‘When he is my husband he shall live where he pleases, and I’ll live with him.’ ‘This end of London is not to everybody’s taste,’ he said, with an acid smile. ‘It has occurred to me that your husband might wish to live in the west of the town. If so, I should be glad to arrange with him or with you to take this house off your hands.’ I answered coldly that I had no intention of parting with the house. It had belonged to my father, and whatever belonged to my father I held in veneration; and this I said with so much bitterness that he rose, without another word, and left the room. I was glad to see his back. I cannot tell you how I hated the man. Tom returned at about the expiration of a fortnight, and now I was one of the happiest of women. We were together day after day. We visited many old-fashioned resorts in the neighbourhood of London, not one of which is probably now in existence. His influence did me a world of good. It was the most shaping, elevating, I had almost said, ennobling influence any girl could have come under. The power of his love over me was a godsend to such a character as mine. I had lived so uncontrolled a life, I was by nature so defiant, quick-tempered, and contemptuous of the opinion of others, that in many directions I did not really know the right thing to do. No mother could have more wisely directed her child than Tom governed me. ‘You are a rich garden,’ he would say, ‘but overrun; the sweets are too crowded, Marian, and here and there, my love, is a bit of snake-like habit that needs to be uncoiled from the beautiful plant it has got foul of.’ I well remember, soon after he returned from Liverpool, that he saw me to my house. It was six o’clock in the evening. I asked him to walk in. ‘No, dear,’ said he. ‘“No, dear!” Why not, Tom? You are tired and I am alone. Come in.’ ‘It is because you are alone that I will not come in.’ ‘I am always alone here,’ said I. ‘I live alone. You know that.’ ‘Yes, I know that.’ ‘And I am never to see you at my house because I am alone!’ ‘Dearest, I will fetch you to-morrow at eleven, and then we can have a talk on the subject of men’s visits to their sweethearts who live alone.’ He pressed my hand and left me.