the least suspicion on my part, I discovered that she
did love somebody else."

"Yes," said Arthur, "so did I."

"What could I do?" said the other, still abstractedly gazing; "for I
loved her."

"You loved her?" cried Arthur Merlin, so suddenly and loud that Thomas
Tray looked up from his great red Russia book and turned his head toward
the inner office.

"Certainly I loved her," replied Lawrence Newt, calmly, and with tender
sweetness; "and I had a right to, for I loved her mother. Could I have
had my way Hope Wayne's mother would have been my wife."

Arthur Merlin stole a glance at the face of his companion.

"I was a child and she was a child--a boy and a girl. It was not to be.
She married another man and died; but her memory is forever sacred to me,
and so is her daughter."

To this astonishing revelation Arthur Merlin said nothing. His fingers
still played idly on the chair, and his eyes, like the eyes of Lawrence,
looked out upon the river. Every thing in Lawrence Newt's conduct was at
once explained; and the poor artist was ready to curse his absurd folly
in making his friend involuntarily sit for Endymion. Lawrence Newt knew
his friend's thoughts.

"Arthur," he said, in a low voice, "did I not say that, if Endymion were
not dead, it would be impossible not to awake and love her? Do you not
see that I was dead to her?"

"But does she know it?" asked the painter.

"I believe she does now," was the slow answer. "But she has not known it
long."

"Does Amy Waring know it?"

"No," replied Lawrence Newt, quietly, "but she will to-night."

The two men sat silently together for some time. The junior partner came
in, spoke to Arthur, wrote a little, and went out again. Thomas Tray
glanced up occasionally from his great volume, and the melancholy eyes of
Little Malacca scarcely turned from the two figures which he watched from
his desk through the office windows. Venables was promoted to be second
to Thomas Tray on the very day that Gabriel was admitted a junior
partner. They were all aware that the head of the house was engaged
in some deeply interesting conversation, and they learned from Little
Malacca who the stranger was.

The two men sat silently together, Lawrence Newt evidently tranquilly
waiting, Arthur Merlin vainly trying to say something further.

"I wonder--" he began, at length, and stopped. A painful expression of
doubt clouded his face; but Lawrence turned to him cheerfully, and said,