He lay awake all night, brooding, and on the following morning he breakfasted alone.
When he came home for lunch, Helena received him with an expression of pained resignation.
“Why do you treat me like that?” she asked.
He apologised, with as few words as possible. Then he repented his curtness and climbed down.
Thus matters stood for six months. He was tossed between doubt, rage and love, but his chain held.
His face grew pale and his eyes lost their lustre. His temper had become uncertain; a sullen fury smouldered beneath his outward calm.
Helena found him changed, despotic, because he was beginning to oppose her, and often left the meetings to seek amusement elsewhere.
One day he was asked to become a candidate for a professorial chair. He refused, believing that he had no chance, but Helena gave him no peace until he complied with the conditions. He was elected. He never knew the reason why, but Helena did.
A short time after there was a by-election.
The new professor, who had never dreamed of taking an active interest in public affairs, was nonplussed when he found himself nominated. His surprise was even greater when he was elected. He intended to decline, but Helena’s entreaties and her argument that life in a big city was preferable to an existence in a small provincial town induced him to accept the mandate.