ve herself, morally triumphant. The beautiful young face, when it
looked up, assorted well with the words:--"This is all cowardice, dear
Mrs. Picture. He _has_ seen, though it was only a few seconds. The sight
is there. And look what Dr. Merridew said. His eyes might be as strong
as they had ever been in his life."

Then followed reflections on the pusillanimity of despair, the duty of
hoping, and an attempt on Gwen's part to forestall a possible shock to
the old lady should she ever come to the knowledge of Adrian's free
opinions. She wanted her to think well of her lover. But she could not
conscientiously give him a character for orthodoxy. She took refuge in a
position which is often a great resource in like cases, ascribing to him
an intrinsic devoutness, a hidden substantial sanctity compatible with
the utmost latitudes of heterodoxy; a bedrock of devout gneiss or
porphyry hidden under a mere alluvium of modern freethinking; a
reality--if the truth were known--of St. Francis of Assisi behind a mask
of Voltaire. Her hearer only half followed her reasoning, but that
mattered little, as she was brimming with assent to anything Gwen
advanced, with such beautiful and earnest eyes to back it.

"It's a great deal too far to drive you over to see him," said Gwen. "It
would knock you to pieces--eighteen miles each way! It's over two hours
and a half in the carriage, even when the roads are not muddy. The mare
got me there in an hour and three-quarters the other day, but you
couldn't stand that sort of thing. I'm going again in the gig
to-morrow.... Oh no!--not till eleven o'clock. I shall come and sit with
you and see all comfortable before I go. I shall get there at lunch. How
do you get on with Masham?" This was asked with a pretence of absence of
misgiving, and the response to it was a testimonial to Mrs. Masham,
rather overdone. Gwen extenuated Mrs. Masham. She had known Masham all
her life, and she really was a very good woman, in spite of her caps. As
for her expanse, it was not her fault, but the hand of Nature; and her
black jet ringlets were, Gwen believed, congenital.

But the next clock was going to say ten, however inaccurately. In fact,
a little one, in a hurry, got its word in first, and was condemned by a
reference to Gwen's repeater, which refused to go farther than nine.
She, however, rang up Masham, of whose voice, _inter alias_, she had
been half-conscious in the distance for some time past; and who gave