"Let's go home at once," he said, "and tell them we're engaged; let's get all the fuss over and be married as soon as we can; I'm not earning any money yet, but I shall soon, and Father gives me a decent allowance." As they walked back to the Vicarage through the warm afternoon, Dora thought vaguely of how crossing these fields an hour ago, she had been disconsolate, futureless, forlorn. The miseries of her immediate past were already dimming; her facile and slovenly character found in her present triumph enough satisfaction to obscure the legitimate rancour of six sordid years. III Shortly after his marriage which took place in the Spring of 1901, Edwin Greene found that the qualms which had shaken him at the very moment of proposing to Dora Pilkington were amply justified. His father had increased his allowance in order to make it possible for him to marry and take a small house while waiting and hoping for work to materialise. Dora, who had chosen the house in Maida Vale, furnished it with the help of her mother who since the announcement of the engagement had been her daughter's admirer and ally, and had thrown herself with zest into preparations for the wedding. It was an inconvenient little house, made still more inconvenient by the profusion of small tables, ornaments and unnecessary objects which cluttered up the floor space and made it impossible to cross the room with any ease. To Dora these represented the perfection of gentility; this picture was a signed water colour, that vase a wedding present from the choir, the rug in front of the fire superimposed on a larger rug of different pattern, had come from Dora's own home which gradually acquired in her mind an aura of sanctified sentimentality. Three months after her marriage she referred to "my old home in the country" in such languishing tones that Edwin, who had been the easy victim of the old home's cruelty could not restrain himself, and burst out, "My dear Dora, for goodness sake don't talk like that; you know perfectly well you were utterly miserable at home." Resentful of this plain-speaking, not even recognising its truth, Dora shed a few tears through which she contrived to utter: "You do exaggerate shockingly, Edwin. I really think you might try and spare my feelings more." "Well, I'm sorry, and I don't say it wasn't a better home than this." Edwin looked gloomily round the crowded little drawing-room, but Dora immediately flamed up in its defence. "There you are, criticising again. You only do it because Mother and I chose it. It's a lovely little house, and I'm sure I take enough trouble to keep it nice. Look at the way I dust all the china myself every morning." Her sobs redoubled in vigour, but Edwin sat humped up in his chair.