n threw himself down beside the table,
and rested his head on his hands.

'It's no good to suppose we can undo these twelve years,' he said,
roughly; 'it's no good whatever to suppose that.'

'No,' said Phoebe--'I know.'

She too sat down on the other side of the table, deadly pale, not
knowing what to say or do.

Suddenly he raised his head and looked at her, with his searching
painter's eyes.

'My God!' he said, under his breath. 'We are changed, both of
us--aren't we?'

She too studied the face before her--the grey hair, the red-rimmed
eyes, of which the lids fluttered perpetually, shrinking from the
light, the sombre mouth; and slowly a look of still more complete
dismay overspread her own; reflected, as it were, from that
half-savage discouragement and weariness which spoke from the drawn
features, the neglected dress, and slouching figure, and seemed
to make of the whole man one sore, wincing at a touch. Her heart
sank--and sank.

'Can't we begin again?' she said, in a low voice, while the tears rose
in her eyes. 'I'm sorry for what I did.'

'How does that help it?' he said, irritably. 'I'm a ruined man.
I can't paint any more--or, at any rate, the world doesn't care a
ha'p'orth _what_ I paint. I should be a bankrupt--but for Madame de
Pastourelles--'

'John!' cried Phoebe, bending forward--'I've got a little money--I
saved it--and there are some shares a friend advised me to buy, that
are worth a lot more than I gave for them. I've got eight hundred
pounds--and it's all yours, John,--it's all yours.' She stretched out
her hands in a yearning anguish, and touched his.

'What friend?' he said, with a quick, suspicious movement, taking no
notice of her statement; 'and where have you been--all these years?'

He turned and looked at her sharply.

'I've been in Canada--on a farm--near Montreal.'

She held herself erect, speaking slowly and carefully, as though a
moment had arrived for which she had long prepared; through rebellion,
and through yielding; now in defiance, and now in fear: the moment
when she should tell John the story of her flight. Her manner,
indeed--for one who could have understood it--proved a curious thing;
that never, throughout their separation, had she ceased to believe
that she should see her husband again. There had been no finality in
her action. In her eyes the play had been always going on, the curtain
always up.

'You know I told you about Freddy--Freddy Tolson's--comin