“You have brought me news of Harry?” she asked, presently, when she had made him rest on the sofa and brought him a cup of tea.
“Yes; but there is not much to tell. He is getting on, but he has not written this time.”
“Not written! Why is that? He might surely have sent me a few lines by you, if he did not choose to write by the post. I have been expecting to hear from him every day for at least a week. Stephen,” she went on earnestly, drawing her chair nearer to the sofa, and speaking with all the soft persuasion she could put into her voice, “there must be some reason for this—some reason that you know and can tell me if you choose. Do let me know what it means, Stephen. You would not keep anything from me that I ought to know, would you? I am sure you could not be so cruel. He is ill, and you don’t like to tell me so.”
“No; he is quite well—upon my honor he is! It is only that he is not getting on so fast as he wishes to, and he is too despondent just now to write.”
“But how does he live? I am sure he has no money, and he is used, poor fellow, to having it for the asking.”
“No, indeed—it took a good deal of asking, and of a very pressing kind, to get money out of George lately. But it is always difficult for a man with no capital to get on.”
“Look here, Stephen. I have some money that I have saved; you must take it. If Harry won’t have it when he hears it is mine, you must tell him it is his share of the proceeds of the sale at the Grange. Poor old Grange! I read about the sale the other day. I can’t think what has changed Harry so much; he used not to be overproud in money matters, and now he is as tiresome as possible the other way. Tell him any story you like, so that you make him take it.”
“I sha’n’t be able to, Annie. He is a great deal sharper than you think, and he would guess who sent it directly.”
“You must say nothing about it for a few days, as he will know you have just seen me. But in about a week you can spring it upon him suddenly, and he will be off his guard by that time and believe you. Now don’t raise any more objections, for you must take it; and I can spare it quite well. I know you are a man of property,” said she, laughing—for Stephen had a little money of his own—“and would be offended if I offered to lend you money; but, if you ever should want ‘a little check,’ you must remember that I, too, am a person of property now—at least, as long as my engagement lasts; and I have just signed for another two years at a higher salary.”
And, before he went away, she put into his hands a little packet containing ten pounds, which he took reluctantly, bound by a solemn promise not to let Harry know whom it came from. She sent a little note to her husband, too, begging him to write to her, telling him all about the renewal of her engagement, cheering him by all the encouraging words she could think of, entreating him not to despond if he were not immediately successful in the work, whatever it might be, which he had taken up, and saying all that a wife could think of to a better husband than Harry. She refrained from sneers or sarcasm, for she had made up her mind to take her husband as he was, to do her duty as his wife as well as he would let her; and she tried to throw all her thoughts and all her hopes into her own career, so that she might escape from the regrets which would arise in moments of depression at the thought that no home happiness would ever be possible for her.