What if he should wake some morning and find himself in the grip of some Newgate myrmidon?
A terrible new law had just been passed for the protection of trust property; a law in which he had not felt the slightest interest when he had first seen in the daily newspapers some tedious account of the passing of the various clauses, but which was now terrible to his innermost thoughts.
His walk across the Parks was not made happy by much self-triumph.
In spite of his commissionership and coming parliamentary honours, his solitary moments were seldom very happy.

It was at his club, when living with Undy and Undy's peers, that he was best able to throw off his cares and enjoy himself.

But even then, high as he was mounted on his fast-trotting horse, black Care would sit behind him, ever mounted on the same steed.
And bitterly did poor Gertrude feel the misery of these evenings which her husband passed at his club; but she never reviled him or complained; she never spoke of her sorrow even to her mother or sister.

She did not even blame him in her own heart.

She knew that he had other business than that of his office, higher hopes than those attached to his board; and she taught herself to believe that his career required him to be among public men.
He had endeavoured to induce her to associate constantly with Mrs.Val, so that her evenings might not be passed alone; but Gertrude, after trying Mrs.Val for a time, had quietly repudiated the closeness of this alliance.