Since Saturday evening Monica and her husband had not been on speaking terms. A visit she paid to Mildred Vesper, after her call at Miss Barfoot’s, prolonged itself so that she did not reach home until the dinner-hour was long past. On arriving, she was met with an outburst of tremendous wrath, to which she opposed a resolute and haughty silence; and since then the two had kept as much apart as possible.

Widdowson knew that Monica was going to the Academy. He allowed her to set forth alone, and even tried to persuade himself that he was indifferent as to the hour of her return; but she had not long been gone before he followed. Insufferable misery possessed him. His married life threatened to terminate in utter wreck, and he had the anguish of recognizing that to a great extent this catastrophe would be his own fault. Resolve as he might, he found it impossible to repress the impulses of jealousy which, as soon as peace had been declared between them, brought about a new misunderstanding. Terrible thoughts smouldered in his mind; he felt himself to be one of those men who are driven by passion into crime. Deliberately he had brooded over a tragic close to the wretchedness of his existence; he would kill himself, and Monica should perish with him. But an hour of contentment sufficed to banish such visions as sheer frenzy. He saw once more how harmless, how natural, were Monica’s demands, and how peacefully he might live with her but for the curse of suspicion from which he could not free himself. Any other man would deem her a model wifely virtue. Her care of the house was all that reason could desire. In her behaviour he had never detected the slightest impropriety. He believed her chaste as any woman living She asked only to be trusted, and that, in spite of all, was beyond his power.

In no woman on earth could he have put perfect confidence. He regarded them as born to perpetual pupilage. Not that their inclinations were necessarily wanton; they were simply incapable of attaining maturity, remained throughout their life imperfect beings, at the mercy of craft, ever liable to be misled by childish misconceptions. Of course he was right; he himself represented the guardian male, the wife-proprietor, who from the dawn of civilization has taken abundant care that woman shall not outgrow her nonage. The bitterness of his situation lay in the fact that he had wedded a woman who irresistibly proved to him her claims as a human being. Reason and tradition contended in him, to his ceaseless torment.

And again, he feared that Monica did not love him. Had she ever loved him? There was too much ground for suspecting that she had only yielded to the persistence of his entreaties, with just liking enough to permit a semblance of tenderness, and glad to exchange her prospect of distasteful work for a comfortable married life. Her liking he might have fostered; during those first happy weeks, assuredly he had done so, for no woman could be insensible to the passionate worship manifest in his every look, his every word. Later, he took the wrong path, seeking to oppose her instincts, to reform her mind, eventually to become her lord and master. Could he not even now retrace his steps? Supposing her incapable of bowing before him, of kissing his feet, could he not be content to make of her a loyal friend, a delightful companion?

In that mood he hastened towards Burlington House. Seeking Monica through the galleries, he saw her at length — sitting side by side with that man Barfoot. They were in closest colloquy. Barfoot bent towards her as if speaking in an undertone, a smile on his face. Monica looked at once pleased and troubled.

The blood boiled in his veins. His first impulse was to walk straight up to Monica and bid her follow him. But the ecstasy of jealous suffering kept him an observer. He watched the pair until he was descried.

There was no help for it. Though his brain whirled, and his flesh was stabbed, he had no choice but to take the hand Barfoot offered him. Smile he could not, nor speak a word.

‘So you have come after all?’ Monica was saying to him.

He nodded. On her countenance there was obvious embarrassment, but this needed no explanation save the history of the last day or two. Looking into her eyes, he knew not whether consciousness of wrong might be read there. How to get at the secrets of this woman’s heart?

Barfoot was talking, pointing at this picture and that, doing his best to smooth what he saw was an awkward situation. The gloomy husband, more like a tyrant than ever, muttered incoherent phrases. In a minute or two Everard freed himself and moved out of sight.

Monica turned from her husband and affected interest in the pictures. They reached the end of the room before Widdowson spoke.

‘How long do you want to stay here?’

‘I will go whenever you like,’ she answered, without looking at him.

‘I have no wish to spoil your pleasure.’

‘Really, I have very little pleasure in anything. Did you come to keep me in sight?’

‘I think we will go home now, and you can come another day.’

Monica assented by closing her catalogue and walking on.

Without a word, they made the journey back to Herne Hill. Widdowson shut himself in the library, and did not appear till dinner-time. The meal was a pretence for both of them, and as soon as they could rise from the table they again parted.

About ten o’clock Monica was joined by her husband in the drawing-room.

‘I have almost made up my mind,’ he said, standing near her, ‘to take a serious step. As you have always spoken with pleasure of your old home, Clevedon, suppose we give up this house and go and live there?’

‘It is for you to decide.’

‘I want to know whether you would have any objection.’

‘I shall do as you wish.’

‘No, that isn’t enough. The plan I have in mind is this. I should take a good large house — no doubt rents are low in the neighbourhood — and ask your sisters to come and live with us. I think it would be a good thing both for them and for you.’

‘You can’t be sure that they would agree to it. You see that Virginia prefers her lodgings to living here.’

Oddly enough, this was the case. On their return from Guernsey they had invited Virginia to make a permanent home with them, and she refused. Her reasons Monica could not understand; those which she alleged — vague arguments as to its being better for a wife’s relatives not to burden the husband — hardly seemed genuine. It was possible that Virginia had a distaste for Widdowson’s society.

‘I think they both would be glad to live at Clevedon,’ he urged, ‘judging from your sisters’ talk. It’s plain that they have quite given up the idea of the school, and Alice, you tell me, is getting dissatisfied with her work at Yatton. But I must know whether you will enter seriously into this scheme.’

Monica kept silence.

‘Please answer me.’

‘Why have you thought of it?’

‘I don’t think I need explain. We have had too many unpleasant conversations, and I wish to act for the best without saying things you would misunderstand.’

‘There is no fear of my misunderstanding. You have no confidence in me, and you want to get me away into a quiet country place where I shall be under your eyes every moment. It’s much better to say that plainly.’

‘That means you would consider it going to prison.’

‘How could I help? What other motive have you?’

He was prompted to make brutal declaration of authority, and so cut the knot. Monica’s unanswerable argument merely angered him. But he made an effort over himself.

‘Don’t you think it best that we should take some step before our happiness is irretrievably ruined?’

‘I see no need for its ruin. As I have told you before, in talking like that you degrade yourself and insult me.’

‘I have my faults; I know them only too well. One of them is that I cannot bear you to make friends with people who are not of my kind. I shall never be able to endure that.’

‘Of course you are speaking of Mr. Barfoot.’

‘Yes,’ he avowed sullenly. ‘It was a very unfortunate thing that I happened to come up just as he was in your company.’

‘You are so very unreasonable,’ exclaimed Monica tartly. ‘What possible harm is there in Mr. Barfoot, when he meets me by chance in a public place, having a conversation with me? I wish I knew twenty such men. Such conversation gives me a new interest in life. I have every reason to think well of Mr. Barfoot.’

Widdowson was in anguish.

‘And I,’ he replied, in a voice shaken with angry feeling, ‘feel that I have every reason to dislike and............