They would go together to the charmed lands of the South. No, not
now for their marriage holiday--Amy said that would be an
imprudent expense; but as soon as he had got a good price for a
book. Will not the publishers be kind? If they knew what
happiness lurked in embryo within their foolish cheque-books!

He woke of a sudden in the early hours of one morning, a week
before the wedding-day. You know that kind of awaking, so
complete in an instant, caused by the pressure of some
troublesome thought upon the dreaming brain. 'Suppose I should
not succeed henceforth? Suppose I could never get more than this
poor hundred pounds for one of the long books which cost me so
much labour? I shall perhaps have children to support; and Amy--
how would Amy bear poverty?'

He knew what poverty means. The chilling of brain and heart, the
unnerving of the hands, the slow gathering about one of fear and
shame and impotent wrath, the dread feeling of helplessness, of
the world's base indifference. Poverty! Poverty!

And for hours he could not sleep. His eyes kept filling with
tears, the beating of his heart was low; and in his solitude he
called upon Amy with pitiful entreaty: 'Do not forsake me! I love
you! I love you!'

But that went by. Six days, five days, four days--will one's
heart burst with happiness? The flat is taken, is furnished, up
there towards the sky, eight flights of stone steps.