I would hear no more. I went with him to a public-house, and wrote a cheque for the amount. "You are a trump," he said, pocketing the cheque. "Upon my soul, if you had a better knowledge of me you would find I am not such a bad fellow, after all; but when needs must, John, the devil drives." That night I told Ellen that we must remove from Swanage. "I shall be very sorry, John, dear," she said. "Is it really necessary?" "It is imperative, Ellen." She sighed. "We have been so happy here." "We can be happy elsewhere, dearest." "Why, truly," she said, brightening up, "so long as we are together what does it matter where we live?" My idea was to escape from my enemy; to hide ourselves in some corner in England, where we should be safe from his cruel persecution. After much study and cogitation I fixed upon Cornwall, and thither we went, and established ourselves in a cottage on the outskirts of Penzance. I was in a fever of alarm during the removal, and kept unceasingly on the watch, but observed nothing to cause me apprehension. When we were settled I breathed more freely; here, surely, in this remote place, we should be secure. Ellen was cheerful and bright, and she made me so. Her time was fully occupied; she had not an idle moment; she did not allow herself one. Our child, the garden, the home, kept her busy. Her consideration for me, the loving attention she paid to my slightest wish, even anticipated it, touched me deeply. Tenderness was expressed in every word she spoke, in every movement she made. It would be impossible for me to describe how dear she was to me. It is such as she who have raised woman to the position she holds in the scale of humanity. What troubled me greatly was the state of my finances. The inroads made upon my purse by Maxwell's exactions were so serious that I foresaw the time when, if my wife's allowance was to be continued, I should find myself penniless. We were living at a moderate rate, our expenses being under three pounds a week. The money I had left, apart from the allowance to Barbara, capitalized, would bring in a little over fifty pounds a year, and I felt that I was daily jeopardizing Ellen's future and the future of our child, as well as my own. I was not a business man, and had no trade to which I could turn my hand; in England my only weapon was my pen--a poor weapon to most who have to live by it. The difficulty was solved presently by events of which I was not the originator. Meanwhile I wrote a short story which I read to Ellen, and was pleased with myself. Needless to say, she was delighted with it, and elevated me immediately upon the pinnacle of fame. Under a nom de plume, I sent it to a magazine; it was declined. I sent it to another magazine, with the same result. This second refusal came when we had been four weeks in Cornwall, and I went from my house to post it to a third editor when, almost at the door, I saw Maxwell.