'
'Yes; I did. I saw some men going to work, and I joined them. I don't think
I thought much about it at the time. A very little misery rubs all the
psychology out of us, and we return more easily than one thinks to the
animal.'
'And then?'
'At the end of a week the work began to tell upon me, and I drifted back in
search of my manuscript.'
'But you must have been in a dreadful condition; your clothes----'
'Ah! thereby hangs a tale. An actress lived in one of the houses I had been
lodging in.'
'Oh, tell me about her! This is getting very interesting.'
Then passing his arm round his wife's neck, and with her sweet blonde face
looking upon him, and the insinuating warmth of the fire about them, he
told her the story of his failure.
'But,' she said, her voice trembling, 'you would not have committed
suicide?'
'No man knows beforehand whether he will commit suicide. I can only say
that every other issue was closed.'
At the end of a long silence Julia said, 'I wish you hadn't spoken about
suicide. I cannot but think of Emily. If she were to make away with
herself! The very possibility turns my heart to ice. What should I do--what
should we do? I ought never to have given way; we were both abominably
selfish.
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