Martin also had reached, on that last day of the year, the very end of his tether. During the last ten days he had been fighting against every weakness to which his character was susceptible. With the New Year he felt that everything would be well; he could draw a new breath then, find work somewhere away from London, have Maggie perhaps with him, and drive a way out of all the tangle of his perplexities. But even then he did not dare to face the future thoroughly. Would his father let him go? Was he, after all his struggles, to give way and ruin Maggie's position and future? Could he be sure, if he look her away with him, that then he would keep straight, and that his old temptations of women and drink and general restlessness would be conquered? Perhaps. There had never been a surer proof that his love for Maggie was a real and unselfish love than his hesitation on that wretched day when he seemed utterly deserted by mankind, when Maggie seemed the only friend he had in the world. Everything was just out of reach, and some perverse destiny prevented him from realising any desire that had a spark of honesty and decency in it. It was not wonderful that in the midst of his loneliness and unhappiness he should have been tempted back to the old paths again, men, women, places that for more than three months now he had been struggling to abandon. All that day he struggled with temptation. He had not seen Maggie for a week, and during the last three days he had not heard from her, the adventurous Jane having defied the aunts and left. At luncheon he asked about his father, whom he had not seen for two days. "Father had a very bad night. He's asleep now." "There's something on to-night, isn't there?" he asked. "There's a service," Amy answered shortly. "Father oughtn't to go," he went on. "I suppose your friend Thurston can manage." Amy looked at him. "Father's got to go. It's very important." "Oh, of course, if you want to kill father with all your beastly services--" he broke in furiously. "It won't be--" Amy began, and then, as though she did not trust herself to continue, got up and left the room. "Mother," he said, "why on earth don't you do something?" "I, dear?" she looked at him placidly. "In what way?" "They're killing father between them with all these services and the rest of the nonsense." "Your father doesn't listen to anything I say, dear." "He ought to go away for a long rest." "Well, dear, perhaps he will soon. You know I have nothing to do with the Chapel. That was settled years ago. I wouldn't interfere for a great deal." Martin turned fiercely upon her saying: "Mother, don't you care?" "Care, dear?" "Yes, about father--his living and getting well again and being happy as he used to be. What's happened to this place?" She looked at him in the strangest way. He suddenly felt that he'd never seen her before.