a woman when she no longer loved him would be regarded with contempt and condemnation.

What a simple thing marriage had always seemed to him, and how far from simple he had found it!  Why, it led him to musings which overset the order of the world, and flung all ideas of religion and morality into wildest confusion.  It would not do to think like this.  He was a man wedded to a woman very difficult to manage—­there was the practical upshot of the matter.  His duty was to manage her.  He was responsible for her right conduct.  With intentions perfectly harmless, she might run into unknown jeopardy—­above all, just at this time when she was taking reluctant leave of her friends.  The danger justified him in exceptional vigilance.

So, from his excursion into the realms of reason did he return to the safe sphere of the commonplace.  And now he might venture to press on towards Mrs. Conisbee’s house, for it was half-past four, and already Monica must have been talking with her sister for a couple of hours.

His knock at the door was answered by the landlady herself.  She told of Mrs. Widdowson’s arrival and departure.  Ah, then Monica had no doubt gone straight home again.  But, as Miss Madden had returned, he would speak with her.