e had been awake since dawn, fire in his blood and heart animating his
brain and stimulating his creative power. In the early light he had
seated himself to make a few sketches, drawing little exquisite studies
of her, and the face on the paper was ideal, irritatingly so. The chin
and the cheek was young and soft, too youthful for Mrs. Faversham. It
suggested Bella.

When he went to see her that afternoon, for the first time he was shown
upstairs. Each step was sacred to him as he mounted to the part of the
house in which she lived her intimate life. The stairs were marble,
covered by thick rugs; the iron balustrade had been brought from a
chateau in the days of the Revolution. Along the wall at his side hung
splendid tapestries, whose colours would have delighted him at another
time. But his eyes now were blinded to material things. His soul, heart
and nature were aflame, and he walked on air. When he was shown into a
small room, Mrs. Faversham's own sitting-room, his agitation was so
great that he seemed to walk through a mist.

She was not there. The day was fresh and the wood fire burning across
the andirons called to him with a friendly voice. The objects by which
she surrounded herself represented a fortune; the clock before him,
which marked the hour in which he first came to see his love, had
belonged to Marie Antoinette, and it beamed on the lover from its wise
old clever face,--crystal water fell noiselessly, as the minutes passed,
from a little golden mill over which watched two Loves like millers.
There were her books on the table, bound with art and taste. There were
her writing things on her desk, and a half-finished letter on the
blotter. There was her "chaise-longue" with its protective pillows, its
sable cover, and between the lace curtains Antony could see the trees of
the park. On the footstool a Pekinese dog sat looking at him
malevolently. It lifted its fluffy body daintily and raised its
impertinent little face to the visitor. Then a door opened and she came
in murmuring his name. Antony, seeing her through a mist of love which
had not yet cleared, took her in his arms, calling her "Mary, Mary!" He
felt the form and shape of her in his arms. As dream women had never
given themselves to him, so she seemed to yield.

When they sat side by side on the little sofa the Pekinese dog jumped up
and sat between them. She caressed it with one hand, laying the other on
Antony's shoulder.

"I must tell you