"It seems so dreadful that he should have sold nearly all his books and still have debts," moaned Pauline. "It seems so cruel. Ought I to give him up?"
"Give him up," repeated Miss Verney, her cheeks becoming dead white at the question. "Oh, my dear, I don't think it could be right for you to give him up on account of debts. Patience seems to me the only remedy for your troubles, patience and constancy."
"No, you've misunderstood me," cried Pauline. "I'm afraid that I hamper him, that I spoil his work. If I gave him up, he would go away from Wychford and be free. Besides perhaps then his father would pay his debts. Miss Verney, Mr. Hazlewood didn't like me, and I think Guy has quarrelled with him over me. Oh, I'm the most miserable girl in England, and such a little time ago I was the happiest."
"Money," said Miss Verney slowly and seeming to address her cats rather than Pauline. "The root of all evil! Yes, yes, it is. It's the root of all evil."
Pauline was a little heartened by Miss Verney's readiness to consider so seriously the monster that oppressed her thoughts; yet it was disquieting to regard the old maid, whose life had been ruined by money and who all alone with cats stayed here in this small house at the top of Wychford town, the very image of unhappy love. It was disquieting to hear her reflections on the calamity of gold uttered like this to cats, and in a sudden dread of the future Pauline beheld herself talking in the same way a long time hence. She shivered and bade Miss Verney farewell; and now to all the other woes that stood behind her in the shadows was added the vision of herself mumbling to cats in February dusks of the dim years ahead.
The idea of herself as the figure of an unhappy tale of love grew continuously more definite, and once she spoke of her dread to Guy, who was very angry.
"How can you encourage such morbid notions?" he protested. "You really must cultivate the power to resist them. People go mad by indulging their depression as you're doing."
"Perhaps I shall go mad," she whispered.
"Oh, for God's sake don't talk like that," he ejaculated in angry alarm; and Pauline, realizing how she had frightened him was sorry and went to the other extreme of high spirits.
"I thought we had agreed to wait ten years or twenty years, if necessary," said Guy. "And now after one year you are finding the strain too much. Why won't you have confidence in me? It's unfortunate about Worrall, I admit. But there are plenty of other publishers."