A year later there came one fateful day
when he announced to his friend Harvey Munden that he was going to be
married. His chosen bride was the daughter of a journeyman tailor--a tall,
pale, unhealthy girl of eighteen, whose acquaintance he had made at a
tobacconist's shop, where she served. He was going to marry her on
principle--principle informed with callow passion, the passion of a youth
who has lived demurely, more among books than men. Harvey Munden flew into
a rage, and called upon the gods in protest. But Shergold was not to be
shaken. The girl, he declared, had fallen in love with him during
conversations across the counter; her happiness was in his hands, and he
would not betray it. She had excellent dispositions; he would educate her.
The friends quarrelled about it, and Shergold led home his bride.
With the results which any sane person could have foretold. The marriage
was a hideous disaster; in three years it brought Shergold to an attempted
suicide, for which he had to appear at the police-court. His relative, the
distinguished doctor, who had hitherto done nothing for him, now came
forward with counsel and assistance. Happily the only child of the union
had died at a few weeks old, and the wife, though making noisy proclamation
of rights, was so weary of her husband that she consented to a separation.
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