The only drawback to their happiness was their poverty. The fifteen pounds of borrowed money had gone through their hands like water, and God knows what would have become of them if Dick had not been fortunate to make another tenner by looking after a piece given at a morning performance. What with the doctor's bills, the nurse's wages, the baby's clothes, they were for ever breaking into their last sovereign. Dick spoke of their difficulties with reluctance, not wishing to distress her, but he felt he must rouse her out of the apathy into which she had fallen, and he begged of her to take the next engagement he could find for her. It seemed to him that she was now quite well, but when he pressed for a promise the first time she answered: 'Yes, Dick, I should like to get to work again,' but when he came to her with a proposal of work, she was quick to find excuses. The baby was foremost among them; she did not like to put the child out to nurse. 'If the child were to die, I should never forgive myself,' she would say. 'Don't ask me, Dick, don't ask me.' 'But, Kate, we cannot go on living here on nothing. We owe the landlady for three weeks.' At these words Kate would burst into tears, and when he succeeded in consoling her she would remind him that if she went back to work before she was quite well she might be laid up for a long time, which would be much worse than the loss of a miserable three or four pounds a week. To convince Dick completely she would remind him that as she had been playing leading parts it would not be wise to accept the first thing she could get. 'If one lets oneself down, Dick, in the profession, it's difficult to get up again.' 'Well, dear,' Dick would answer, 'I must try and find something to do myself. You shall not be asked again to go back to work until you feel like it. When you come to tell me that you're tired of staying at home. 'Don't speak like that, Dick, for it seems as if you were laying blame upon me, and I'm not to blame. You will be able to judge for yourself when I'm fit to go back to work, and one of these days you will come with the news of a leading part.' Accompanying him to the door she said she would like to return to the stage in a leading part, but not in any of the parts she had already played in, but in something new. These objections and excuses brought a cloud into Dick's face which she did not notice, but when he had gone she would begin to think of his kindness towards her and of what she could do to reward him. His shirts wanted mending, and as soon as they were mended she made hoods and shoes for the baby. In many little ways the old life that she thought she had left behind in Hanley began to reappear, and when Dick came into the room and found her reading a novel by the fire she reminded him of Ralph's wife rather than of his own.