r, and tossed her, and she was
now sitting in his pocket. But after these eight months the child of
four was shy and timid with this unfamiliar father. He on his side saw
that she was prettier than before; his eye delighted in some of the
rarer and lovelier lines of her little face; and he felt a fatherly
pride. He must make some fresh studies of her; the child in the
'Genius Loci' might be improved.

After supper, Phoebe seemed to him so pale and tottering that he made
her rest beside the fire, while he himself cleared the supper-things
away. She lay back in her chair, laughing at his awkwardness, or
starting up when china clashed.

Meanwhile, as in their farewell talk beside the ghyll eight months
before, her mood gradually and insensibly changed. Whatever unloving
thoughts or resentments had held her in the first hour of their
meeting, however strong had been the wish to show him that she had
been lonely and suffering, she could not resist what to her was the
magic of his presence. As he moved about in the low, firelit room, and
she watched him, her whole nature melted; and he knew it.

Presently she took the child upstairs. He waited for her, hanging over
the fire--listening to the storm outside--and thinking, thinking--

When she reappeared, and he, looking round, saw her standing in the
doorway, so tall and slender, her pale face and hair coloured by the
glow of the fire, passion and youth spoke in him once more.

He sprang up and caught her in his arms. Presently, sitting in the old
armchair beside the blaze, he had gathered her on his knee, and she
had clasped her hands round his neck, and buried her face against him.
All things were forgotten, save that they were man and wife together,
within this 'wind-warm space'--ringed by night, and pattering sleet,
and gusts that rushed in vain upon the roof that sheltered them.

But next morning, within the little cottage--beating rain on the
windows, and a cheerless storm-light in the tiny rooms--the hard
facts of the situation resumed their sway. In the first place money
questions had to be faced. Fenwick made the most of his expectations;
but at best they were no more, and how to live till they became
certainties was the problem. If Lord Findon had commissioned the
portrait, or definitely said he would purchase the 'Genius Loci,'
some advance might have been asked for. As it was, how could money
be mentioned yet a while? Phoebe had a fine and costly piece of
emb