to turn against me."

"I repeat that I care for you more than for your art, and I cannot see
you sacrificed. No, I have not turned against you. I have been against
you all this long, unhappy time. To-day I am your friend for the first
time. Listen, darling. When I got your letter yesterday, I knew that
things were as bad as ever, that you were at your wits' ends again for
money."

He maintained a shamefaced silence, not daring to make any pretence to
the contrary. She looked straight at him as she continued: "I am sure
you will be the last to think I have ever considered the few pounds I
have been able to put aside for you--my heart's best affection has
always gone out to you with them. But the whole of last night I kept
awake, and prayed for strength to refuse you any more money."

He held his head down; he was too abased to speak.

"Strength has been granted me at last. You are dear to me, and I will
not help to continue this unhappy state of affairs. Sell off your
studio, try your fortune in the Colonies, and you will yet pull your
life out of the mire."

He rose, and took up his hat. "I daresay you are right, Mary. But I am
an artist. Art is my life. Outside that there is nothing for me. Don't
think I am ungrateful for all you have done. Goodbye!"

"Goodbye, darling. Perhaps you will yet think it over."

He shook his head wearily and turned away, not seeing that she had held
her lips to him. The next moment he was descending the muddy staircase,
slipping and stumbling on the bare stone. He was conscious that Mary was
standing in the doorway a moment, but he did not see the convulsive
working of her face, nor know that as soon as he was out of sight she
had thrown herself on her bed, heart-broken, her body shaken in a
terrible burst of sobbing.

IV

In the High Street Wyndham waited impatiently for an omnibus to take him
home again. Instinctively he turned for refuge to the bleak studio, from
whose loneliness he had so often been impelled to escape. But it was his
own corner, and all he had. He would not light his lamp; he would lie
there in the gloom till his pain and self-abasement should have worn
themselves out. Merciful sleep might come; perhaps--and the idea seemed
sweet to him--the sleep of all sleeps.

So he possessed his spirit as best he could, while the vehicle lumbered
along through the endless streets; shivering a little in the autumn dusk
as now and then a gust of wind arose. The sk