“I never held with it,” said the tax-collector. “I told my wife so from the first. I never hold with a young woman complaining of her husband. Mrs. Bates is too kind a mother, that’s what it is.”
These things penetrated into Arthur’s heart almost unawares; that his wife had complained of him all through; that therehad been talk of the advantages of the marriage, and that Nancy had hoped to be well off, and to make a great match, and had married him with that view. All these things sank into his heart. Was this true, or was it all the truth? It cannot be said that he believed it, yet it acted upon him as if he had believed, bringing a mingled pain and bitterness, against which at this moment he was incapable of struggling. All that day long they kept coming and going, pleading with her to return; but when another night came, and the slow hours dragged through with the same excitements as before—without her, or hope of her—all sense of possible renewal died out of these hasty young hearts, and the severance seemed complete.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street.