"'Dear George, do you know what my father's income was?' she asked. 'Sixty-five pounds a year. He paid fifteen pounds a year for our cottage and garden--such a dear old garden--and we had to live and clothe ourselves upon the other fifty pounds. He was very shabby sometimes, poor darling; but we were always happy. Though I seem so helpless in getting my own living, I think I could keep house for you, and not waste your money. Five hundred a year! Why, you are immensely rich!' "I told her that I should be able to add to our income by the time we had been married a few years, and then we would have a house in the country, and a garden, and a pair of ponies for her to drive, and cows and poultry, and all the things that women love. What a happy dream it was, and how the sweet face brightened under the lamplight as she listened to me. "'I want nothing but your love,' she said; 'nothing. I am not afraid of poverty.' "The three weeks were gone. I got an exeat, and went up to London by an early train. I had directed Esperanza to meet me at the church, whose doors we had so often passed together in our evening walks, and where we had knelt side by side one Sunday evening. She was to take Martha to church with her; but not till the last moment, not till they were at the church door, was she to tell my old nurse what was going to happen, lest an idea of duty to the mother should induce her to betray the son. "The air was crisp and bright, and the wintry landscape basked in the wintry sun between Cambridge and Stratford; but the dull greyness of our metropolitan winter wrapped me round when I left Bishopsgate Street, and there was a thin curtain of fog hanging over my beloved Bloomsbury when my hansom rattled along the sober old-world streets to the solid Georgian church. I sprang from the cab as if I had worn Mercury's sandals, told the man to wait, ran lightly up the steps, pushed back the heavy door and entered the dark temple, hushed and breathless. How solemn and cold and ghostly the church looked, how grey and pale the great cold windows. The fog seemed thicker here than in the streets outside; and the dreary fane was empty. "I looked at my watch. Twenty minutes to eleven. I had entreated her to be at the church at least ten minutes before the hour; and I felt bitterly disappointed that she had not anticipated the appointment.