The Belfry by May Sinclair — Read

I did not go down to Canterbury all at once. I was vowed, of course, to Mrs. Jevons's everlasting service (I think I've succeeded in making _that_ clear), but I could not -- under the whacking blow of her marriage I could _not_ do as she asked me then and there. The reminiscences of Canterbury were poignant. I had to have a little time to recover in. And in those first terrible weeks I didn't see why Jevons should have all the amusement and I all the hard work and the suffering. I knew that Jevons had suffered, too -- quite horribly -- but his anguish, after all, was a thing of the past; while mine, in full career, devastated the present and the future. I had done my best for them, and I could not share Viola's view that it was my business to go on whitewashing Jevons for ever. There was a limit, at any rate, to the number of coats I could contract to put on him.

So I waited. I waited till they came back from their half honeymoon in Brittany (a fortnight was all the editor of _Sport_ could spare to his subordinate). Then at her invitation I went up to Hampstead to see them.