"Yes," she said, with a smile, "that's true. I shan't
mind its going to the Academy."

She sat down again and looked fixedly at the picture,
her chin propped in her hand. "Don't you feel," she said,
looking up at him with a little childish gesture of
confidence, "as if you had stolen something from me?"

"Yes," Kendal declared honestly, "I do. I've taken
something you didn't intend me to have."

"Well, I give it you--it is yours quite freely and
ungrudgingly. Don't feel that way any more. You have a
right to your divination," she Added bravely.

"I would not withhold it if I could. Only--I hope you
find _something_ good in it. I think, myself, there is
something."

Her look was a direct interrogation, and Kendal flinched
before it. "Dear creature," he murmured, "you are very
true to yourself."

"And to you," she pleaded, "always to you too. Has there
ever been anything but the clearest honesty between us?
Ah, my friend, that is valuable--there are so few people
who inspire it."

She had risen again, and he found himself shame-facedly
holding her hand. His conscience roused itself and smote
him mightily. Had there always been this absolute
single-mindedness between them?

"You make it necessary for me to tell you," he said
slowly, "that there is one thing between us you do not
know. I saw you at Cheynemouth on the stage."

"I know you did," she smiled at him. "Janet Cardiff let
it out, by accident I suppose you came, like Mr. Cardiff,
because you--disapproved. Then why didn't you remonstrate
with me? I've often wondered." Elfrida spoke softly,
dreamily. Her happiness seemed very near. Her self-surrender
was so perfect and his understanding, as it always had
been, so sweet, that the illusion of the moment was
cruelly perfect She raised her eyes to Kendal's with an
abandonment of tenderness in them that quickened his
heart-beats, man that he was.

"Tell me, do _you_ want me to give it up--my book--last
night I finished it--my ambition?"

She was ready with her sacrifice or for the instant; she
believed herself to be, and it was not wholly without an
effort that he put it away. On the pretence of picking
up his palette knife he relinquished her hand.

"It is not a matter upon which I have permitted myself
a definite opinion," he said, more coldly than he intended,
"but for your own sake I should advise it."

For her own sake! The room seemed full of the echo of
his words. A blank look crossed the g