being always in concert, entirely--whatever they might think in private
--devoted to him in action, had influenced, if it had not originally
sprung, his resolve to cast off the pestilential cloak of obscurity
shortening his days, and emerge before a world he could illumine to give
him back splendid reflections. Inchling and his wife, it was: because
the two were one: and if one, and subservient to him, knowing all the
story, why, it foreshadowed a conquered world.

They were the one pulse of the married Grundy beating in his hand. So it
had been.

He rattled his views upon Indian business, to hold Inchling silent, and
let his mind dwell almost lovingly on the good faithful spouse, who had
no phosphorescent writing of a recent throbbing event on the four walls
of his room.

Nataly was not so generously encountered in idea.

He felt and regretted this. He greeted her with a doubled
affectionateness. Her pitiable deficiency of courage, excusing a man for
this and that small matter in the thick of the conflict, made demands on
him for gentle treatment.

'You have not seen any one?' she asked.

'City people. And you, my love?'

'Mr. Barmby called. He has gone down to Tunbridge Wells for a week, to
some friend there.' She added, in pain of thought: 'I have seen Dartrey.
He has brought Lord Clanconan to town, for a consultation, and expects he