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“Dear Tom!” Winifred said, with tears in her eyes.

“Don’t dear Tom me! That’s not natural, you don’t mean it. Good heavens! I’d sooner you were taking your fun out of me, if it was a moment for that. I won’t go! I’m not a child to be ordered about like that. I tell you I won’t go!”

“Oh, Tom! if you could but do anything at home; if you would but let him see that you could manage for yourself! That might be of some use, if you could do it, Tom.”

“I won’t go,” he repeated hoarsely, “to the other end of the world, away from everything I care for! There is a limit to everything. You can tell him I won’t do that. And all for what? For having been unlucky about my books, as half the men in the university have been one time or the other. What does it matter being ploughed? It happens every day. Winnie, I swear to you I’ll work like—like a navvy, if I can only have another chance.”

“Oh, Tom, I have said everything, I have tried every way. I think if you were to do as you said just now, say to him that you won’t go to New Zealand, that you can manage for yourself at home, that would be your best chance. Show him that you can maintain yourself, do something, write something, it does not matter what it is”—