It was a two-storeyed house, with a semicircular fanlight over a
warped door of grained panelling. The blind of the window to the
left of the door was irradiated from within, proving habitation.
'I wonder--' ran Toby's thought. And he unhesitatingly crossed the
street again, towards it, feeling first for the depth of the
kerbstone with his umbrella. He had a particular and special
interest in that house (No. 11 it was--and is), for, four-and-
twenty years ago he had married it. II
Four-and-twenty years ago Toby Hall (I need not say that his
proper Christian name was Tobias) had married Miss Priscilla
Bratt, then a calm and self-reliant young woman of twenty-three,
and Priscilla had the house, together with a certain income, under
the will of her father. The marriage was not the result of burning
passion on either side. It was a union of two respectabilities,
and it might have succeeded as well as such unions generally do
succeed, if Priscilla had not too frequently mentioned the fact
that the house they lived in was hers. He knew that the house was
hers. The whole world was perfectly aware of the ownership of the
house, and her references to the matter amounted to a lack of
tact. Several times Toby had indicated as much. But Priscilla took
no heed. She had the hide of an alligator herself (though a
personable girl), and she assumed that her husband's hide was of
similar stuff.
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