Week after week went by and Reardon knew that Amy must have exhausted the money he had given her.

But she made no more demands upon him, and necessaries were paid for in the usual way.

He suffered from a sense of humiliation; sometimes he found it difficult to look in his wife's face.
When the publishers' letter came it contained an offer of seventy-five pounds for the copyright of 'Margaret Home,' twenty-five more to be paid if the sale in three-volume form should reach a certain number of copies.
Here was failure put into unmistakable figures.

Reardon said to himself that it was all over with his profession of authorship.

The book could not possibly succeed even to the point of completing his hundred pounds; it would meet with universal contempt, and indeed deserved nothing better.
'Shall you accept this ?' asked Amy, after dreary silence.
'No one else would offer terms as good.' 'Will they pay you at once ?' 'I must ask them to.' Well, it was seventy-five pounds in hand.