an exquisite sense of her own dignity into
the bargain."

Quita smiled thoughtfully as she buttered her toast.

"I am wondering how she would have answered if you had asked her," was
all she said. "I don't feel quite so certain as I did last night."

"_Ni moi non plus_. Which makes the situation just twice as
interesting. For all the Button Quail's beak and claws, I fancy I
shall see more of my Undine yet!"

With a chuckle of satisfaction, he fell to re-reading Elsie's note: and
Quita, immersed in her own affairs, promptly forgot them both.

An hour later she reappeared--her whole face and form radiating the
light within; went straight to her easel, flung aside its draperies,
and surveying her work of the previous day, found it very good. But
there were certain lines and shadows that displeased her critical eye.
She would study his face afresh this morning, with the twofold
appreciation of heart and brain, and surprise him with the picture when
it was nearer completion.

Just then the bearer, entering, handed her a note. She opened it
eagerly--recognising Eldred's handwriting--and read, with a
bewilderment bordering on despair, the stoical statement of facts set
down by Lenox in the first bitterness of disappointment, ten hours ago.
The shock staggered her like a blow between the eyes. Her lips parted
and closed on a soundless exclamation. The abrupt change in her face
was as if a light had been suddenly blown out.

"_Mon Dieu_, . . . cholera!" she murmured helplessly, putting one hand
over her eyes as if to shut out the horror of it. "This is my
punishment for ever having let him go."

Then, as if in hope of discovering some mitigation of her sentence, she
re-read the short letter, lingering on the last paragraph, which alone
contained some ray of comfort, some assurance of the strong love that
was at once the cause and the anodyne of their mutual pain.

"And now, my dearest" (Lenox wrote), "what more can I say, except--be
of good courage, and write to me often. The rest, and there's a good
deal of it, can't be put upon paper. That's the curse of separation.
Start a picture, and throw your heart into your work, as I must into
mine. God knows when I shall see you again. But trust me, Quita, as
soon as ever I can, and dare, to put an end to this intolerable state
of things.--Till then, and always, your devoted husband,----E. L."

It was the first time he had signed himself thus: and the envelop