‘Clara! Clara! When you speak like that, I could almost believe you are really mad. For Heaven’s sake, think what you are saying! Suppose I were to reproach you with having consented to marry me? I would rather die than let such a word pass my lips—but suppose you heard me speaking to you like this?’ She drew a deep sigh, and let her hands fall. Sidney continued in quite another voice: ‘It’s one of the hardest things I have to bear, that I can’t make your life pleasanter. Of course you need change; I know it only too well. You and I ought to have our holiday at this time of the year, like other people. I fancy I should like to go into the country myself; Clerkenwell isn’t such a beautiful place that one can be content to go there day after day, year after year, without variety. But we have no money. Suffer as we may, there’s no help for it—because we have no money. Lives may be wasted—worse, far worse than wasted—just because there is no money. At this moment a whole world of men and women is in pain and sorrow—because they have no money. How often have we said that? The world is made so; everything has to be bought with money.’ ‘You find it easier to bear than I do.’ ‘Yes; I find it easier. I am stronger-bodied, and at all events I have some variety, whilst you have none. I know it. If I could take your share of the burden, how gladly I’d do so! If I could take your suffering upon myself, you shouldn’t be unhappy for another minute. But that is another impossible thing. People who are fortunate in life may ask each day what they _can_ do; we have always to remind ourselves what we _can’t_.’ ‘You take a pleasure in repeating such things; it shows how little you feel them.’ ‘It shows how I have taken to heart the truth of them.’ She waved her hand impatiently, again sighed, and moved towards the door. ‘Don’t go just yet,’ said Sidney. ‘We have more to say to each other.’ ‘I have nothing more to say. I am miserable, and you can’t help me.’ ‘I can, Clara.’ She looked at him with wondering, estranged eyes. ‘How? What are you going to do?’ ‘Only speak to you, that’s all. I have nothing to give but words. But—’ She would have left him. Sidney stepped forward and prevented her. ‘No; you _must_ hear what I have got to say. They may be only words, but if I have no power to move you with my words, then our life has come to utter ruin, and I don’t know what dreadful things lie before us.’ ‘I can say the same,’ she replied, in a despairing tone. ‘But neither you nor I shall say it! As long as I have strength to speak, I won’t consent to say that Clara, you must put your hand in mine, and think of your life and mine as one. If not for my sake, then for your child’s. Think; do you wish May to suffer for the faults of her parents?’ ‘I wish she had never been born!’