Late one evening, when Marsden was taking what he called his night-cap in the drawing-room, he began to ask questions about the Sheraton desk and cabinets.

"Those things are not at all bad—but they aren't genuine, I suppose?"

"The desk is genuine," said Mrs. Marsden; "but the other things are modern."

"They are uncommonly good imitations," said Marsden; and he knelt in front of one of the cabinets and studied it carefully. "This is an excellently made piece—tip-top workmanship. Why, it must be worth twenty or thirty guineas."

"Yes, it cost something like that."

"Where did you get it?"

"It came out of the shop."

"Ah. Exactly what I supposed;" and he got up from his knees, and stood looking at her thoughtfully. "Out of the shop. Just so.... I must think this out."

But his train of thought was interrupted by a timid knock at the door. It was their last new housemaid, come to ask if the master and the mistress required anything further to-night. She remained on the threshold, breathing hard, and staring shyly, while she waited for an answer—a bouncing, apple-cheeked, country bumpkin of a girl, who had accepted very modest wages for this her first place.

"No," said Marsden shortly, "I don't want anything more—What's your name?"

"Susan, sir."

"All right. Then shut the door, Susan."

"Good night, Susan," said Mrs. Marsden kindly.

"Where did you pick her up?" asked Marsden, when the girl had gone. "She's healthy enough and plump enough—but she looks half-baked."

"She will do very well, if you give her time to learn."

"Oh, I'll let her learn, if you can teach her.... But what was I saying? Oh, yes—about the furniture!"

Then he walked round the room, pointing at different things, and continuing his questions.

"Did this come out of the shop?"

"Yes."

"And this?... And those chairs?... And the sofa?"

She did not understand why he asked. But he soon explained himself. He said that all this furniture was taken out of the shop, and it therefore belonged to the firm—or at any rate could not be considered as her private property.

"A partnership is a partnership," he added sententiously.

"But it was ages before the partnership. And all the things were paid for by me."

"No, not paid for," he said quickly. "Not paid for in cash—just a matter of writing down a debit somewhere and a credit somewhere else, and saying it was accounted for. But from the point of view of the shop, that's a bogus transaction."

"How absurd!"

"No, not absurd—common sense. The shop never got a penny profit, and it seems to me that—"

"Oh, I won't dispute it with you. What is it that you want done?"

"I want the right thing to be done," he replied slowly, as if deliberating on a knotty point. "And it isn't easy to say off-hand what that is."

"Do you want me to send the things back into the department?"

"No.... No, the time has passed for doing that. It would muddle the accounts. Come into the dining-room, and show me the shop things in there."

She obeyed him; and then he asked if there were any shop things upstairs.

"Yes, several."

"Well, you can show me those to-morrow morning.... I begin to see my way. Yes, I think I see now what's fair and proper."

"Do you?"

He said emphatically that in justice and equity he possessed a half share of all goods taken out of his shop, no matter how long ago. And he insisted on having his share. He would obtain a valuation of the goods, and Mrs. Marsden could pay him cash for half the amount, and retain the goods. Or he would send the goods to London and sell them by auction; and they would each take half the proceeds.

Mrs. Marsden chose the second method of dealing with the problem.

"All right," said Marsden. "So be it. I dare say they'll fetch a tidy sum—and it's share and share alike, of course, for the two of us."

Two days after this the house was stripped of nearly all that had given it an air of opulent comfort and decorative luxury. Mrs. Marsden went to the department of the firm, and bought the cheapest bedroom things she could find to fill the blank spaces and ugly gaps upstairs, and paid for everything with her private purse.

In a fortnight the furniture auctioneers wrote to inform Mr. Marsden that the goods under the hammer had brought the respectable sum of one hundred and thirty pounds. Account for commission, etc., with cheque to balance, should follow shortly. And before long he duly received the balancing cheque.

But the loss of the cabinets and sofas made the living rooms seem bare and forlorn. The house and the shop had become alike: in each one could now see the empty, cheerless aspect of impending ruin.

Enid, when next she brought her child to call on granny, uttered an exclamation of surprise and distress.

"Mother! What has happened? Where has everything gone?"

"To London—to be sold."

"Oh, mother. Has he obliged you to do this?"

"Yes."

The barrier of reserve so long maintained by Mrs. Marsden had worn very thin. It gave small shelter now; and the brave defender seemed to be growing careless of exposure. And Enid too was losing the power to protect herself from pity and commiseration. The misery caused by both husbands could not much longer be concealed. Yet Enid's state was surely a happy one, when compared with the prevailing gloom in which her mother vainly laboured. Enid had a child to console her.

Weeks passed; but Marsden said nothing of the "share and share alike" settlement that was to clear up that little difficulty of the furniture. At last his wife asked him if he had heard from the auctioneers.

"Oh, yes. Didn't I tell you? The things went pretty well."

"What did they bring?"

"Oh, about a hundred quid."

"Then when may I have my share?"

"Oh, you shall have your share all right—but you can't have it now."

"Dick, have you spent it—have you spent what belonged to me?"

"Who says I have spent it?" And he turned on her angrily. "If it isn't convenient to me to square up at the moment, why can't you wait? What does it matter to you when you get it? Why should you pretend to be in such a deuce of a hurry?"

This again was late at night. They were alone together in the dismantled drawing-room.

"Dick," she said quietly but resolutely, "I must have my share."

"Then you'll jolly well wait for it.... Look here. Shut up. I'm not going to be nagged at. Be damned to your share. You don't want it."

"Yes, I do want it—I have relied on it."

"Oh, you're all right. You've plenty of money stowed away somewhere."

"On my honour, I have no money available."

"Available! That's a good word. That means funds that you don't intend to touch. Prices on change are down, are they?—and you don't care to realise just now?"

She looked at him steadily and unflinchingly. Her eyebrows were contracted; her face had hardened.

"Dick, this isn't fair. It is something that I can't allow," and she spoke slowly and significantly. "Please pull yourself together. You can't go on doing things of this sort. They are dangerous."

"Will you shut up, and stop nagging?"

It was by no means the first time that he had stuck to money when it should have passed through his hands to hers. Indeed in all their private transactions, whenever a chance offered, he had promptly cheated her. But during the last six months it had come to her knowledge that he was not confining his trickery to transactions which could be considered as outside the business.

"Dick, I must go on. It is for your sake as well as mine. There is a principle at stake."

"Rot."

"What you are doing is dishonest. It is embezzlement!" and she turned from him, and looked at the empty fireplace.

With an oath he seized her arm, and swung her round till she faced him again.

"Take that back—or you'll be sorry for it. Do you dare to say that word again? Now we'll see." Holding her with one hand, he swayed her to and fro, as if to force her down to her knees; and his other hand was raised threateningly on a level with her face.

"Are you going to strike me?" And she looked at him with still unflinching eyes. "Why don't you do it? Why are you hesitating? Oh, my God—it only wanted this to justify everything."

Her courage seemed to increase his hesitation. He lowered the threatening hand, but continued to hold her tightly.

"Say what you mean. Out with it."

"Dick, you know very well what I mean.... It must be stopped."

"What must be stopped?"

"Your dangerous irregularities."

"I don't know what you're talking about. Someone has been telling you a pack of lies. You're ready to believe any lie against me."

"There was a cheque of the firm—made out to bearer—on the third of last month."

"I know nothing about it."

"No more did I. They sent for me to the bank—to look at the signatures and the initials."

"Well?"

"I told them it was all right."

"Well, what about it?"

"There was the hundred pounds that was to be paid Osborn & Gibbs on account—to keep them quiet. It was written off in the books—you showed their acknowledgment for it.... But what's the use of going on? Dick, pull yourself together. I hold the proof of your folly."

He had let her go, and was walking about the room with his hands in his pockets. When he spoke again, it was sullenly and grumblingly.

"I know nothing whatever about it. I can keep accounts in my head just as well as in the books.... If I seem unbusinesslike—it is because I'm called away so often; and those fools don't understand my system.... I go for facts, and don't bother about all the fuss of book-keeping—which is generally in a muddle whenever I ask for plain statements.... No, you've got on to a wrong track. But I'll go to the bottom of the matter to-morrow—or the day after. I'm busy with other things to-morrow."

"Never mind what's past, Dick; but go into matters for the future."

"All right. Then say no more. Don't nag me.... And look here. Of course I fully intend to pay you your share. I admit the debt. I owe you fifty pounds."

He had been cowed for a few moments; but now he was recovering his angry bluster.

"That's enough," he went on. "I'll settle as soon as I can. But, upon my word, you are turning into a harpy for ready money. What have you done with all your own? How have you dribbled it away—and let yourself get so low that you have to come howling for a beggarly fifty pounds?"

Mrs. Marsden raised her hands to her forehead, with a gesture that he might interpret as expressive of hopeless despair; but she did not answer him in words.

"Oh, all right," he growled, to himself rather than to her. "The old explanation, I suppose. I'm to be the scapegoat! But I know jolly well where your money has gone. Enid and that squalling brat have pretty near cleared you out. Nothing's too much for Enid to ask.... If I wasn't a fool, I should forbid her the house.... And I will too, if you drive me to it."

It maddened him to think of all the sovereigns that might have chinked in his pocket, if Enid had not rapaciously intervened.

But in fact Mrs. Marsden had given her daughter no money. And this was not because Enid had refrained from asking for it. Compelled to do so by Kenion, she had more than once reluctantly sued for substantial assistance.

"Enid dear, don't ask me again. Truly, it is impossible."

Mrs. Marsden stood firm in the attitude that she had adopted when pestered by old Mrs. Kenion at the christening. Of course she gave presents to little Jane. The trifling aid that a young mother needs in rearing a beloved child Enid might be sure of obtaining; but the source of supply for a husband's selfish extravagance had run dry.

"Enid, my darling, I can't do it—I simply can't. He should not send you to me. I told his mother that it was useless to expect more from me."

Enid hugged Mrs. Marsden, said she felt a wretch, begged for forgiveness; but soon she had to confess that Charles bore these rebuffs very badly, and that it would be better for Mrs. Marsden never to come any more to the farmhouse. If she came, Charles might insult her.

And now Richard had hinted that he would not allow Enid to come to St. Saviour's Court. It seemed that soon the mother and daughter would be able to meet only by stealth and on rare occasions.

If the barrier was shattered and broken in front of Enid, it was completely down between Mrs. Marsden and Mr. Prentice. No further pretence was possible to either of them: the strenuous pressure of open facts had forced both to speak more or less plainly when they spoke of Marsden.

Although Marsden always abused the solicitor behind his back, he ran to him for help every time he got into a scrape; and during the last year one might almost say that he had kept Mr. Prentice busily employed. A horrid mess with London book-makers; two rows with the railway company, about cards in a third-class carriage, and no ticket in a first-class carriage; a fracas with the billiard-marker at his club—one after another, stupid and disgraceful scrapes. Mr. Prentice, doing his best for the culprit, each time found it necessary to obtain Mrs. Marsden's instructions, and to put things before her plainly.

The club committee had eventually desired their obstreperous member to forward a resignation; and, on his refusal to do so, had removed his name from their list. Mr. Marsden, who in his boastful pride once considered himself eligible for the select company of the County gentlemen, had thus been ignominiously expelled from the large society of petty tradesmen, clerks, tag, rag, and bobtail, known as the Mallingbridge Conservative.

At last, after a discussion concerning one of these scrapes, Mr. Prentice abandoned the slightest shadow of pretence, and gave his old client the plainest conceivable advice.

"Screw yourself up to strong measures," said Mr. Prentice, "and get rid of him."

"How could I—even if I were willing?"

"Go for a divorce."

"I shouldn't be given one."

"I think you would."

They were in Mr. Prentice's room—the fine panelled room with the two tall Queen Anne windows, and the pleasant view up Hill Street, and through the side street into Trinity Square. Mrs. Marsden sat facing the light, her back towards the big safe and the racks of tin boxes; and Mr. Prentice, seated by his table, looked at her gravely and watched her changing expression while he spoke.

"I think that you would obtain your divorce," he repeated.

Then he got up, and opened and closed the door. The passage to the clerks' office was empty. He came back to his table, and sat down again.

"Don't give him any more chances. Take it from me—he'll never reform. Get rid of him now."

"Oh no—quite impossible."

"I had a talk the other day with Yates," said Mr. Prentice quietly. "Yates is prepared to give evidence that he knocked you about."

"But it's not true," said Mrs. Marsden hotly.

The blood rose to her cheeks, and her lips trembled; but Mr. Prentice had ceased to watch her face. He was playing with an inkless pen and some white blotting-paper.

"Yates is ready to go into the box and swear it."

"Then she would be swearing an untruth."

"Yates would be a very good witness. Really I don't see how anybody could shake her.... I asked her a few questions.... She impressed me as being just the right sort of witness."

"Please don't say any more."

"Honestly, I believe we should pull it off. And why not? If ever a woman deserved—"

But Mrs. Marsden would hear no more of this kind of advice.

"I see no reason against it," said Mr. Prentice, persisting.

"No, no," said Mrs. Marsden sadly.

"It's the only thing to do."

"You don't understand me." And as she said it, there was dignity as well as sadness in her voice. "Even if it were all easy and straightforward, I could never consent to allow the story of my married life to be told in Court—to the public. I could not bear it. I simply could not bear the shame of it."

"Oh!... Well, it would be like having a tooth out. Soon over."

"But that is only one reason. There are many others."

"Are there?"

"You shouldn't—you mustn't assume that he only is to blame. There are faults on both sides. And I have this on my conscience—that perhaps he would have done very well, if I hadn't married him."

"My dear—forgive my saying so—that is magnanimous, but nonsense."

"No," she said firmly, "it is the truth. He had some good qualities. He was a worker. Idleness—with more money than he was accustomed to—brought temptations;—and he was very young. If he had remained poor, he might have developed into a better man."

"I won't contradict you.... Only it isn't what he might have developed into, but what he has developed into; and what fresh developments we can reasonably expect.... I see no hope. Really, I must say it. I believe, as sure as I sit here, that he'll eat you up—he'll ruin you, if you let him—he'll land you in the workhouse before you've done with him. That's why I say, get rid of him—at all costs."

But Mrs. Marsden only shook her head sadly and wearily.

Mr. Prentice stood at his window, looking down into the street, and mournfully watching her as she walked away.

She was dressed in black—she who had been so fond of bright colours never wore anything but black now; and the black was growing shabby and rusty. She seemed taller, now that she had become so much thinner; the grey hair at the sides of her forehead and the unfashionable bonnet tied with ribbons under her chin made her appear old; the florid complexion had changed to a dull white—as she turned her face, and hurried across the road, he thought that it showed almost a ghostly whiteness. And truly she was the ghost of the prosperous, radiant, richly-clothed woman that he remembered.

She had been so strong, and now she had become so weak—so pitiably weak; with a weakness that rendered it impossible to save her. His heart ached as he thought of her weakness.

She would be eaten up—soul and body. Secret information made him aware that she had sold the various stocks that she held at her marriage. The manager of the bank had regretfully told him so, at a meeting of the Masonic lodge—a secret between tried friends and trusted Masons, to go no further. She had employed the bank to sell these securities for her. In the old days she would have come to him for advice, and he would have sent the order direct to the stock-brokers; but now she was weakly afraid of his knowing anything about her suicidal transactions.

He was looking out from the same window one afternoon a few weeks later, and he saw something that really horrified him. He could scarcely believe his eyes.

Mrs. Marsden had gone swiftly down the side street, and had vanished through the front door of those shady, wicked solicitors, Hyde & Collins.

He felt so greatly discomposed that he snatched up his hat, ran down into the side street, and stood waiting for her outside the hated and ominous doorway.

When after half an hour she emerged from the clutch of his unworthy confrÈres, he took her arm and led her into Trinity Square; and, walking with her round and round the small enclosure, reproached her for deserting him in favour of such people.

"But I haven't deserted you," she said meekly bearing the reproaches. "This is only some private business that they are attending to."

"But is it kind to me? You know what I think of them. I ask you, is it kind to me?"

"I meant no unkindness," she said earnestly.

And she offered apologies based on vague generalities. Life is complex and difficult. One is forced out of one's path by unusual circumstances. Sometimes one is driven to do things of so private a nature that one cannot speak about them to one's oldest and best friends.

"Very well. But if you feel disinclined to confide everything to me—there are other men that you could depend on. Go to Dickinson—he's a thorough good sort. Or Loder—or Selby! Go to any one of them. But don't—for mercy's sake—mix yourself up with these brutes."

In order to defend herself, Mrs. Marsden was obliged to defend Hyde & Collins.

"They are quick to understand one. Really they seem sharp—"

"Sharp! Yes—too sharp—a thousand times too sharp. But ask anybody's opinion of them. Look at their clients. They haven't got a single solid client."

"But they still act for Bence's—they do everything for Mr. Bence."

"Yes," said Mr. Prentice contemptuously, "but who's Bence, when all's said and done?"

"Ah!" And Mrs. Marsden drew in her breath, as if she felt incapable of continuing the conversation.

"I grant you that Bence has done wonders—and proved me a bad prophet. But we haven't got to the last chapter of Bence yet. I don't believe Bence is really solid—and I never shall do, while I see him going in and out of Hyde & Collins's."

Mrs. Marsden meekly bore all reproaches; but she showed a stubbornness that no warnings could shake. She met direct questions with generalized vagueness. What is unwise in some circumstances may be not unwise in other circumstances. Life is complex—and so on.

When Mr. Prentice left her, he went back to his office full of the most dismal forebodings. She had placed herself in the hands of Hyde & Collins. She was indisputably done for.