the small income it still continued to yield him was more than
enough for his personal needs; it enabled him to set a little aside,
year after year, thus forming a fund which, latterly, he always
thought of as destined to benefit his youngest son--the child of
his second marriage.

For he did not long remain solitary, and his next adventure was
somewhat in keeping with the character he had earned in public
estimate. Living for a time in Switzerland, he there met with a
young Englishwoman, married, but parted from her husband, who was
maintaining herself at Geneva as a teacher of languages; Jerome was
drawn to her, wooed her, and won her love. The husband, a Catholic,
refused her legal release, but the irregular union was a true
marriage. It had lasted for about four years when their only child
was born. In another twelvemonth, Jerome was again a widower. A
small sum of money which had belonged to the dead woman, Jerome, at
her wish, put out at interest for their boy, if he should attain
manhood. The child's name was Piers; for Jerome happened at that
time to be studying old Langland's "Vision," with delight in the
brave singer, who so long ago cried for social justice--one of the
few in Christendom who held by the spirit of Christ.

He was now forty-five years old; he mourned the loss of his comrade,
a gentle, loving woman, whom, though she seldom understood his views
of life, his moods and his aims, he had held in affection and
esteem. For eight years he went his way alone; then, chancing to be
at a seaside place in the north of England, he made the acquaintance
of a mother and daughter who kept a circulating library, and in less
than six months the daughter became Mrs. Otway. Aged not quite
thirty, tall, graceful, with a long, pale face, distinguished by its