Had his plea been based on any but the insuperable obstacle that it was, it would have failed to a certainty; but his helplessness gave the sophistry of both full play. He harped on the "grandeur of the sacrifice" she would be making for him, and the phrase pierced her misery. He cried to her that it would be a heroism, and she wondered dully if it really would. She queried if there was indeed a higher duty than denial--if her virtue could be merely selfishness in disguise. His insistence on the nobility of consent went very far with her; it did seem a beautiful thing to let sunshine into her lover's life at the cost of her own transgression. And then, in the background, burnt a hot shame at the thought of being questioned and commiserated when she returned to the hospital with a petition to be reinstalled. The arguments of both were very stale, and equally they blinked the fact that the practical use of matrimony is to protect woman against the innate fickleness of man. He demanded why, from a rational point of view, the comradeship of two persons should be any more sacred because a third person in a surplice said it was; and she, with his arms round her, began to persuade herself that he was a martyr, who had broken his leg that she might cross his path and give him consolation. Ultimately he triumphed; and a fortnight later she burst into a tempest of sobs--in suddenly realising how happy she was. He introduced her to everybody as his wife; their "honeymoon" was spent in the, to her, unfamiliar atmosphere of a theatrical tour. One of the first places that the company visited was West Hartlepool, and he and she had lodgings outside the town in a little sea-swept village--a stretch of sand, and a lane or two, with a sprinkling of cottages--called Seaton Carew, from which, he told her, he had borrowed his professional name. She said, "Dear Seaton Carew!" and felt in a silly minute that she longed to strain the sunny prospect against her heart. In the rawness of dawn a clock struck five, and she stood forsaken in the streets. The myriad clocks of Leicester took up the burden, and the air was beaten with their din. The way to the station appeared endless; yards were preternaturally lengthened; and ever pressing on, yet ever with a lonely vista to be covered, the walk began to be charged with the oppression of a nightmare, in which she pursued some illimitable road, seeking a destination that had vanished. At last the building loomed before her, ponderously still, and she passed in over the cob-stones. There were no indications of life about the place; the booking-office was fast shut, and between the dimly-burning lamps, the empty track of rails lay blue. For all she knew to the contrary, she would have to wait some hours.