worthy young man."

"My parents allow me to do exactly what I wish," she answered. "You see,
they can trust me," she added, smilingly.

"Naturally. Then it is a promise."

This was their first meeting. Subsequently it became her custom to ride
out alone after breakfast. She chose the morning, when Kathleen was busy
and could not accompany her, and she took her sketching book; but most
of her time was spent in watching Custance, and absorbing his art.

When her teacher left Grey Town she suddenly realised that her parents
and friends in Melbourne needed her society, and, after an affectionate
parting from Kathleen and the Quirks, was carried out of Grey Town life
by the train that is termed an express.

In Melbourne, an indulgent father and mother, who fondly believed that
she was perfect, readily consented to her improving her talent under the
teaching of the great artist, and she made rapid progress in her art.
But this was not the chief result of her lessons. Slowly she became
infatuated with the personality of Custance, while he, having begun to
play the game of love simply for the excitement it afforded him, finally
found himself involved in a grand passion. This he declared to her in
language suggested by his artistic temperament, and she responded in a
similar strain.

Then came a pause, when he asked himself: "Is it fair that any woman
shall link her fate to mine?" He looked at the small syringe on the
mantelpiece and the tiny little bottle beside it. He thought of the
marks on his arm, of the passing inspirations he thus found, and of the
subsequent fits of remorse.

The following day, while they were working in the studio, Sylvia
painting and he criticising her work, he asked:

"If I were a drunkard, would you still care for me?"

She did not so much as turn while she answered:

"Whatever you are, I have given myself to you."

"There are worse things than drink," he said, as if communing with
himself. "There are drugs that enslave and debase a man; drugs that lead
him into the gardens of pleasure and raise him to the heights of
delight, so that he believes himself to be a superman, and," he almost
groaned, "lower him to the uttermost depths. Supposing----."

She turned to face him smilingly. "I refuse to suppose," she answered.
"I have resigned myself to you, and I am ready to accept and condone
everything. I love you, and that is sufficient for me."

What could a man such as he, who had never de