. She had
doubts that were like deaths to her; but she believed him, and after a
feverish night went with him in the morning to the train. He was to
write every day.

Would she take money?

"No."

But she might have unexpected wants--sickness, accident, charity?

"If so," she said trustfully, "would not her boy come back?"

He had just time to buy his ticket and gain the platform. He folded her
in his arms, and exchanged one long, sobbing kiss. It seemed to Ralph
Flare that the sound of that kiss was like a spell--the breaking of the
pleasantest link in his life--the passing from sinfulness to a baser
selfishness--the stamp and seal upon his bargain with ambition, whereby
for the long future he was sold to the sorrow of avarice and the
deceitfulness of fame.

There was a sharp whistle from the locomotive--who invented that whistle
to pierce so many bosoms at parting?--the cars moved one by one till the
last, in which he was seated, sprang forward with a jerk; and though she
was quite blind, he saw her handkerchief waving till all had vanished,
and he would have given the world to have shed one tear.

He has gone on into the free country, and to-night he will sleep under
the shadow of the mountains.

She has turned back into the dark city, and she will not sleep at all in
her far-up chamber.

It is only one heart crushed, and thousands that deserve more sympathy
beat out every day. We only notice this one because it shall lie
bleeding, and get no sympathy at all.

PART VII.

DISSOLVING VIEW.

That he might not meet with his own countrymen, Ralph halted at Milan,
and in the great deserted gallery of the Brera went steadily to work.
If, as it often happened, Suzette's pale face got between him and the
canvas, he mentioned his own name and said "renown," and took a turn in
the remote corridor where young Raphael's _Sposializo_ hung opposite
that marvel of Guercino's--poor Hagar and her boy Ishmael driven
abroad. These adjuncts and the fiercer passion of self had their effect.

He never wrote to Suzette, but sent secretly for his baggage, and was
well pleased with the consciousness that he could forget her. After
three months he set out for Florence and studied the masterpieces of
Andrea del Sarto, and tried his hand at the _Flora_ of Titian.

He went into society somewhat, and was very much afraid his unworthy
conduct in Paris might be bruited abroad. Indeed, he could hardly
forgive himself the fo