her. Ted generally went with them, but now and again he was left
behind. At these times Katherine was touched by Vincent's pride in being
allowed to take her about alone. He was grateful for it; he knew it was
her way of showing that she trusted him.

At last the series of illustrations came to an end. The two artists had
raced each other: Katherine, having had the start, came in first at the
finish with a magnificent design for the cover. She brought the drawings
to Vincent, together with his manuscript, and showed them to him
triumphantly. He remarked--

"Well, they ought to print the thing, if only as a footnote to your
drawings, Sis."

"Will you sit down and finish it, if I undertake to find a publisher?"

He promised, and he kept his word. In the mornings now he might be found
working slowly and painfully at his last chapter, she helping him.

So the winter wore on into spring; and Katherine, burdened with arrears
of work, said to herself, "I perceive that this is going to be an
expensive undertaking." But she looked back gladly on the time lost. At
last, after many failures, they had succeeded in wakening Vincent to a
sense of distant kinship with the life of boys and maidens. Down at the
bottom of his nature there had always been an intense craving for
affection, and his heart went out to Ted and Katherine. Not that he
considered himself fit for their blameless society. Together with the
vices he had acquired there had sprung up humility, that strange virtue,
which has its deepest roots in the soil of shame. But all his old
yearning after goodness revived in their presence. When he was with them
he felt that the cloud of foul experience was lifted for a moment from
his mind; they gave him sweet thoughts instead of bitter for a day
perhaps, or a night.

And what of the days and the nights when he was not with them? Then, as
a rule, he fell, nine times, it may be, out of every ten--who knows? And
who knows whether Perfect Justice, measuring our forces with the force
of our temptations, may not count as victory what the world calls
defeat?

CHAPTER XIX

In her appeal to Wyndham Audrey had played a bold stroke, and it seemed
that she had won it. She had amply revenged herself on Hardy, and more
than assured herself of Wyndham's friendship. All the same, ever since
she had left him at the doors of the Hotel Metropole, a certain
constraint had crept into their intercourse. Wyndham was not easily
decei