n care; and her lovely face, damn
it, with the monstrous gear she had begun to rig upon it, was just what
had let him in. He had in the judgment of his family done everything
that could be expected of him; he had made--Mrs. Meldrum had herself
seen the letter--a "handsome" offer of pecuniary compensation. Oh, if
Flora, with her incredible buoyancy, was in a manner on her feet again
now, it was not that she had not for weeks and weeks been prone in the
dust. Strange were the humiliations, the prostrations it was given to
some natures to survive. That Flora had survived was perhaps after all
a sort of sign that she was reserved for some final mercy. "But she has
been in the abysses at any rate," said Mrs. Meldrum, "and I really don't
think I can tell you what pulled her through."

"I think I can tell _you_," I said. "What in the world but Mrs.
Meldrum?"

At the end of an hour Flora had not come in, and I was obliged to
announce that I should have but time to reach the station, where, in
charge of my mother's servant, I was to find my luggage. Mrs. Meldrum
put before me the question of waiting till a later train, so as not
to lose our young lady; but I confess I gave this alternative a
consideration less profound than I pretended. Somehow I didn't care if I
did lose our young lady. Now that I knew the worst that had befallen
her it struck me still less as possible to meet her on the ground of
condolence; and with the melancholy aspect she wore to me what other
ground was left? I lost her, but I caught my train. In truth she was
so changed that one hated to see it; and now that she was in charitable
hands one didn't feel compelled to make great efforts. I had studied
her face for a particular beauty; I had lived with that beauty and
reproduced it; but I knew what belonged to my trade well enough to be
sure it was gone for ever.

XII

I was soon called back to Folkestone; but Mrs. Meldrum and her young
friend had already left England, finding to that end every convenience
on the spot and not having had to come up to town. My thoughts however
were so painfully engaged there that I should in any case have had
little attention for them: the event occurred that was to bring my
series of visits to a close. When this high tide had ebbed I returned to
America and to my interrupted work, which had opened out on such a scale
that, with a deep plunge into a great chance, I was three good years in
rising again to the surface