On a shelf apart stood the books that he had loved when he was a boy, the Annuals, the tales of travel and adventure, and one or two school prizes gorgeously bound.
As she looked at them his boyhood rose before her; its dead innocence appealed to her comprehension and compassion.
She knew that he had been disappointed in his ambition.

Instead of being sent to Oxford he had been sent into business, that he might early support himself.

He had supported himself.

And he had stuck to the business that he might the better support Edith.
She could not deny him the virtue of unselfishness.
She remembered one Sunday, three weeks before their wedding-day, when she had stood alone with him in this room, at the closing of their happy day.
It was then that he had asked her why she cared for him, and she had answered: "Because you are good.

You always have been good." And he had said (how it came back to her!), "And if I hadn't always?
Wouldn't you have cared then ?" She had answered, "I would have cared, but I couldn't marry you." And he had turned away from her, and looked out of the window, keeping his back to her, and had stood so without speaking for a moment.