He looked a haggard creature when he again
sat down with the accustomed blank slip before him.
The second volume ought to have been much easier work than the
first; it proved far harder. Messieurs and mesdames the critics
are wont to point out the weakness of second volumes; they are
generally right, simply because a story which would have made a
tolerable book (the common run of stories) refuses to fill three
books. Reardon's story was in itself weak, and this second volume
had to consist almost entirely of laborious padding. If he wrote
three slips a day he did well.
And the money was melting, melting, despite Amy's efforts at
economy. She spent as little as she could; not a luxury came into
their home; articles of clothing all but indispensable were left
unpurchased. But to what purpose was all this? Impossible, now,
that the book should be finished and sold before the money had
all run out.
At the end of November, Reardon said to his wife one morning:
'To-morrow I finish the second volume.'
'And in a week,' she replied, 'we shan't have a shilling left.
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