It was a passionate attachment on both sides at first, and to the end he loved his wife with the love which can deny nothing.

The consequence was that the years of his prime were wasted, and the intellectual promise of his youth found no fulfilment.

Another year and Annabel would have entered the social mill; she had beauty enough to achieve distinction, and the means of the family were ample to enshrine her.

But she never 'came out.' No one would at first believe that Mr.
Newthorpe's retreat was final; no one save a close friend or two who understood what his life had been, and how he dreaded for his daughter the temptations which had warped her mother's womanhood.

'In any case,' wrote Mrs.Tyrrell, his sister-in-law, when a year and a half had gone by, 'you will of course let me have Annabel shortly.