is until now? "His
world within the artist." He had fed upon himself, striving rather to
avoid than to seek outside influences. After Charmian's return from
Africa a persistent doubt assailed him. His strong instinct might be a
blind guide. The opinion of the world, represented by the shrewd married
woman and the intelligent girl, might have reason on its side.

Certainly Charmian's resolute assertion of herself on the evening of her
return had been surprisingly effective. In an hour she had made an
impression upon Heath such as she had failed to make in many weeks of
their previous acquaintanceship. Her attack had gone home. "If you were
to give yourself a chance how different you'd be!" And then her outburst
about the island! There had been truth in it. Color and light and
perfume and sound are material given out to the artist. He takes them,
uses them, combines them, makes them his. He helps them! Ah! That was
the word! He, as it were, gives them wings so that they may fly into the
secret places, into the very hearts of men.

Heath looked round upon his hermitage, the little house near St.
Petersburg Place, and he was companioned by fears. His energies
weakened. The lack of self-confidence, which often affected him when he
was divorced from his work, began to distress him when he was working.
He disliked what he was doing. Music, always the most evasive of the
arts, became like a mist in his sight. There were moments when he hated
being a composer, when he longed to be a poet, a painter, a sculptor.
Then he would surely at least know whether what he was doing was good or
bad. Now, though he was inclined to condemn, he did not feel certain
even of ineptitude.

Mrs. Searle noted the change in her master, and administered her
favorite medicine, Fan, with increasing frequency. As the neurasthenic
believes in strange drugs, expensive cures, impressive doctors, she
believed in the healing powers of the exceedingly young. Nor was Fan
doubtful of her own magical properties. She supposed that her intense
interest in herself and the affairs of her life was fully shared by
Heath. Her confidences to him in respect of Masterman and other
important matters were unbridled. She seldom strove to charm by
listening, and never by talking to Heath about himself. Her method of
using herself as a draught of healing was to draw him into the current
of her remarkable life, to set him floating on the tides of her fate.

Heath had a habit