necessity of new gowns, he gave her a set of furs at Christmas,
and before the New Year they had agreed on the obligation of
adding a parlour-maid to their small establishment.

Providence the very next day hastened to justify this measure by
placing on Glennard's breakfast-plate an envelope bearing the name
of the publishers to whom he had sold Mrs. Aubyn's letters. It
happened to be the only letter the early post had brought, and he
glanced across the table at his wife, who had come down before him
and had probably laid the envelope on his plate. She was not the
woman to ask awkward questions, but he felt the conjecture of her
glance, and he was debating whether to affect surprise at the
receipt of the letter, or to pass it off as a business
communication that had strayed to his house, when a check fell
from the envelope. It was the royalty on the first edition of the
letters. His first feeling was one of simple satisfaction. The
money had come with such infernal opportuneness that he could not
help welcoming it. Before long, too, there would be more; he knew
the book was still selling far beyond the publisher's previsions.
He put the check in his pocket and left the room without looking
at his wife.

On the way to his office the habitual reaction set in. The money
he had received was the first tangible reminder that he was living
on the sale of his self-esteem. The thought of material benefit
had been overshadowed by his sense of the intrinsic baseness of
making the letters known; now he saw what an element of sordidness
it added to the situation and how the fact that he needed the
money, and must use it, pledged him more irrevocably than ever to
the consequences of his act. It seemed to him, in that first hour