The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (1.1894)

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Irremediable

With a social smile on his lips Willougbby calculated a moment
before replying, " I have been married exactly three months and
three days ;" then, after a few words respecting their next meeting,
the two shook hands and parted, the young host to finish the
evening with books and pipe, the young husband to set out on a
twenty minutes' walk to his home.

It was a cold clear December night following a day of rain. A
touch of frost in the air had dried the pavements, and Willoughby's
footfall ringing upon the stones re-echoed down the empty
suburban street. Above his head was a dark remote sky thickly
powdered with stars, and as he turned westward Alpherat hung
for a moment " ramme le point sur un i," over the slender spire of
St. John's. But he was insensible to the worlds about him ; he
was absorbed in his own thoughts, and these, as his friend had
surmised, were entirely with his wife. For Esther's face was
always before his eyes, her voice was always in his ears, she filled
the universe for him ; yet only four months ago he had never
seen her, had never heard her name. This was the curious part
of it—here in December he found himself the husband of a girl
who was completely dependent upon him not only for food,
clothes, and lodging, but for her present happiness, her whole
future life ; and last July he had been scarcely more than a boy
himself, with no greater care on his mind than the pleasant difficulty
of deciding where he should spend his annual three weeks' holiday.

But it is events, not months or years, which age. Willoughby,
who was only twenty-six, remembered his youth as a sometime
companion irrevocably lost to him ; its vague, delightful hopes
were now crystallised into definite ties, and its happy irresponsi-
bility displaced by a sense of care inseparable perhaps from the
most fortunate of marriages.

As he reached the street in which he lodged his pace involun-

tarily