hard to git, too. If he's jealous of her, and a
ill treatin' of her, blowed if I won't peach !
No,no, I won't, though, leastways not yet, 'cause
I can't without lettin' out on myself, too; but,"
said the boy, with a long look which softened
the cunning of his face strangely, "I would like
to know as she was happier than I think
she is."

In the wide city of London there was not
another human being to feel any such wish in
connexion with Harriet Routh. She was quite
alone. She had so willed it, and circumstances
had aided her inclination and her resolve.
In the life which her husband had adopted, and
she had accepted, intimacies, friendships, were
impossible. The only relation between them
and their kind was the relation between the
swindler and his dupes, always a merely
"business" connexion, and generally very brief
in its duration. Harriet had not a female friend
in the world. Perhaps she would not have had
one under any circumstances ; she was not a
woman to cherish sentiment ; the one love of
her life was an overmastering passion, which
had absorbed all lesser feelings ; and the
secretiveness and reserve, which were large elements
in her moral nature, would have been inimical
to such association, which, above all, needs
gushingness for its satisfactory development. Her
husband's male friends saw her seldom, and
were not observant or interested in the health,
spirits, or appearance of any but themselves ;
so there was no one but the street-boy to note
the change that had passed upon her. Routh,
indeed, observed it ; with the bitter, selfish
impatience of his character, and silently resented
it. But only silently ; he made no comment,
and Harriet, for the first time, failed to interpret
his feelings.

She was changed. Changed in face, in manner,
in voice, in the daily habits of her life. The
light had faded from her blue eyes, and with it
their colour had paled. Her cheek had lost its
roundness and there was something set and
stony in her face. It had been calm, now it
was rigid. Her voice, still low and refined, was
no longer musical, and her words were rare.
Personal habits are tenacious, and rarely yield,
even to strong mental excitement, or under the
pressure of anxious care, and Harriet, always
neat and careful in her simple dress, was neat
and careful still. But a close observer would
have marked a change even in this respect. She
cared for her looks no longer. An ill-assorted
ribbon, or ill-chosen colour, would once have
been impossible to Harriet Routh; but it was
all the same to her now. What were the symptoms
of the moral change that had passed upon
her as distinctly as the physical? They were
rather those of intensification than of alteration.
Her determination had assumed a sternness
which had not before marked it, her identification
of herself with Routh had become more than
ever complete. The intensity of the passion
with which she loved him was hardly capable of
increase, but its quiet was gone. The pliable
ease, the good-fellowship, the frank equality of
their companionship, had departed: and though
her attention to his interests, her participation
in his schemes, were as active and unceasing as
ever, they were no longer spontaneous, they
were the result of courageous and determined
effort, sustained as only a woman can sustain
effort which costs her acute and unrelenting
suffering. She had been much alone of late.
Routh had been much and profitably occupied.
The affairs of the new company were progressing
favourably, and Routh's visits to Flinders were
frequent and well received. He had other
things of the sort on hand, and his finances
were in a flourishing condition. He was on the
road to success, after the fashion of modern
successes, and if his luck did not change, all
the respectability which attaches to a fortunate
speculation was on the cards for Stewart Routh.
No restoration to his former place was possible,
indeed; but Routh cared nothing for that, would,
perhaps, not have accepted such a restoration
had it been within his reach. Struggle, scheming
shifts, and the excitement consequent thereon,
were essential to him now; he liked them; the
only game he could play with any relish was
the desperate one. To what extent he had
played it was known only to himself and
Harriet, and he was beginning to be afraid of
his confederate. Not afraid of her trustworthiness,
of her fidelity, of her staunch and unshrinking
devotion; Stewart Routh was just
as confident, as of the fact of his existence, that
his wife would cheerfully have given her life for
him, as she gave it to him, but the man's nature
was essentially base, and the misused strength,
the perverted nobility of hers, crushed and frightened
him. He had not felt it so much while they
were very poor, while all their schemes and
shifts were on a small scale, while his every-day
comforts depended on her active management and
unfailing forethought. But now, when he had
played for a great stake and won it, when a
larger career was open before him—a career
from which he felt she would shrink, and into
which he could never hope to force her—he
grew desperately afraid of Harriet. Desperately
tired of her also. He was a clever man, but
she was cleverer than he. He was a man of
strong passions, ungovernable, save by the
master-passion, interest. She had but one,
love; but it was stronger than all his put
together. And told to do their worst, and his
shallow nature shrank from the unknown
depths of hers. She loved him so entirely
that there had never been a question of rule
between them; but Routh was a wise man in
his way, and he knew in his heart he could rule
Harriet only by love, and love which was
perfectly genuine and true, should the time ever
come in which a distinct separation of opinion
and will between them should make it necessary
for him to try. But he had a clear appreciation
of his wife's intellect also, and he knew
thoroughly well that he could not deceive her with
any counterfeit presentment—the love which
should rule her must be real. This was
precisely what he had not to produce when