He said: `I've been kind to you, and given you every liberty; and it is monstrous that you should feel in this way!'

`Yes,' said she, weeping. `I know that! It is wrong and wicked of me, I suppose! I am very sorry. But it is not I altogether that am to blame!'

`Who is then? Am l?'

`No - I don't know! The universe, I suppose - things in general, because they are so horrid and cruel!'

`Well, it is no use talking like that. Making a man's house so unseemly at this time o' night! Eliza will hear if we don't mind.' (He meant the servant.) `Just think if either of the parsons in this town was to see us now! I hate such eccentricities, Sue. There's no order or regularity in your sentiments! ... But I won't intrude on you further; only I would advise you not to shut the door too tight, or I shall find you stifled to- morrow.'

On rising the next morning he immediately looked into the closet, but Sue had already gone downstairs. There was a little nest where she had lain, and spiders' webs hung overhead. `What must a woman's aversion be when it is stronger than her fear of spiders!' he said bitterly.

He found her sitting at the breakfast-table, and the meal began almost in silence, the burghers walking past upon the pavement - or rather roadway, pavements being scarce here - which was two or three feet above the level of the parlour floor. They nodded down to the happy couple their morning greetings, as they went on.

`Richard,' she said all at once; `would you mind my living away from you?'

`Away from me? Why, that's what you were doing when I married you. What then was the meaning of marrying at all?'

`You wouldn't like me any the better for telling you.'

`I don't object to know.'

`Because I thought I could do nothing else. You had got my promise a long time before that, remember. Then, as time went on, I regretted I had promised you, and was trying to see an honourable way to break it off. But as I couldn't I became rather reckless and careless about the conventions. Then you know what scandals were spread, and how I was turned out of the training school you had taken such time and trouble to prepare me for and get me into; and this frightened me and it seemed then that the one thing I could do would be to let the engagement stand. Of course I, of all people, ought not to have cared what was said, for it was just what I fancied I never did care for. But I was a coward - as so many women are - and my theoretic unconventionality broke down. If that had not entered into the case it would have been better to have hurt your feelings once for all then, than to marry you and hurt them all my life after.... And you were so generous in never giving credit for a moment to the rumour.'

`I am bound in honesty to tell you that I weighed its probability and inquired of your cousin about it.'

`Ah!' she said with pained surprise.

`I didn't doubt you.'

`But you inquired!'

`I took his word.'