He took her in his arms and held her pa.s.sionately and kissed her face again and again. Amy's tears broke forth anew.

'Why should we come to such utter ruin?' she sobbed. 'Oh, try, try if you can't save us even yet! You know without my saying it that I do love you; it's dreadful to me to think all our happy life should be at an end, when we thought of such a future together. Is it impossible? Can't you work as you used to and succeed as we felt confident you would?

Don't despair yet, Edwin; do, do try, whilst there is still time!'

'Darling, darling--if only I COULD!'

'I have thought of something, dearest. Do as you proposed last year; find a tenant for the flat whilst we still have a little money, and then go away into some quiet country place, where you can get back your health and live for very little, and write another book--a good book, that'll bring you reputation again. I and Willie can go and live at mother's for the summer months. Do this! It would cost you so little, living alone, wouldn't it? You would know that I was well cared for; mother would be willing to have me for a few months, and it's easy to explain that your health has failed, that you're obliged to go away for a time.'

'But why shouldn't you go with me, if we are to let this place?'

'We shouldn't have enough money. I want to free your mind from the burden whilst you are writing. And what is before us if we go on in this way? You don't think you will get much for what you're writing now, do you?'

Reardon shook his head.

'Then how can we live even till the end of the year? Something must be done, you know. If we get into poor lodgings, what hope is there that you'll be able to write anything good?'

'But, Amy, I have no faith in my power of--'

'Oh, it would be different! A few days--a week or a fortnight of real holiday in this spring weather. Go to some seaside place. How is it possible that all your talent should have left you? It's only that you have been so anxious and in such poor health. You say I don't love you, but I have thought and thought what would be best for you to do, how you could save yourself. How can you sink down to the position of a poor clerk in some office? That CAN'T be your fate, Edwin; it's incredible.

Oh, after such bright hopes, make one more effort! Have you forgotten that we were to go to the South together--you were to take me to Italy and Greece? How can that ever be if you fail utterly in literature? How can you ever hope to earn more than bare sustenance at any other kind of work?'

He all but lost consciousness of her words in gazing at the face she held up to his.

'You love me? Say again that you love me!'

'Dear, I love you with all my heart. But I am so afraid of the future.

I can't bear poverty; I have found that I can't bear it. And I dread to think of your becoming only an ordinary man--'

Reardon laughed.

'But I am NOT "only an ordinary man," Amy! If I never write another line, that won't undo what I have done. It's little enough, to be sure; but you know what I am. Do you only love the author in me? Don't you think of me apart from all that I may do or not do? If I had to earn my living as a clerk, would that make me a clerk in soul?'

'You shall not fall to that! It would be too bitter a shame to lose all you have gained in these long years of work. Let me plan for you; do as I wish. You are to be what we hoped from the first. Take all the summer months. How long will it be before you can finish this short book?'

'A week or two.'

'Then finish it, and see what you can get for it. And try at once to find a tenant to take this place off our hands; that would be twenty-five pounds saved for the rest of the year. You could live on so little by yourself, couldn't you?'

'Oh, on ten shillings a week, if need be.'

'But not to starve yourself, you know. Don't you feel that my plan is a good one? When I came to you to-night I meant to speak of this, but you were so cruel--'

'Forgive me, dearest love! I was half a madman. You have been so cold to me for a long time.'

'I have been distracted. It was as if we were drawing nearer and nearer to the edge of a cataract.'

'Have you spoken to your mother about this?' he asked uneasily.

'No--not exactly this. But I know she will help us in this way.'

He had seated himself and was holding her in his arms, his face laid against hers.

'I shall dread to part from you, Amy. That's such a dangerous thing to do. It may mean that we are never to live as husband and wife again.'

'But how could it? It's just to prevent that danger. If we go on here till we have no money--what's before us then? Wretched lodgings at the best. And I am afraid to think of that. I can't trust myself if that should come to pa.s.s.'

'What do you mean?' he asked anxiously.

'I hate poverty so. It brings out all the worst things in me; you know I have told you that before, Edwin?'

'But you would never forget that you are my wife?'

'I hope not. But--I can't think of it; I can't face it! That would be the very worst that can befall us, and we are going to try our utmost to escape from it. Was there ever a man who did as much as you have done in literature and then sank into hopeless poverty?'

'Oh, many!'

'But at your age, I mean. Surely not at your age?'

'I'm afraid there have been such poor fellows. Think how often one hears of hopeful beginnings, new reputations, and then--you hear no more. Of course it generally means that the man has gone into a different career; but sometimes, sometimes--'

'What?'

'The abyss.' He pointed downward. 'Penury and despair and a miserable death.'

'Oh, but those men haven't a wife and child! They would struggle--'

'Darling, they do struggle. But it's as if an ever-increasing weight were round their necks; it drags them lower and lower. The world has no pity on a man who can't do or produce something it thinks worth money.

You may be a divine poet, and if some good fellow doesn't take pity on you you will starve by the roadside. Society is as blind and brutal as fate. I have no right to complain of my own ill-fortune; it's my own fault (in a sense) that I can't continue as well as I began; if I could write books as good as the early ones I should earn money. For all that, it's hard that I must be kicked aside as worthless just because I don't know a trade.'

'It shan't be! I have only to look into your face to know that you will succeed after all. Yours is the kind of face that people come to know in portraits.'

He kissed her hair, and her eyes, and her mouth.

'How well I remember your saying that before! Why have you grown so good to me all at once, my Amy? Hearing you speak like that I feel there's nothing beyond my reach. But I dread to go away from you. If I find that it is hopeless; if I am alone somewhere, and know that the effort is all in vain--'

'Then?'

'Well, I can leave you free. If I can't support you, it will be only just that I should give you back your freedom.'

'I don't understand--'

She raised herself and looked into his eyes.

'We won't talk of that. If you bid me go on with the struggle, I shall do so.'

Amy had hidden her face, and lay silently in his arms for a minute or two. Then she murmured:

'It is so cold here, and so late. Come!'