The publican took the
opportunity to present my hero with a bill of several pounds for
bottles of spirits supplied to his wife, and what with his wife's
confinement and the way business had fallen off, he had not the
money to pay with, for the sum exceeded the remnant of his savings.
He came to me- not for money, but to tell me his miserable story.
I had seen for some time that there was something wrong, and had
suspected pretty shrewdly what the matter was, but of course I said
nothing. Ernest and I had been growing apart for some time. I was
vexed at his having married, and he knew I was vexed, though I did
my best to hide it.
A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage- but
they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
The rift in friendship which invariably makes its appearance on the
marriage of either of the parties to it was fast widening, as it no
less invariably does, into the great gulf which is fixed between the
married and the unmarried, and I was beginning to leave my protege
to a fate with which I had neither right nor power to meddle. In
fact I had begun to feel him rather a burden; I did not so much mind
this when I could be of use, but I grudged it when I could be of none.
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