er noticed--a few strands of white. Her softly opened lips,
almost colourless, quivered with her uneven breathing; and now and again
a little feverish shiver passed up as from her heart. All soft and
fragile! Not much life, not much strength; youth and beauty slipping!
To know that he who should be her champion against age and time would day
by day be placing one more mark upon her face, one more sorrow in her
heart! That he should do this--they both going down the years together!

As he stood there holding his breath, bending to look at her, that
slurring swish of the plane-tree branch, flung against and against the
window by the autumn wind, seemed filling the whole world. Then her lips
moved in one of those little, soft hurrying whispers that unhappy
dreamers utter, the words all blurred with their wistful rushing.

And he thought: I, who believe in bravery and kindness; I, who hate
cruelty--if I do this cruel thing, what shall I have to live for; how
shall I work; how bear myself? If I do it, I am lost--an outcast from my
own faith--a renegade from all that I believe in.

And, kneeling there close to that face so sad and lonely, that heart so
beaten even in its sleep, he knew that he could not do it--knew it with
sudden certainty, and a curious sense of peace. Over!--the long
struggle--over at last! Youth with youth, summer to summer, falling leaf
with falling leaf! And behind him the fire flickered, and the plane-tree
leaves tap-tapped.

He rose, and crept away stealthily downstairs into the drawing-room, and
through the window at the far end out into the courtyard, where he had
sat that day by the hydrangea, listening to the piano-organ. Very dark
and cold and eerie it was there, and he hurried across to his studio.
There, too, it was cold, and dark, and eerie, with its ghostly plaster
presences, stale scent of cigarettes, and just one glowing ember of the
fire he had left when he rushed out after Nell--those seven hours ago.

He went first to the bureau, turned up its lamp, and taking out some
sheets of paper, marked on them directions for his various works; for the
statuette of Nell, he noted that it should be taken with his compliments
to Mr. Dromore. He wrote a letter to his banker directing money to be
sent to Rome, and to his solicitor telling him to let the house. He
wrote quickly. If Sylvia woke, and found him still away, what might she
not think? He took a last sheet. Did it matter what he