with him. As he stood outside the Bayswater house, in
which she had settled for the winter, he realised that he had never yet
been under her roof, never yet seen her at home. It was his own fault.
She had asked him in her gracious way, on the first night of _Elvira_, to
come and see her. But, instead of doing so, he had buried himself in his
Surrey lodging, striving to bring the sober and austere influences of the
country to bear upon the feverish indecision of his mood. Perhaps his
disappearance and silence had wounded her; after all, he knew that he
had some place in her thoughts.

The servant who opened the door demurred to his request to see Miss
Bretherton. 'The doctor says, sir, that at home she must keep quiet; she
has not seen any visitors just lately.' But Kendal persisted, and his
card was taken in, while he waited the result. The servant hurried along
the ground-floor passage, knocked at the door at the farther end, went in
for a moment, and came out beckoning to him. He obeyed with a beating
heart, and she threw open the door for him.

Inside stood Isabel Bretherton, with eager surprise and pleasure in her
whole attitude. She had just risen from her chair, and was coming
forward; a soft white cashmere shawl hung around her; her dress, of some
dark rich stuff, fell with the flowing, stately lines peculiar to it; her
face was slightly flushed, and the brilliancy of her colour, of her hair,
of her white, outstretched hand, seemed to Kendal to take all the chill
and gloom out of the winter air. She held some proof sheets of a new play
in her hand, and the rest lay piled beside her on a little table.

'How kind of you, Mr. Kendal,' she said, advancing with her quick
impulsive step towards him. 'I thought you had forgotten us, and I have
been wanting your advice so badly! I have just been complaining of you a
little in a letter to Madame de Chateauvieux! She--'

Then she suddenly stopped, checked and startled by his face. He was
always colourless and thin, but the two nights he had just passed through
had given him an expression of haggard exhaustion. His black eyes seemed
to have lost the keenness which was so remarkable in them, and his
prematurely gray hair gave him almost a look of age in spite of the
lightness and pliancy of the figure.

He came forward, and took her hand nervously and closely in his own.

'I have come to bring you sad news,' he said gently, and seeking
anxiously word by word how he migh