He came back long after dark, and Ann met him in the passage.
“Where you been, Artie?” she asked, with a strained note in her voice.
“I been walking and walking—trying to tire myself out. All the time I been thinking what shall I do. Trying to fix something up all out of nothing.”
“I didn’t know you meant to be out all this time.”
Kipps was gripped by compunction. …
“I can’t think what we ought to do,” he said, presently.
“You can’t do anything much, Artie, not till you hear from Mr. Bean.”
“No; I can’t do anything much. That’s jest it. And all this time I keep feelin’ if I don’t do something the top of my ’ead’ll bust. … Been trying to make up advertisements ’arf the time I been out—’bout finding a place, good salesman and stock-keeper, and good Manchester dresses, window-dressing—Lor’! Fancy that all beginning again! … If you went to stay with Sid a bit—if I sent every penny I got to you—I dunno! I dunno!”
When they had gone to bed there was an elaborate attempt to get to sleep. … In one of their great waking pauses Kipps remarked in a muffled tone: “I didn’t mean to frighten you, Ann, being out so late. I kep’ on walking and walking, and some’ow it seemed to do me good. I went out to the ’illtop ever so far beyond Stanford, and sat there ever so long, and it seemed to make me better. Just looking over the marsh like, and seeing the sun set.” …
“Very likely,” said Ann, after a long interval, “it isn’t so bad as you think it is, Artie.”
“It’s bad,” said Kipps.
“Very likely, after all, it isn’t quite so bad. If there’s only a little—”
There came another long silence.
“Ann,” said Kipps in the quiet darkness.
“Yes,” said Ann.
“Ann,” said Kipps, and stopped as though he had hastily shut a door upon speech.
“I kep’ thinking,” he said, trying again, “I kep’ thinking—after all—I been cross to you and a fool about things—about them cards, Ann; but”—his voice shook to pieces—“we ’ave been ’appy, Ann … some’ow … togever.”
And with that he and then she fell into a passion of weeping. They clung very tightly together—closer than they had been since ever the first brightness of their married days turned to the grey of common life again.
All the disaster in the world could not prevent their going to sleep at last with their poor little troubled heads close together on one pillow. There was nothing more to be done, there was nothing more to be thought; Time might go on with his mischiefs, but for a little while at least they still had one another.
Kipps returned from his second interview with Mr. Bean in a state of strange excitement. He let himself in with his latchkey and slammed the door. “Ann!” he shouted, in an unusual note; “Ann!”
Ann replied distantly.
“Something to tell you,” said Kipps; “something noo!”
Ann appeared apprehensive from the kitchen.
“Ann,” he said, going before her into the little dining-room, for his news was too dignified for the passage, “very likely, Ann, o’ Bean says, we shall ’ave—” He decided to prolong the suspense. “Guess!”
“I can’t, Artie.”
“Think of a lot of money!”
“A ’undred pounds p’raps?”
He spoke with immense deliberation. “Over a fousand pounds!”
Ann stared and said nothing, only went a shade whiter.
“Over, he said. A’most certainly over.”
He shut the dining-room door and came forward hastily, for Ann, it was clear, meant to take this mitigation of their disaster with a complete abandonment of her self-control. She came near flopping; she fell into his arms.
“Artie,” she got to at last and began to weep, clinging tightly to him.
“Pretty near certain,” said Kipps, holding her. “A fousand pounds!”
“I said, Artie,” she wailed on his shoulder with the note of accumulated wrongs, “very likely it wasn’t so bad.” …
“There’s things,” he said, when presently he came to particulars, “ ’e couldn’t touch. The noo place! It’s freehold and paid for, and with the bit of building on it, there’s five or six ’undred pound p’raps—say worf free ’undred, for safety. We can’t be sold up to finish it, like we thought. O’ Bean says we can very likely sell it and get money. ’E says you often get a chance to sell a ’ouse lessen ’arf done, ’specially free’old. Very likely, ’e say. Then there’s Hughenden. Hughenden ’asn’t been mortgaged not for more than ’arf its value. There’s a ’undred or so to be got on that, and the furniture and the rent for the summer still coming in. ’E says there’s very likely other things. A fousand pounds, that’s what ’e said. ’E said it might even be more.” …
They were sitting now at the table.
“It alters everything,” said Ann.
“I been thinking that, Ann, all the way ’ome. I came in the motor car. First ride I’ve ’ad since the smash. We needn’t send off Gwendolen, leastways not till after. You know. We needn’t turn out of ’ere—not for a long time. What we been doing for the o’ people we can go on doing a’most as much. And your mother! … I wanted to ’oller coming along. I pretty near run coming down the road by the hotel.”
“Oh, I am glad we can stop ’ere and be comfortable a bit,” said Ann. “I am glad for that.”
“I pretty near told the driver on the motor—only ’e was the sort won’t talk. … You see, Ann, we’ll be able to start a shop, we’ll be able to get into something like. All about our ’aving to go back to places and that; all that doesn’t matter any more.”
For a while they abandoned themselves to ejaculating transports. Then they fell talking to shape an idea to themselves of the new prospect that opened before them.
“We must start a sort of shop,” said Kipps,
