. She stood yet a moment contemplating the
portrait, then turned her eyes away. "Oh, well," she said. "It will be a
happiness to possess it, but a greater one to feel that, in some
measure, it has helped to gain you the recognition that must be yours--a
little sooner, a little later, signifies nothing. But I leave you in
perfect confidence as to your career."

He bowed his head. "I shall not dare to disappoint your confidence. To
justify it is what I shall live for before all things."

"I am content," she said. "I ask for nothing better than that our hopes
shall be realised. I am glad you have chosen so charming a home for your
labours. I hope you will be happy here."

He did not reply at once, not trusting himself to speak. Lady Betty,
too, looked sadly down.

"Ah, yes," he conceded at last. "It is an ideal home for an artist!"

There were bitter implications in his tone, and she made no pretence of
not perceiving them.

"Darling," she said, "you know it would be the dream of my life to help
you. That is the only meaning happiness would have for me--to live by
your side and help your work and your life. Before everything else, I am
not the solemn, dignified being--the thought of me you keep for Sunday,"
she interposed smilingly--"but a mere human being, a simple woman, for
whom the love of the right man, once she has found him, is the principal
thing in life."

"I can't realise that you are going away," he broke out. "I want to keep
you with me always. Don't leave me, darling! Let us begin our life
anew--now, this minute! An ideal home here! I hate and loathe it. Let us
make a home together--a home of our very own--far away from all these
associations. Let us laugh at all else. I am strong enough to throw over
everything, to fight!"

She read the passion in his vivid face, in his terrible movement towards
her. She stepped back, and held up her hands to check him.

"It cannot be," she said. "Perhaps we are to blame for delaying our
parting. Believe me, I thought and thought about it after our first
meeting till I feared I should go mad. I felt I had already made my
great blunder--I had revealed the awful secret of my life. I had till
then nursed it all alone, but when I saw you again, after those
miserable years, I had to pour it out. I did so recklessly,
unthinkingly; it was such a joy to feel there was one friend in the
world to whom such things could be said, and I put no curb on myself.
And afterwards I w