‘You mustn’t expect all my love. Before long some one else will rule over me.--What an exchange I have made! And I was going to be so independent.’ To the listener, her speech seemed to come from a maturer mind than she had hitherto revealed. But he suffered from the thought that this might be merely a pathological phase. In reminding him of her motherhood, she checked the flow of his emotion. ‘You’ll remember,’ Nancy went on, ‘that I’m not enjoying myself whilst you are away. I don’t want you to be unhappy--only to think of me, and keep in mind what I’m going through. If you do that, you won’t be away from me longer than you can help.’ It was said with unforced pathos, and Tarrant’s better part made generous reply. ‘If you find it too hard, dear, write to me, and tell me, and there shall be an end of it.’ ‘Never. You think me wretchedly weak, but you shall see--’ ‘It’s of your own free will you undertake it?’ ‘Yes, of my own free will,’ she answered firmly. ‘I won’t come to you penniless. It isn’t right I should do so. My father didn’t mean that. If I had had the sense and the courage to tell him, all this misery would have been spared. That money is mine by every right, and I won’t lose it. Not only for your sake and my own--there is some one else to think of.’ Tarrant gave her a kind look. ‘Don’t count upon it. Trust to me.’ ‘I like to hear you say that, but I don’t wish you to be put to proof. You are not the kind of man to make money.’ ‘How do you mean it?’ ‘As you like to take it. Silly boy, don’t I love you just because you are _not_ one of the money-making men? If you hadn’t a penny in the world, I should love you just the same; and I couldn’t love you more if you had millions.’ The change which Tarrant expected did not come. To the end, she was brave and bright, her own best self. She said good-bye without a tear, refused to let him accompany her, and so, even as she had resolved, left in her husband’s mind an image beckoning his return. Part IV: The Veiled Figure CHAPTER 1 Before his admission to a partnership in Mr. Lord’s business, Samuel Barmby lived with his father and two sisters in Coldharbour Lane. Their house was small, old and crumbling for lack of repair; the landlord, his ground-lease having but a year or two to run, looked on with equanimity whilst the building decayed. Under any circumstances, the family must soon have sought a home elsewhere, and Samuel’s good fortune enabled them to take a house in Dagmar Road, not far from Grove Lane; a new and most respectable house, with bay windows rising from the half-sunk basement to the second storey. Samuel, notwithstanding his breadth of mind, privately admitted the charm of such an address as ‘Dagmar Road,’ which looks well at the head of note-paper, and falls with sonority from the lips.