On her return from church that Sunday Mrs Edmund Yule was anxious to learn the result of the meeting between Amy and her husband. She hoped fervently that Amy’s anomalous position would come to an end now that Reardon had the offer of something better than a mere clerkship. John Yule never ceased to grumble at his sister’s permanence in the house, especially since he had learnt that the money sent by Reardon each month was not made use of; why it should not be applied for household expenses passed his understanding.

‘It seems to me,’ he remarked several times, ‘that the fellow only does his bare duty in sending it. What is it to anyone else whether he lives on twelve shillings a week or twelve pence? It is his business to support his wife; if he can’t do that, to contribute as much to her support as possible. Amy’s scruples are all very fine, if she could afford them; it’s very nice to pay for your delicacies of feeling out of other people’s pockets.’

‘There’ll have to be a formal separation,’ was the startling announcement with which Amy answered her mother’s inquiry as to what had passed.

‘A separation? But, my dear —!’

Mrs Yule could not express her disappointment and dismay.

‘We couldn’t live together; it’s no use trying.’

‘But at your age, Amy! How can you think of anything so shocking? And then, you know it will be impossible for him to make you a sufficient allowance.’

‘I shall have to live as well as I can on the seventy-five pounds a year. If you can’t afford to let me stay with you for that, I must go into cheap lodgings in the country, like poor Mrs Butcher did.’

This was wild talking for Amy. The interview had upset her, and for the rest of the day she kept apart in her own room. On the morrow Mrs Yule succeeded in eliciting a clear account of the conversation which had ended so hopelessly.

‘I would rather spend the rest of my days in the workhouse than beg him to take me back,’ was Amy’s final comment, uttered with the earnestness which her mother understood but too well.

‘But you are willing to go back, dear?’

‘I told him so.’

‘Then you must leave this to me. The Carters will let us know how things go on, and when it seems to be time I must see Edwin myself.’

‘I can’t allow that. Anything you could say on your own account would be useless, and there is nothing to say from me.’

Mrs Yule kept her own counsel. She had a full month before her during which to consider the situation, but it was clear to her that these young people must be brought together again. Her estimate of Reardon’s mental condition had undergone a sudden change from the moment when she heard that a respectable post was within his reach; she decided that he was ‘strange,’ but then all men of literary talent had marked singularities, and doubtless she had been too hasty in interpreting the peculiar features natural to a character such as his.

A few days later arrived the news of their relative’s death at Wattleborough.

This threw Mrs Yule into a commotion. At first she decided to accompany her son and be present at the funeral; after changing her mind twenty times, she determined not to go. John must send or bring back the news as soon as possible. That it would be of a nature sensibly to affect her own position, if not that of her children, she had little doubt; her husband had been the favourite brother of the deceased, and on that account there was no saying how handsome a legacy she might receive. She dreamt of houses in South Kensington, of social ambitions gratified even thus late.

On the morning after the funeral came a postcard announcing John’s return by a certain train, but no scrap of news was added.

‘Just like that irritating boy! We must go to the station to meet him. You’ll come, won’t you, Amy?’

Amy readily consented, for she too had hopes, though circumstances blurred them. Mother and daughter were walking about the platform half an hour before the train was due; their agitation would have been manifest to anyone observing them. When at length the train rolled in and John was discovered, they pressed eagerly upon him.

‘Don’t you excite yourself,’ he said gruffly to his mother. ‘There’s no reason whatever.’

Mrs Yule glanced in dismay at Amy. They followed John to a cab, and took places with him.

‘Now don’t be provoking, Jack. Just tell us at once.’

‘By all means. You haven’t a penny.’

‘I haven’t? You are joking, ridiculous boy!’

‘Never felt less disposed to, I assure you.’

After staring out of the window for a minute or two, he at length informed Amy of the extent to which she profited by her uncle’s decease, then made known what was bequeathed to himself. His temper grew worse every moment, and he replied savagely to each successive question concerning the other items of the will.

‘What have you to grumble about?’ asked Amy, whose face was exultant notwithstanding the drawbacks attaching to her good fortune. ‘If Uncle Alfred receives nothing at all, and mother has nothing, you ought to think yourself very lucky.’

‘It’s very easy for you to say that, with your ten thousand.’

‘But is it her own?’ asked Mrs Yule. ‘Is it for her separate use?’

‘Of course it is. She gets the benefit of last year’s Married Woman’s Property Act. The will was executed in January this year, and I dare say the old curmudgeon destroyed a former one.

‘What a splendid Act of Parliament that is!’ cried Amy. ‘The only one worth anything that I ever heard of.’

‘But my dear — ‘ began her mother, in a tone of protest. However, she reserved her comment for a more fitting time and place, and merely said: ‘I wonder whether he had heard what has been going on?’

‘Do you think he would have altered his will if he had?’ asked Amy with a smile of security.

‘Why the deuce he should have left you so much in any case is more than I can understand,’ growled her brother. ‘What’s the use to me of a paltry thousand or two? It isn’t enough to invest; isn’t enough to do anything with.’

‘You may depend upon it your cousin Marian thinks her five thousand good for something,’ said Mrs Yule. ‘Who was at the funeral? Don’t be so surly, Jack; tell us all about it. I’m sure if anyone has cause to be ill-tempered it’s poor me.’

Thus they talked, amid the rattle of the cab-wheels. By when they reached home silence had fallen upon them, and each one was sufficiently occupied with private thoughts.

Mrs Yule’s servants had a terrible time of it for the next few days. Too affectionate to turn her ill-temper against John and Amy, she relieved herself by severity to the domestic slaves, as an English matron is of course justified in doing. Her daughter’s position caused her even more concern than before; she constantly lamented to herself: ‘Oh, why didn’t he die before she was married!’ — in which case Amy would never have dreamt of wedding a penniless author. Amy declined to discuss the new aspect of things until twenty-four hours after John’s return; then she said:

‘I shall do nothing whatever until the money is paid to me. And what I shall do then I don’t know.’

‘You are sure to hear from Edwin,’ opined Mrs Yule.

‘I think not. He isn’t the kind of man to behave in that way.’

‘Then I suppose you are bound to take the first step?’

‘That I shall never do.’

She said so, but the sudden happiness of finding herself wealthy was not without its softening effect on Amy’s feelings. Generous impulses alternated with moods of discontent. The thought of her husband in his squalid lodgings tempted her to forget injuries and disillusions, and to play the part of a generous wife. It would be possible now for them to go abroad and spend a year or two in healthful travel; the result in Reardon’s case might be wonderful. He might recover all the energy of his imagination, and resume his literary career from the point he had reached at the time of his marriage.

On the other hand, was it not more likely that he would lapse into a life of scholarly self-indulgence, such as he had often told her was his ideal? In that event, what tedium and regret lay before her! Ten thousand pounds sounded well, but what did it represent in reality? A poor four hundred a year, perhaps; mere decency of obscure existence, unless her husband could glorify it by winning fame. If he did nothing, she would be the wife of a man who had failed in literature. She would not be able to take a place in society. Life would be supported without struggle; nothing more to be hoped.

This view of the future possessed her strongly when, on the second day, she went to communicate her news to Mrs Carter. This amiable lady had now become what she always desired to be, Amy’s intimate friend; they saw each other very frequently, and conversed of most things with much frankness. It was between eleven and twelve in the morning when Amy paid her visit, and she found Mrs Carter on the point of going out.

‘I was coming to see you,’ cried Edith. ‘Why haven’t you let me know of what has happened?’

‘You have heard, I suppose?’

‘Albert heard from your brother.’

‘I supposed he would. And I haven’t felt in the mood for talking about it, even with you.’

They went into Mrs Carter’s boudoir, a tiny room full of such pretty things as can be purchased nowadays by anyone who has a few shillings to spare, and tolerable taste either of their own or at second-hand. Had she been left to her instincts, Edith would have surrounded herself with objects representing a much earlier stage of artistic development; but she was quick to imitate what fashion declared becoming. Her husband regarded her as a remarkable authority in all matters of personal or domestic ornamentation.

‘And what are you going to do?’ she inquired, examining Amy from head to foot, as if she thought that the inheritance of so substantial a sum must have produced visible changes in her friend.

‘I am going to do nothing.’

‘But surely you’re not in low spirits?’

‘What have I to rejoice about?’

They talked for a while before Amy brought herself to utter what she was thinking.

‘Isn’t it a most ridiculous thing that married people who both wish to separate can’t do so and be quite free again?’

‘I suppose it would lead to all sorts of troubles — don’t you think?’

‘So people say about every new step in civilisation. What would have been thought twenty years ago of a proposal to make all married women independent of their husbands in money matters? All sorts of absurd dangers were foreseen, no doubt. And it’s the same now about divorce. In America people can get divorced if they don’t suit each other — at all events in some of the States — and does any harm come of it? Just the opposite I should think.’

Edith mused. Such speculations were daring, but she had grown accustomed to think of Amy as an ‘advanced’ woman, and liked to imitate her in this respect.

‘It does seem reasonable,’ she murmured.

‘The law ought to encourage such separations, instead of forbidding them,’ Amy pursued. ‘If a husband and wife find that they have made a mistake, what useless cruelty it is to condemn them to suffer the consequences for the whole of their lives!’

‘I suppose it’s to make people careful,’ said Edith, with a laugh.

‘If so, we know that it has always failed, and always will fail; so the sooner such a profitless law is altered the better. Isn’t there some society for getting that kind of reform? I would subscribe fifty pounds a year to help it. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, if I had it to spare,’ replied the other.

Then they both laughed, but Edith the more naturally.

‘Not on my own account, you know,’ she added.

‘It’s because women who are happily married can’t and won’t understand the position of those who are not that there’s so much difficulty in reforming marriage laws.’

‘But I understand you, Amy, and I grieve about you. What you are to do I can’t think.’

‘Oh, it’s easy to see what I shall do. Of course I have no choice really. And I ought to have a choice; that’s the hardship and the wrong of it. Perhaps if I had, I should find a sort of ple............