It came out in The Wayside for
March, and Reardon received seven pounds ten for it. By that time
he had written another thing of the same gossipy kind, suggested
by Pliny's Letters. The pleasant occupation did him good, but
there was no possibility of pursuing this course. 'Margaret Home'
would be published in April; he might get the five-and-twenty
pounds contingent upon a certain sale, yet that could in no case
be paid until the middle of the year, and long before then he
would be penniless. His respite drew to an end.
But now he took counsel of no one; as far as it was possible he
lived in solitude, never seeing those of his acquaintances who
were outside the literary world, and seldom even his colleagues.
Milvain was so busy that he had only been able to look in twice
or thrice since Christmas, and Reardon nowadays never went to
Jasper's lodgings.
He had the conviction that all was over with the happiness of his
married life, though how the events which were to express this
ruin would shape themselves he could not foresee. Amy was
revealing that aspect of her character to which he had been
blind, though a practical man would have perceived it from the
first; so far from helping him to support poverty, she perhaps
would even refuse to share it with him.
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