‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘that the Carters already knew pretty well how things were going with us.’
‘That’s a very different thing. But when it comes to asking them for money—’
‘I’m very sorry. I would rather have done anything if I had known how it would annoy you.’
‘If we have to wait a month, five pounds will be very little use to us.’
She detailed all manner of expenses that had to be met—outlay there was no possibility of avoiding so long as their life was maintained on its present basis.
‘However, you needn’t trouble any more about it. I’ll see to it. Now you are free from your book try to rest.’
‘Come and sit by the fire. There’s small chance of rest for me if we are thinking unkindly of each other.’
A doleful Christmas. Week after week went by and Reardon knew that Amy must have exhausted the money he had given her. But she made no more demands upon him, and necessaries were paid for in the usual way. He suffered from a sense of humiliation; sometimes he found it difficult to look in his wife’s face.
When the publishers’ letter came it contained an offer of seventy-five pounds for the copyright of ‘Margaret Home,’ twenty-five more to be paid if the sale in three-volume form should reach a certain number of copies.
Here was failure put into unmistakable figures. Reardon said to himself that it was all over with his profession of authorship. The book could not possibly succeed even to the point of completing his hundred pounds; it would meet with universal contempt, and indeed deserved nothing better.