ISABEL CLARENDON
By George Gissing
In Two Volumes
VOL. II.
“C’était plus qu’une vie, hélas! c’était un monde Qui s’était effacé!”
London: Chapman And Hall, Limited
Charles Dickens And Evans, Crystal Palace Press.
1886.
CONTENTS
ISABEL CLARENDON
CHAPTER I.
Vincent Lacour rose at eleven these dark mornings; by half-past twelve he had breakfasted and was at leisure. To begin the day with an elastic interval of leisure seemed to him a primary condition of tolerable existence. From his bedroom windows he had a glimpse of a very busy street, along which, as he hummed at his toilet, he could see heavily-laden omnibuses hastening Citywards; he thought with contemptuous pity of the poor wretches who had to present themselves at bank, or office, or shop by a certain hour. “Under no circumstances whatever,” he often said to himself with conviction, “would I support life in that way. If it comes to the worst, there are always the backwoods. Hard eno