'At the end of a week the work began to tell upon me, and I drifted back in search of my manuscript.'
'But you must have been in a dreadful condition; your clothes——'
'Ah! thereby hangs a tale. An actress lived in one of the houses I had been lodging in.'
'Oh, tell me about her! This is getting very interesting.'
Then passing his arm round his wife's neck, and with her sweet blonde face looking upon him, and the insinuating warmth of the fire about them, he told her the story of his failure.
'But,' she said, her voice trembling, 'you would not have committed suicide?'
'No man knows beforehand whether he will commit suicide. I can only say that every other issue was closed.'
At the end of a long silence Julia said, 'I wish you hadn't spoken about suicide. I cannot but think of Emily. If she were to make away with herself! The very possibility turns my heart to ice. What should I do—what should we do? I ought never to have given way; we were both abominably selfish. I can see that poor girl sitting alone in that house grieving her heart out.'
'You think that we ought never to have given way!'