Part 47 (1/2)

'It came just after you went out, and it has been all I could do to resist the temptation to open it.'

'Why shouldn't you have opened it?' said her husband, carelessly.

He tried to do so himself, but his shaking hand thwarted him at first.

Succeeding at length, he found a letter in the publisher's own writing, and the first word that caught his attention was 'regret.' With an angry effort to command himself he ran through the communication, then held it out to Amy.

She read, and her countenance fell. Mr Jedwood regretted that the story offered to him did not seem likely to please that particular public to whom his series of one-volume novels made appeal. He hoped it would be understood that, in declining, he by no means expressed an adverse judgment on the story itself &c.

'It doesn't surprise me,' said Reardon. 'I believe he is quite right.

The thing is too empty to please the better kind of readers, yet not vulgar enough to please the worse.'

'But you'll try someone else?'

'I don't think it's much use.'

They sat opposite each other, and kept silence. Jedwood's letter slipped from Amy's lap to the ground.

'So,' said Reardon, presently, 'I don't see how our plan is to be carried out.'

'Oh, it must be!'

'But how?'

'You'll get seven or eight pounds from The Wayside. And--hadn't we better sell the furniture, instead of--'

His look checked her.

'It seems to me, Amy, that your one desire is to get away from me, on whatever terms.'

'Don't begin that over again!' she exclaimed, fretfully. 'If you don't believe what I say--'

They were both in a state of intolerable nervous tension. Their voices quivered, and their eyes had an unnatural brightness.

'If we sell the furniture,' pursued Reardon, 'that means you'll never come back to me. You wish to save yourself and the child from the hard life that seems to be before us.'

'Yes, I do; but not by deserting you. I want you to go and work for us all, so that we may live more happily before long. Oh, how wretched this is!'

She burst into hysterical weeping. But Reardon, instead of attempting to soothe her, went into the next room, where he sat for a long time in the dark. When he returned Amy was calm again; her face expressed a cold misery.

'Where did you go this morning?' he asked, as if wis.h.i.+ng to talk of common things.

'I told you. I went to buy those things for Willie.'

'Oh yes.'

There was a silence.

'Biffen pa.s.sed you in Tottenham Court Road,' he added.