But such restfulness was only for a moment; no sooner had the workhouse bell become silent than he began to toil in his weary imagination, or else, incapable of that, to vision fearful hazards of the future.

The soft breathing of Amy at his side, the contact of her warm limbs, often filled him with intolerable dread.

Even now he did not believe that Amy loved him with the old love, and the suspicion was like a cold weight at his heart that to retain even her wifely sympathy, her wedded tenderness, he must achieve the impossible.
The impossible; for he could no longer deceive himself with a hope of genuine success.

If he earned a bare living, that would be the utmost.
And with bare livelihood Amy would not, could not, be content.
If he were to die a natural death it would be well for all.

His wife and the child would be looked after; they could live with Mrs Edmund Yule, and certainly it would not be long before Amy married again, this time a man of whose competency to maintain her there would be no doubt.