friend between them, nor a relative to whom either was personally known.
In the beginning this mattered nothing; they had to see Europe and enjoy
themselves; that they could do unaided; and the bride did it only the
more thoroughly, in a sort of desperation, as she realized that the
benefits of her marriage were to be wholly material after all.

In the larger life of cities, Alexander Minchin was no longer the idle
and good-humored cavalier to whom Rachel had learned to look for
unfailing consideration at sea. The illustrative incidents may be
omitted; but here he gambled, there he drank; and in his cups every
virtue dissolved. Rachel's pride did not mend matters; she was a thought
too ready with her resentment; of this, however, she was herself aware,
and would forgive the more freely because there was often some obvious
fault on her side before all was said. Quarrels of infinite bitterness
were thus patched up, and the end indefinitely delayed.

In the meantime, tired of travelling, and impoverished by the husband's
follies, the hapless couple returned to London, where a pure fluke with
some mining shares introduced Minchin to finer gambling than he had
found abroad. The man was bitten. There was a fortune waiting for
special knowledge and a little ready cash; and Alexander Minchin settled
down to make it, taking for the nonce a furnished house in a modest
neighborhood. And here it was that the quarrelling continued to its
culmination in the scene just ended.

"Not another day," said Rachel, "nor a night--if I can be ready before
morning!"

Being still a woman with some strength of purpose, Mrs. Minchin did not
stop at idle words. The interval between the slamming of doors below and