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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40673 ***
+
+Tiger Lily, by George Manville Fenn.
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+TIGER LILY, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+MODERN SKILL.
+
+"Hallo, Sawbones!"
+
+The speaker raised his head from the white pillow of the massive,
+old-fashioned four-post bed, and set the ornamental bobs and tags of the
+heavy bullion fringe upon the great cornice quivering.  He was a
+sharp-faced, cleanly shaven man, freshly scraped, and the barber who had
+been operating was in the act of replacing his razor and strop as these
+words were spoken to the calm, thoughtful-looking person who entered the
+substantially furnished room.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Masters.  Had a quiet night?"
+
+"Bah!  You know I haven't.  How is a man to have a good night when ten
+thousand imps are boring into him with red-hot iron, and jigging his
+nerves till he is half mad!  Here, you: be off!"
+
+"Without brushing your hair, sir?"
+
+"Brush a birch broom!  My head never wants brushing.  You know that."
+
+He gave himself a jerk, and the short, crisp, wavy grey locks glistened
+in the bright morning sun, which streamed in through the window.
+
+"Look here; you can cut it to-morrow when you come--if I'm not dead.  If
+I am, you may have a bit to keep in remembrance."
+
+"Oh, not so bad as that, sir, I hope.  Dr. Thorpe is too--"
+
+"That'll do," said the man in the bed sharply.  "I kept to you because
+you didn't chatter like the ordinary barber brood.  I may get better, so
+don't spoil your character.  Be off!"
+
+The barber smiled, bowed, and left the room to doctor and patient.
+
+"Well?" said the latter, meeting his attendant's searching eye.  "I'm
+not gone."
+
+"No; and I do not mean to let you go if I can help it."
+
+"Ho!--But perhaps you can't."
+
+"God knows, sir; but I shall do my best.  I would rather, though, that
+you would let me bring in some one in consultation."
+
+"And I wouldn't.  If you can't set me right, Thorpe, no one in Boston
+can.  Look here; brought your tools?"
+
+The young doctor smiled.
+
+"Ah, it's nothing to grin about."
+
+"No; it is serious enough, my dear sir."
+
+"Then answer my question.  Brought your tools?"
+
+"I have come quite prepared."
+
+"Then I shan't have it done."
+
+Michael Thorpe looked at his patient as if he did not believe him, and
+the latter continued--
+
+"I say: it's confoundedly hard that I should suffer like this.  Spent
+all my life slaving, and now at sixty, when I want a little peace and
+enjoyment, this cursed trouble comes on.  Look here, Thorpe; don't fool
+about with me.  Charge me what you like, but tell me; couldn't you give
+me some stuff that would cure it without this operation?"
+
+"Do you want me to be perfectly plain with you, sir, once more?"
+
+"Of course.  Do I look the sort of man to be humbugged?"
+
+"Then I must tell you, sir, the simple truth.  You may go on for months,
+perhaps a year, as you are.  That is the outside."
+
+"I wouldn't go on for a week as I have been, my lad.--But if I have it
+done?"
+
+"There is no reason why you should not live to be eighty, or a hundred,
+if you can."
+
+"Right; I'll go in for the hundred, Thorpe.  I'm tough enough.  There,
+get it over."
+
+"You will have it done?"
+
+"Of course I will.  Don't kill me, or I'll come back and haunt you."
+
+"I should be too glad to see a dear old friend again, so that wouldn't
+alarm me," said Thorpe, examining his patient, who smiled grimly.  "I
+shall not kill you.  All I'm afraid of is that I may perform the
+operation so unskilfully that my labour and your suffering will have
+been in vain."
+
+"And then I'll call you a miserable pretender, and shan't pay you a
+cent.  Bah!  You can do it.  I know you, Michael Thorpe, and haven't
+watched you for nothing."
+
+The young surgeon held out his hands to his patient.
+
+"Give me your full confidence, Mr. Masters," he said, "work with me, and
+I can cure you."
+
+"Right, my lad.  But you had it before," he cried, grasping the hands
+extended to him.  "I trust you, boy, as I always did your father--God
+bless him!  Now, no more talking.  Get to work.  I won't holloa.  Where
+are you going?"
+
+"Only down to the drawing-room to fetch the nurse."
+
+"Ring for her--she's downstairs."
+
+"I mean the other--the professional nurse whom I brought with me."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To help me now, and to attend you for a few days afterwards exactly as
+I wish."
+
+"Two nurses?  One has nearly killed me.  Two will be downright murder."
+
+"No, sir," said Michael Thorpe, smiling.  "The good in one will
+neutralise all the ill that there may be in the other."
+
+"Fetch her up, then; and look here, Thorpe; I'm a man, not a weak
+hysterical girl.  None of your confounded chloroform, or anything of
+that kind."
+
+"You leave yourself in my hands, please," said the surgeon, smiling, and
+going across to the door, which he left open, and then uttering a sharp
+cough, returned.
+
+A minute later there was a faint rustling sound beyond the heavy
+curtains, and the patient, frowning heavily, turned his head in the
+direction of the door.  Then the scowl upon his sharp face gave place to
+a look of wonder and delight as a rather slight, dark-haired girl, in a
+closely fitting black dress and white-bibbed apron, advanced towards
+him, with her large dark eyes beaming sympathy, and a smile, half
+pitying, half affectionate, played about her well-formed, expressive
+lips.
+
+"Cornel!" he cried.  "Why, my dear little girl, this is good of you to
+come and see me.  I thought it was the nurse."
+
+He stretched out his hands, drew the girl to him, and kissed her
+tenderly on both cheeks, and then on the lips, before sinking back with
+the tears in his eyes--two utter strangers, which, possibly finding
+their position novel, hurriedly quitted their temporary resting-place,
+fell over the sides, and trickled down his cheeks.
+
+"I am the nurse," came now, in a sweet, silvery voice, as the new-comer
+began to arrange the pillow in that peculiarly refreshing way only given
+by loving hands.
+
+"You?  Impossible!"
+
+"Oh no, Mr. Masters.  Michael told me everything, and I was going to
+offer, when he asked me if I would come and help him."
+
+"Oh, but nonsense!  You, my child!  It would be too horrible and
+disgusting for a young girl like you."
+
+"Why?" she replied gently.  "Michael trusts me, and thinks I carry out
+his wishes better than a paid servant would."
+
+"That's it, my dear sir.  I want, both for the sake of an old friend and
+for my reputation, to make my operation perfectly successful.  Cornel
+here will carry out my instructions to the letter.  She will help me too
+in the operation."
+
+"But an operation is not fit--not the place for a young girl."
+
+"Why not?" said Cornel, smiling.
+
+"It is unsexing you, my child."
+
+"Unsexing me, when I come to help to calm your pain, to nurse you back
+to health and strength!  A woman never unsexes herself in proving a help
+to those who suffer.  Besides, I have often helped my brother before."
+
+Meanwhile the surgeon had busied himself at a table upon which he had
+placed a mahogany case.  He had had his back to them, but now turned and
+advanced to the bed, with a little silver implement in his hand.
+
+"Now, my dear sir, a little manly fortitude and patience, and you may
+believe me when I tell you that there is nothing to fear."
+
+"Who is afraid?" said the old man sharply.  "But what's that?"
+
+"A little apparatus for injecting an anaesthetic."
+
+"I said I wouldn't have anything of the kind," cried the patient
+angrily.  "I can and will bear it."
+
+"But I cannot and will not," said the surgeon, smiling.  "You could not
+help wincing and showing your suffering.  That would trouble, perhaps
+unnerve me, and I could not work so well."
+
+"What are you going to do?--give me chloroform?"
+
+"No; I am going to inject a fluid that will dull the sensitive nerves of
+the part, and place you in such a condition that you will lose all sense
+of suffering."
+
+"And if I don't come to?"
+
+"You will not for some time.  Now, old friend, show me your confidence.
+Are you ready?"
+
+There was a long, deep-drawn breath, a look at the young girl's patient,
+trust-giving face and then Ezekiel Masters, one of the wealthiest men in
+Boston, said calmly--
+
+"Yes."
+
+A few minutes later he was lying perfectly insensible, and breathing as
+gently as an infant.  "Can you repeat that from time to time, as I tell
+you?" said the surgeon.
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Without flinching?"
+
+"Yes.  It is to save him.  I shall not shrink."
+
+"Then I depend upon you."
+
+Busy minutes followed, with the patient lying perfectly unconscious.
+
+"How long could he be kept like this, Michael?" whispered Cornel, whose
+face looked very white.
+
+"As long as you wished--comparatively.  Don't talk; you hinder me."
+
+"As long as I liked," thought Cornel, with her eyes dilating as she
+gazed at the patient, with the little syringe in her hand, and the
+stoppered bottle, from which the fluid was taken, close by--"as long as
+I liked, and he as if quite dead.  What an awful power to hold within
+one's grasp!"
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+THE CERTAIN PERSON.
+
+"Hah!"
+
+A long-drawn sigh of content, which made Cornelia Thorpe emerge from her
+chair behind the bed-curtains, and bend over to lay her soft white hand
+upon the patient's forehead, but only for it to be taken and held to his
+lips.
+
+"Well, angel?" he said quietly.
+
+"Your head is quite cool; there is no fever.  Have you had a good
+night's rest?"
+
+"Good, my child?  It has been heavenly.  I seemed to sink at once into a
+delicious dreamless sleep, such as I have not known for a year, and I
+feel as if I had not stirred all night."
+
+"You have not."
+
+"Then you have watched by me?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"Hah!"  There was a pause.  Then: "You must have given me a strong
+dose?"
+
+"No," said Cornel, smiling.  "Your sleep was quite natural.  Why should
+it not be?  Michael says the cause of all your suffering is completely
+removed, and that he has been successful beyond his hopes."
+
+The old man lay holding his nurse's hand, and gazing at her fair,
+innocent face intently for some minutes before breaking the silence
+again.
+
+"When was it?" he said at last.
+
+"A week to-day, and in another month you may be up again."
+
+"Hah!  And they say there are no miracles now, and no angels upon
+earth," said the patient, half to himself.  Then more loudly, "Cornel,
+my child, I think I must turn over a new leaf."
+
+"Don't," she said, smiling.  "I like the old page.  You have always been
+my fathers dear friend--always good and kind."
+
+"I?  Bah!  A regular money-scraping, harsh tyrant.  A regular miser."
+
+"Nonsense, Mr. Masters."
+
+"Then I'll prove it.  I won't pay Michael his fees, nor you your wages
+for nursing me--not till I'm dead.  Well, have I said something funny?
+Why do you laugh?"
+
+"I smiled because I felt pleased."
+
+"Because I'm better?"
+
+"Yes; and because you are not going to insult Michael, nor your nurse,
+by offering us--"
+
+"Dollars?  Humph!  There, let's talk about something else.  Does Michael
+still hold to that insane notion of going to Europe?"
+
+"Oh yes; we should have been there now, if it had not been for your
+illness."
+
+"Then he gave it up for a time, because I wanted him to attend me?"
+
+Cornel bowed her head.
+
+"Humph!  Sort of madness to want to go at all.  Isn't America big enough
+for him?"
+
+"Of course," said Cornel, laughing gently; and now the air of the nurse
+appeared to have dropped away, to give place to the bright happy look of
+a girl of twenty.  "Surely it is not madness to want to increase his
+knowledge by a little study at the English and French hospitals.
+Besides, it was our father's wish."
+
+"Yes; Jack was very mad about the English doctors, when there was not
+one who could touch him.  I say, though: Michael is going to be as
+clever."
+
+"I hope so," said Cornel, with animation.  "He studies very hard."
+
+"Yes, he's a clever one, girl; and Jack Thorpe would have been very
+proud of him if he had lived.  But, I say--"
+
+Cornel looked inquiringly in the keen eyes which searched her face.
+
+"You really want to go with your brother?"
+
+"Yes," she said with animation--"I should very much like to go."
+
+"To study with him in the English and French hospitals?"
+
+"I should like him to take me round with him," she said, with her cheeks
+growing slightly tinged.  "I am always interested in his cases, and
+surely a woman is none the worse for a little surgical and medical
+knowledge."
+
+"A precious deal better, my dear.  But, I say--"
+
+"Yes, dear guardian," she said, with a sweet, thrilling modulation now
+in her tones, as her eyes grew dim, and she laid both her little hands
+in the patient's.
+
+"I promised your father I'd always have an eye on you two, and I don't
+think I ought to let you think of going, Cornel dear."
+
+She was silent.
+
+"Isn't it a sort of madness for you--to--eh?  You know."
+
+"To love and keep my faith to Armstrong Dale?" she said gently; and the
+love-light shone brightly in the eyes which met the old man's now
+without shrinking.
+
+"Yes; that's what I meant, little one.  I don't know how you could get
+yourself engaged to him."
+
+Cornel laughed gently--a pleasant, silvery little laugh, which seemed to
+do the patient good, for he smiled and listened to the last note of the
+musical sounds.  But he grew serious, and there was a cynicism in his
+tones as he went on.
+
+"I don't believe in him, my girl.  He's good-looking and a bit clever;
+but when you have said that, you have said all."
+
+A little white finger was laid upon the speaker's lips, but he went on.
+
+"I know: he gammoned you with his love nonsense, but if he had been the
+fellow I took him for, he'd have stayed here in Boston and painted and
+glazed.  Painted you.  Painted me--glazed me too, if he had liked.  What
+did he want to go and study at Rome and Paris and London for?  We've
+cleverer people in the States than out there."
+
+"To get breadth, and learn his own failings," said Cornel gently.
+
+"Hadn't any--I mean he was full of 'em, of course.  Couldn't have loved
+you, or he'd have stopped at home."
+
+"It was to show his love for me, and to try and make himself a master of
+his art, that he went away," said Cornel, with a look of faith and pride
+in her eyes.
+
+"Bah!  He has forgotten you by this time.  Give him up, puss.  He'll
+never come back.  He'll marry some fine madam in the old country."
+
+Cornel winced, and her eyes dilated as these words stung her; but the
+pang was momentary, and she laughed in the full tide of her happy trust
+in the man she loved.
+
+"You mark my words, Cornel," said the old man; "that fellow will throw
+you over, and then that will set your monkey up, and you'll come and ask
+me to marry you, and I will.  The folks 'll all laugh, but let 'em.  We
+shall be all right, little one.  I shall have a sweet little nurse and
+housekeeper to take care of me to the end, and you'll have an ugly,
+cantankerous old husband, who won't live very long, and will die and
+leave you a million dollars, so that you can laugh at the whole world,
+and be the prettiest little widow in Boston--bah! in the whole States--
+and with too much good sense to throw yourself away.--Who's that?"
+
+"Doctor," said Michael Thorpe, entering.  "How is he, Cornel?"
+
+"Getting better fast; so well this morning that he is saying all kinds
+of harsh and cruel things."
+
+"Capital sign," said the young surgeon.--"Yes, capital.  Why, you are
+splendid, Mr. Masters, and at the end of only a week."
+
+"Oh, I'm better.  Only said you were mad to want to go to Europe; and
+that she's worse to pin her faith to a gad-about artist who'll only
+break her heart."
+
+Michael Thorpe's stern, thoughtful face expanded into a pleasant smile.
+
+"Yes, Cornel dear," he said; "there's no doubt about it; he's mending
+fast.  I'll book my cabin in one of the Allan boats for about the
+beginning of next month.  You will not be able to go."
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+A FAIR CLIENT.
+
+A noble-looking specimen of humanity, with a grand grizzly head, and
+strongly marked aquiline features, lit up by deeply set, piercing eyes,
+got out of a four-wheeler at Number 409 Portland Place, knocking off a
+very shabby hat in the process.
+
+"Mind the nap, guv'nor," said the battered-looking driver with a laugh,
+as his fare stooped to pick up the fallen edifice; and as he spoke, the
+man's look took in the ill-fitting coat and patched boots of him whom he
+had driven only from Fitzroy Square.
+
+"Not the first time that's been down, cabby.  Hand 'em off."
+
+A minute later, Daniel Jaggs, familiarly known in art circles as "The
+Emperor," and by visitors to the Royal Academy from his noble face,
+which had appeared over the bodies of noble Romans and heroes of great
+variety, stood on the pavement with an easel under one arm, a large
+blank canvas under the other, and a flat japanned box of oil colours and
+case of brushes held half hidden by beard, beneath his chin.
+
+He walked up to the door of the great mansion, whose window-sills and
+portico were gay with fresh flowers, and gave a vigorous tug at the
+bell.
+
+The double doors flew open almost directly, and "The Emperor" was faced
+by a portly butler, who was flanked by a couple of men in livery.
+
+"Oh! the painters traps," said the former.  "Look here, my good fellow;
+you should have rung the other bell.  Step inside."
+
+"The Emperor" obeyed, and, leaving the visitor waiting in the handsome
+hall, in company with the footman and under-butler, who looked rather
+superciliously at the well-worn garments of the artist's model, the
+out-of-livery servant walked slowly up the broad staircase to the
+drawing-room, and as slowly returned, to stand beckoning.
+
+"You are to bring them up yourself," he said haughtily.
+
+Daniel Jaggs placed his hat upon one of the crest-blazoned hall chairs,
+loaded himself well with the artistic impedimenta, and then went forward
+to the foot of the stairs up which the butler was leading the way, when,
+hearing a sound, he turned sharply.
+
+"Here!  Hi!" he cried loudly; "what are you going to do with that 'at?"
+
+For one of the footmen was putting it out of sight, disgusted with the
+appearance of the dirty lining.
+
+"Hush!  Recollect where you are," whispered the butler.  "Her ladyship
+will hear."
+
+"But that's my best 'at," grumbled the model, and then he subsided into
+silence as he was ushered into a magnificently furnished room; the door
+was closed behind him, and he stood staring round, thinking of
+backgrounds, when there was the rustling of silk, and "The Emperor" was
+dazzled, staring, as he told himself, at the most beautiful woman he had
+ever seen in his life.
+
+Valentina, Contessa Dellatoria, was worthy of the man's admiration as
+she stood there with her dark eyes half veiled by their long lashes, in
+all the proud matured beauty of a woman of thirty, who could command
+every resource of jewel and robe to heighten the charms with which
+nature had liberally endowed her.  She was beautiful; she knew it; and
+at those moments, eager with anticipations which had heightened the
+colour in her creamy cheeks, and the lustre in her eyes, she stood ready
+to be amused as she thoroughly grasped the meaning of the man's
+astonished gaze.
+
+"You have brought those from Mr. Dale, have you not?" she said at last,
+in a rich, soft voice.
+
+"Yes, my lady.  I 'ave, my lady.  The heasel and canvas, my lady."
+
+"Perhaps you had better bring them into this room."
+
+"Yes, my lady--of course, my lady," said the model eagerly, as he
+blundered after the Contessa, "The Emperor's" rather shambling
+movements, being due to a general looseness of joint, in no wise
+according with the majesty of his head and face.
+
+"Yes; about there.  That will do; they are sure to be moved."
+
+"Oh yes, my lady, on account of the light.  Mr. Dale's very partickler."
+
+"Indeed?  Will he be here soon?"
+
+"Direc'ly, I should say, my lady.  He bordered me to bring on his
+traps."
+
+"From his studio?" said the lady, sinking into a chair, and taking a
+purse from a little basket on a table.
+
+"The Emperor's" eyesight was very good, and the movement suggested
+pleasant things.  The lady, too, seemed disposed to question him, and he
+winked to himself mentally, as he glanced at the beautiful face before
+him, thought of his employer's youth and good looks, and then had sundry
+other thoughts, such as might occur to a man of a very ordinary world.
+
+But his hands were not idle; they were as busy as his thoughts, and he
+spread the legs of the easel, and altered the position of the pegs ready
+for the canvas.
+
+"Will you take this--for your trouble?" came in that soft, rich,
+thrilling voice.
+
+"Oh no--thank you, my lady--that ain't necessary," said the man hastily,
+as his fingers closed over the coin extended with a smile by fingers
+glittering with jewels.--"A suv, by jingo," he added to himself.
+
+"Are you Mr. Dale's servant?"
+
+"No, ma'am--my lady.  Oh, dear, no.  An old friend--that is, you know, I
+sit for him--and stand.  I'm in a many of his pictures."
+
+"Oh, I see.  He takes your portrait?"
+
+"Well, no, my lady; portraits is quite another line.  I meant for his
+gennery pictures."
+
+"_Genre_?"
+
+"Yes, my lady.  I was standing for Crackticus that day when you and his
+lordship come to the studio."
+
+"Indeed?  I did not see you."
+
+"No, my lady.  I had to go into the next room.  You see I was a hancient
+Briton, and not sootable for or'nary society 'cept in a picture.--I
+think that'll do, my lady.  He'll alter it to his taste."
+
+"Yes, but--er--does Mr. Dale paint many portraits of ladies?" said the
+Contessa, detaining the model as he made as if to depart.
+
+"Oh no, my lady.  I never knew him do such a thing afore.  He never
+works away from his studio, and he went on a deal about having to come
+here--er--that is--of course, he did not know," added the man hastily.
+
+The Contessa smiled.
+
+"But he has painted the human countenance a great deal?  I mean the
+faces of ladies.  There were several of nymphs in his Academy picture
+this year--beautiful women."
+
+"The Emperor" smiled and shook his head.
+
+"On'y or'nary models, my lady.  He made 'em look beautiful.  That's art,
+my lady."
+
+"Then he had sitters for that picture?" she asked, rather eagerly.
+
+"Oh yes, my lady; but Lor' bless you! it isn't much you'd think of them.
+He's a doing a picture now--a tayblow about Juno making a discovery
+over something.  Her good man wasn't quite what he ought to have been,
+my lady, and she's in a reg'lar rage."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"Yes, my lady; and he tried all the reg'lar lady models--spent no end on
+'em, but they none of 'em wouldn't do."
+
+"Not beautiful enough?"
+
+"He didn't think so, my lady, though, as I told him, it was too much to
+expeck to get one as was perfeck.  You see in art, to make our best
+studies, we has to do a deal of patching."
+
+"Painting the picture over and over again?"
+
+"Your ladyship does not understand.  It's like this: many of our best
+tayblows of goddesses and nymphs is made up.  One model does for the
+face, another for the arms and hands, another for busties and--I beg
+your ladyship's pardon; I was only talking art."
+
+"I understand.  I take a great deal of interest in the subject."
+
+"Thankye, my lady.  I told Mr. Dale as it was expecting too much to get
+a perfeck woman for a model, for there wasn't such a thing in nature.
+But, all hignorance, my lady, all hignorance.  I hadn't seen your
+ladyship then.  I beg your ladyship's pardon for being so bold."
+
+"The Emperor" had seen the dreamy dark eyes open wide and flash angrily,
+but the look changed back to the listless, half-contemptuous again, and
+the lady said with a smile--
+
+"Granted.--That will do.  I suppose you will fetch Mr. Dale's easel when
+it is removed?"
+
+"I hope so, my lady, and thank you kindly.  So generous!  Never forget
+it, and--oh!  I beg your pardon, sir."
+
+"The Emperor" had been backing toward the door, and nearly came in
+contact with a short, slight, carefully dressed, middle-aged man--that
+is to say, he was about forty-five, looked sixty-five the last thing at
+night, and as near thirty-five as his valet could make him in the day.
+
+He gazed keenly at the noble features of the man who towered over him,
+and "The Emperor" returned the gaze, noting, from a professional point
+of view, the rather classic Italian mould of the features, disfigured by
+a rather weak sensual mouth, and dark eyes too closely set.
+
+"Two sizes larger, and what a Yago he would have made to my Brabantio,"
+muttered "The Emperor," as he was let out by one of the footmen; and at
+the same moment Armstrong Dale, artist, strode up--a manly, handsome,
+carelessly dressed, typical Saxon Englishman in appearance, generations
+of his family, settled in America since the Puritan days, having
+undergone no change.
+
+"Traps all there, Jaggs?"
+
+"Yes, sir, everything," said the man confidentially, "and oh! sir--"
+
+"That will do.  Say what you have to say when I return: I'm late.  Take
+my card up to the Contessa," he continued, turning sharply to the
+servant; and there was so much stern decision in his manner that the
+door was held wide, and the artist entered.
+
+Meanwhile a few words passed in the drawing-room.
+
+"Who's that fellow, Tina?" said the man too small, in "The Emperor's"
+estimation, for Iago.
+
+The Contessa had sunk back in her lounge, and a listless, weary air had
+come over her face like a cloud, as she said, with a slight shrug of her
+shoulders--
+
+"Mr. Dale's man."
+
+"Who the dickens is Mr. Dale?"
+
+Twenty years of life in London society had so thoroughly Anglicised
+Conte Cesare Dellatoria, that his conversation had become perfectly
+insular, and the Italian accent was only noticeable at times.
+
+"You know--the artist whom we visited."
+
+"Oh, him!  I'd forgotten.  That his litter?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Humph!  I haven't much faith in English artists.  Better have waited
+till we went to Rome in the winter.  Why, Tina, you look lovely this
+morning.  That dress suits you exactly, beloved one."
+
+He bent down and kissed the softly rounded cheek, with the effect that
+the lady's dark brows rose slightly, but enough to make a couple of
+creases across her forehead.  Then, as a dull, cracking noise, as of the
+giving of some form of stay or stiffening was heard, the gentleman rose
+upright quickly, and glanced at himself in one of the many mirrors.
+
+"Well, make him do you justice.  But no--he cannot."
+
+"You are amiable this morning," said the lady contemptuously.
+
+"Always most amiable in your presence, my queen," he replied.
+
+"Oh, I see!  You are going out?"
+
+"Yes, dearest.  By the way, don't wait lunch, and I shall not be back to
+dinner."
+
+"Do you dine with Lady Grayson?"
+
+The Conte laughed.
+
+"Delightful!" he cried.  "Jealousy.  And of her dearest, most
+confidential friend."
+
+"No," said the lady quietly.  "I have only one confidential friend."
+
+"Meaning me.  Thank you, dearest."
+
+"Meaning myself," said the lady to herself.  Then haughtily: "Yes?"
+
+This to one of the servants who brought in a card on a waiter.
+
+"Caller?" exclaimed the Conte.  "Here, stop a moment; I've an
+engagement;" and he hurried out through the back drawing-room, while the
+lady's eyes closed a little more as she took the card from the silver
+waiter, and sat up, listening intently, as she said in a low voice--
+
+"Where is Mr. Dale?"
+
+"In the library, my lady."
+
+There was a pause, during which the Contessa turned her head toward the
+back room, and let her eyes pass over the preparations that had been
+made for her sitting.
+
+"Move that easel a little forward," she said.
+
+The man crossed to the back room and altered the position of the tripod
+and canvas.
+
+"A little more toward the middle of the room."
+
+At that moment there was the faintly heard sound of a whistle, followed
+by the rattle of wheels, which stopped in front of the house.  A few
+moments later the rattle of the wheels began again, and there was the
+faint, dull, heavy sound of the closing front door.
+
+"I think that will do," said the Contessa carelessly.  "Show Mr. Dale
+up."
+
+The man left the room, and the change was instantaneous.  His mistress
+sprang up eager and animated, stepped to one of the mirrors, gave a
+quick glance at her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, laid her hand for
+a moment upon her heaving bosom, and then hurriedly resumed her seat,
+with her head averted from the door.  She took up a book, with which she
+half screened her face, the hand which held open the leaves trembling
+slightly from the agitation imparted by her quickened pulses.
+
+The door opened silently, and the servant announced loudly--"Mr. Dale,"
+and withdrew.
+
+The artist took a step or two forward, and then waited for a sign of
+recognition, which did not come for a few moments, during which there
+was a quick nervous palpitation going on in the lady's temples.
+
+Then she rose quickly, letting fall the book, and advanced towards the
+visitor.
+
+"You are late," she said, in a low, deep, emotional voice.
+
+"I beg your ladyship's pardon," said Dale, looking wonderingly, and with
+all an artist's admiration for the beautiful in nature, at the glowing
+beauty of the woman whose eyes were turned with a soft appealing look in
+his, while the parted lips curved into a smile which revealed her purely
+white teeth.
+
+"I forgive you," she said softly, as she held out her hand--"now that
+you have come."
+
+Armstrong Dale's action was the most natural in the world.  He was in
+London, and it was two years since he left Boston to increase his
+knowledge of the world of art.  He took the hand held out to him, and
+for the moment was fascinated by the spell of the eyes which looked so
+strangely deep down into his own.  Then he was conscious of the soft
+white hand clinging tightly to his with a pressure to which it had been
+a stranger since he left the States.
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+AN UNEXPECTED SCENE.
+
+Armstrong Dale walked up and down his grim-looking, soot-smudged studio,
+as if he had determined to wear a track on one side similar to that made
+by a wild beast in his cage.
+
+"I won't go again," he said; "it's a kind of madness.  Heavens! how
+beautiful she is!  And that man--that wretched, effete, miserable little
+piece of conceit, with his insolent criticisms of my work.  I felt as if
+I could strangle him.  If it had not been for her appealing looks, I
+should have had a row with him before now.  I will not put up with it.
+But how she seems to hate him; how she--"
+
+"Bah!  Brute!  Idiot!  Ass!  Conceited fool!  Because nature has given
+you a decent face, can't a handsome woman look at you without your
+thinking she admires you--can't she speak gently, and in her graceful
+refined way, without your thinking that she is in love with you?"
+
+"It's all right, Cornel, my darling!  I've been a fool--a conceited
+fool; but I've got your sweet, innocent little face always before me,
+the remembrance of your dear arms about my neck, and your kisses--
+armour, all of them, to guard me against folly.  Pish!  Fancy and
+conceit!  I will go, finish my painting, get it exhibited if I can, and
+pile up Philistine gold as spoil to bear home to her who is to be my
+very own."
+
+It was the third time of making this declaration, and, full of his
+self-confidence, Dale made his way for the fourth time to Portland
+Place, to find his pulses, which had been accelerating their rate, calm
+down at once, for his reception by the Contessa was perfect, but there
+was a mingling of annoyance with his satisfaction on finding that his
+hostess was not alone.
+
+Lady Grayson, one of Valentina's greatest intimates, was there, a
+handsome, arch-looking woman, widow of a wealthy old general, who, after
+a long life of warfare in the East, had commenced another in the West,
+but this was not even of seven years' duration before he fell.
+
+Lady Grayson smiled sweetly upon the artist as he entered; and he felt
+that there was as much meaning in her words as in her looks.
+
+"I forgot this was your sitting day, Tina.  Do you know, I thought
+ladies always had to go to an artist's studio to be painted.  There, I
+suppose you two want to be alone?"
+
+"Pray, don't go," said Valentina calmly.  "I do not suppose Mr. Dale
+will mind you being present."
+
+"I?  Not at all," said Armstrong.  "It will not make any difference to
+me."
+
+"Indeed!" said the lady archly, "I thought you might both want to talk."
+
+Armstrong Dale turned to his palette and brushes; and, as the Contessa
+took up her position, he crossed to the window, half-closed the
+shutters, and drew a curtain, so as to get the exact light upon his
+sitter, whose eyes had met those of her dearest friend, and a silent
+skirmish, none the less sharp for no words being spoken, went on.
+
+Dale returned to the front of his easel, and after a few words of
+request to his sitter respecting her position, to which she responded by
+a pained look, which made him shiver, he began to paint.
+
+"Oh, how clever!" cried Lady Grayson, who had resumed her seat.
+
+"Then she is waiting to see Cesare," thought the Contessa, smiling at
+her friend.
+
+"Did you mean that dab I just made with my brush, Lady Grayson?" said
+Armstrong coldly.
+
+"Fie! to speak so slightingly of your work.  Dab, indeed! why, I have
+had lessons in painting and ought to know.  Every touch you give that
+canvas shows real talent."
+
+"And with all due respect, Lady Grayson, I, as a man who has studied
+hard in New York, Paris, Rome, and here in London, confidently say that
+you are no judge."
+
+"I declare I am, sir," cried Lady Grayson merrily.  "The fact is, you
+are too modest.--Don't you think he is far too modest, dear?"
+
+"I am debarred from entering into the discussion," said the Contessa,
+with a fixed smile.
+
+"Then I must do all the talking.--Capital!  The portrait grows more like
+at every touch.  By the way, Mr. Dale, how is your big picture getting
+on--the one I saw at your studio?"
+
+In spite of her self-command, Valentina turned pale, and a flash darted
+from her eyes.
+
+She at his studio!
+
+Then she drew a long breath, the light in her eyes grew fixed, and there
+was a peculiar hardening in her smile, as Armstrong went on painting,
+and said calmly--
+
+"The large mythological study I showed you and the Conte?"
+
+"Yes, that one," said Lady Grayson, who, in spite of her assurance, did
+not dare to look at her friend, whose smile grew a little harder now,
+though there was a feeling of triumph glowing at her heart, as she
+detected her friend's slip.
+
+"Badly," said Armstrong quietly.  "I beg your pardon, Lady Dellatoria;
+that smile is too hard.  Are you fatigued?"
+
+"Oh no," she replied; and the smile he was trying to transfer to the
+canvas came back with a look which he avoided, and he continued
+hastily--
+
+"I cannot satisfy myself with my sitters.  I want a good--a beautiful,
+intense-looking--face, full of majesty, passion, and refinement; but the
+models are all so hard and commonplace.  I can find beautiful women to
+sit, but there is a vulgarity in their faces where I want something
+ethereal or spiritual."
+
+"Why not get the Contessa to sit?"
+
+"Or Lady Grayson?" said Valentina scornfully.
+
+"Oh, I should sit for Mr. Dale with pleasure."
+
+"My dear Henriette, how can you be so absurd?"
+
+"Oh, but I do not mean until you have quite done with him, dear."
+
+"You would not do," said Dale bluntly.--"Quite still now, please, Lady
+Dellatoria."
+
+"Alack and alas! not to be beautiful.  But would your present sitter
+do?"
+
+"I should not presume to ask Lady Dellatoria to sit for a study in a
+picture to be publicly exhibited," said the young man coldly.
+
+"But you--so famous.--Ah, here is the Conte!"
+
+"Yes; what is it?" said Dellatoria, entering.  "Want me?"
+
+"I knew it," thought the Contessa.  "It was an appointment."
+
+"Yes, to judge.  That picture of Mr. Dale's.  You know--the one we saw
+that day at his studio."
+
+The Conte's eyes contracted a little, and he glanced at his wife, whose
+face was calm and smiling.
+
+"Oh yes, I remember," he said--then, in an aside, "You little fool.--
+What about it?" he added aloud.
+
+"Mr. Dale can't find a model who would do for Juno.  I was suggesting
+that dearest Valentina should sit."
+
+"Very good of you, Lady Grayson," said the Conte shortly; "but her
+ladyship does not sit for artists."
+
+"And Mr. Dale does not wish her ladyship to do so, sir," said the
+artist, as haughtily as the Conte.
+
+"There, I've said something wrong," cried Lady Grayson.  "Poor me!  It's
+time I went.  I had no business to stay and hinder the painting.  Good
+morning, Mr. Dale.  Good-bye, Valentina, dear.  Ask the Conte to forgive
+me."
+
+She bent down and kissed the beautiful face, which did not wince, but
+there was war between two pairs of eyes.  Then, turning round, she held
+out her hand.
+
+"Good-bye, dreadful man.  I'm too awfully sorry I cannot give you a lift
+on my way back to the park."
+
+"No, thanks.  By-the-by, yes; I want to go to Albert Gate.  Would it be
+taking you out of your way?"
+
+"Oh no.  Delighted.  My horses don't have half enough to do."
+
+"Then come along."
+
+Armstrong could not help glancing at the couple as they crossed towards
+the door; and then as he turned back to the canvas his heart began to
+beat painfully, for he heard a peculiar hissing sound as of a long deep
+breath being drawn through teeth closely set, and a dangerous feeling of
+pity entered his breast.  He could not paint, but stood fixed with the
+brush raised, completely mastered by the flood of thought which rushed
+through his brain.  He saw plainly how great cause there was for the
+coldness and contempt with which the Contessa viewed her husband, and he
+realised fully the truth of the rumours he had heard of how she--a
+beautiful English girl--had been hurried into a fashionable marriage
+with this contemptible, wealthy, titled man.  What else could come of it
+but such a life as he saw too plainly that they led!
+
+He fought against these thoughts, but vainly; and they only opened the
+way to others still more dangerous.  The first time he had met Lady
+Dellatoria, when she visited his studio in company with her husband, she
+had seemed attracted to him, and he had felt flattered by the eagerness
+with which she listened to his words.  Then came an invitation to dinner
+at Portland Place, for the discussion of his undertaking the portrait.
+That night, the Conte was called away to an engagement, and he was left
+in that luxurious drawing-room, talking to the clever, refined, and
+beautiful woman who seemed to hang upon his words.
+
+Soon after he went back to his studio half intoxicated by her smiles;
+but the next morning he had grown more himself, and had a long talk with
+Joe Pacey, his greatest intimate, and been advised to paint the portrait
+by all means, but to hit hard for price.
+
+"Do you no end of good, boy; but take care of yourself; she's the most
+beautiful woman in society."
+
+Dale had laughed contemptuously, accepted the commission, and matters
+had gone on till it had come to this.  He had been forced to be a
+witness of the breach between husband and wife, the cruelty of the
+treatment she received, and he had heard that painful drawing in of the
+breath, as she sat there almost within touch.  She, the suffering woman,
+who had from the first accorded to him what had seemed to be the warmest
+friendship; and now the blood rose to his brain, and his resolutions,
+his fierce accusations, appeared to have been all in vain.
+
+He dared not look round in the terrible silence which had ensued.  He
+could only think that he was alone with the woman against whom his
+friend had warned him, and for the moment, in the giddy sensation that
+attacked him, he felt that he must rush from the room.
+
+Then he started, and the brush fell from his hand, for there was a quick
+movement in the chair on his left, and he turned sharply, to find
+Valentina's eyes filled with tears, but not dimmed so that he could not
+read the yearning, passionate look with which she gazed at him, as she
+said in a low, thrilling whisper--
+
+"You heard--you saw--all.  Have you no pity for me--no word to say?"
+
+For a few moments not a word.
+
+The Contessa rose and took a step toward him, with her hands raised
+appealingly.
+
+"You do not--you cannot--understand," she half whispered, "or you would
+speak to me.  Can you not see how alone I am in the world, insulted,
+outraged, by that man whose wife I was almost forced to become?  Wife!"
+she cried, "no, his slave, loaded with fetters of gold, which cut into
+my flesh till my life becomes insufferable.  Mr. Dale--Armstrong, I
+thought you sympathised with me in my unhappy state.  Have I not shown
+you, since fate threw us so strangely together, that my life has been
+renewed that everything has seemed changed?"
+
+He looked at her wildly, and the palette he held fell upon the rich
+thick carpet in the struggle going on within his breast.
+
+"Are you dumb?" she whispered softly; "have you been blind to my
+sufferings?"
+
+"No, no!" he cried.  "Indeed, I have not.  But you must not speak like
+this.  It is madness.  I have seen and pitied.  I have felt that your
+husband--"
+
+"Husband!" she said contemptuously.
+
+"Oh, hash!" he cried.  "Lady Dellatoria, you are angry--excited.  Yes, I
+see and know everything, but for your own sake, don't--for Heaven's
+sake, don't speak to me like this."
+
+"Why," she said bitterly, "are you not honest and true?"
+
+"No," he cried wildly.  "It is mere folly.  It has all been a terrible
+mistake my coming here.  I cannot--I will not continue this work.  It is
+impossible.  The Conte insults me.  He is dissatisfied.  Lady
+Dellatoria, I cannot submit to all his--"
+
+He shrank from her, for her hand was laid upon his arm.
+
+"Yes," she said, as she raised her face towards his; "he insults you, as
+he insults me; he--poor, weak, pitiful creature--insults you who are so
+true and manly.  I am not blind.  I have seen all that you try to hide.
+You pity me; you have shown yourself my sympathetic friend.  Yes, and I
+have seen more--all that you have tried so hard to hide in your
+veneration--your love for a despairing woman.  Mr. Dale--Armstrong," she
+whispered--and her voice was low, tender, and caressing; her eyes
+seeking his with a passionate, yearning look, which thrilled him--"don't
+leave me now; I could not bear it."
+
+"Lady Dellatoria!" he panted wildly, as honour made one more stand in
+his behalf.
+
+"Valentina," she whispered, "who casts off all a woman's reserve for
+you, the first who ever taught her that, after all, there is such a
+thing as love in this weary world, and with it hope and joy."
+
+The hands which had rested upon his arm rose to his shoulders, and
+tightened about his neck, as she laid her burning face upon his breast.
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+LADY GRAYSON'S PURSE.
+
+With one quick motion, Armstrong threw Valentina back into her seat, and
+snatched up palette and brushes, mad with rage and shame, as he made an
+effort to go on painting.  For the drawing-room door had been opened
+with a good deal of rattling of the handle, and he expected that the
+next minute he would have to turn and face the husband.
+
+But it was a woman's voice, full of irony and sarcasm, and he turned
+sharply, to see that the Contessa sat back in her chair with a strangely
+angry light in her dark eyes, gazing at Lady Grayson.
+
+"Pray forgive me, dear," said the latter mockingly.  "So sorry to
+disturb you.  I was obliged to come back, for I have lost my purse.  Did
+I leave it here?"
+
+"How could you have left it here?" said the Contessa coldly, as she
+quivered beneath her friend's gaze.
+
+"I thought, love, that perhaps I had drawn it out with my handkerchief.
+It is so tiresome to lose one's purse; is it not, Mr. Dale?"
+
+"Worse, madam, not to have one to lose," said Armstrong, who was placing
+his brushes in their case.
+
+"How droll you are," said Lady Grayson; "as if anybody except a beggar
+could be without a purse.  But surely you have not done painting the
+portrait?"
+
+"Yes, Lady Grayson, I have done painting the portrait," replied Dale
+gravely.
+
+"And all through my interruption.  Oh, my dearest Valentina, how could I
+be so indiscreet as to come and interrupt your charming sitting."
+
+"Would it be a sin to strangle this mocking wretch, who is triumphing
+over her shame and my disgrace?" thought Dale.
+
+The Contessa was silent, and the situation growing maddening, when Lady
+Grayson suddenly exclaimed--"Why, there!  I told the dear Conte that I
+felt sure I had dropped it here; and when I am influenced about anything
+happening, as I was in this case, I am pretty sure to be right."
+
+She said this meaningly, with a smile at the other actors in the scene,
+and then took a few steps toward the couch she had occupied, and,
+picking from it the missing purse, held it up in triumph, and with her
+eyes sparkling with malicious glee.
+
+"I am so glad," she cried; "I was so sure.  Goodbye once more, dearest
+Valentina.  Good morning, Mr. Dale.  Oh, you fortunate man," she
+continued, gazing at the canvas.  "To paint like that.  Ah, well,
+perhaps it may be my turn next," she added, with a mocking glance at the
+Contessa.  "What, you going too, Mr. Dale?  Then I did spoil the
+sitting."
+
+"No, madam," said Armstrong coldly; "your arrival was most opportune.
+Lady Dellatoria, my man shall come for the canvas."
+
+Valentina darted a wildly reproachful look at him, which he met for a
+moment, flushed, and turned from with a shiver.
+
+"May I see you to your carriage, Lady Grayson?" he said.
+
+"Oh, thank you, Mr. Dale: if you would.  Goodbye, dearest," she cried,
+with a triumphant mocking look at the fierce, beautiful face.  "You must
+let me drop you at your studio, Mr. Dale," she continued; and as the
+door closed behind them, Valentina started from her chair to press her
+hands to her temples, uttering a low, piteous moan.
+
+"Cast off! and for her!" she cried wildly.  "She has always been trying
+to lure him from me--him--my husband; and she could not rest in her
+suspicions without coming back."
+
+She ran to the window to stand unseen, gazing down, and to her agony she
+saw Dale step into the carriage, take his seat beside Lady Grayson, and
+be carried off.
+
+Valentina turned from the window with her face convulsed, but it grew
+smooth and beautiful, and there was a dreamy look in her eyes, and a
+smile upon her parted, humid lips.
+
+"I am mad," she said to herself, with a mocking laugh.  "He care for
+her!  Absurd!  He loves me!  In his brave fight he struggled hard, but--
+he loves me.  His arms did hold me to his breast; his lips did press
+mine.  And she?--poor weak fool, with her transparent trick, to return
+and play the spy.  Let her know, and have a hold upon me, and defy me
+about Cesare.  She will threaten me some day if I revile her.  Poor
+fool!  I am the stronger--stronger than ever now.  I could defy the
+world, for, in spite of his cold looks, his anger against himself--he
+loves me."
+
+She raised her eyes and stood looking straight before her for some
+moments, and then started, but recovered herself and smiled as she gazed
+at the figure before her in one of the mirror-filled panels of the room.
+
+For she saw reflected there a face and figure that she felt no man could
+resist, and the smile upon her face grew brighter, the dreamy look
+intensified, as she murmured--
+
+"At last!  After these long, barren, weary years, love, the desire of a
+woman's life;" and closing her eyes, she slowly extended her arms as, in
+a whisper soft as the breath of eve, she murmured, "At last!  Come back
+to me, my love--my life--my god."
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+WHAT PACEY SAW IN THE CLOUDS.
+
+Three weeks soon pass in busy London, but to Armstrong Dale the
+twenty-one days which ensued after the scene at Portland Place were like
+months of misery.
+
+Stern in his resolve to avoid all further entanglement, and to keep
+faith to her whom in his heart of hearts he loved, he shut himself up in
+his studio, and made a desperate attack upon his great mythological
+picture, a broad high canvas, at which Keren-Happuch stared
+open-mouthed, when she went into the studio every morning "to do Mr.
+Dale up"--a feat which consisted in brushing the fluff about from one
+corner to another, and resulted in a good deal of sniffing, and the
+lodging of more dust upon casts, ledges, furniture, and above all, upon
+Keren-Happuch's by no means classical features, where it adhered,
+consequent upon a certain labour-and-exercise-produced moisture which
+exuded from the maiden's skin.
+
+"I can't help looking smudgy," she used to say; and directly after,
+"Comin', mum," for her name was shouted in an acid voice by Mrs.
+Dunster, the elderly lady who let the studio and rooms in Fitzroy Square
+to any artist who would take them for a time.
+
+But the poor little slavey was Keren-Happuch to that lady alone.  To
+Armstrong she was always Miranda, on account of her friend, the
+dirty-white cat of the kitchen; to his artist friends such names as
+seemed good to them, and suited to their bizarre thoughts.
+
+To Armstrong one morning came Keren-Happuch, as he was painting out his
+previous day's work upon his great picture, and she stood staring with
+her mouth open.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Dale, sir, what a shame!  What would Miss Montmorency say?"
+
+"What about, Miranda?"
+
+"You a-smudging out her beautiful figure as you took such pains to
+paint.  Why, she was a-talking to me 'bout it, sir, when she was a-goin'
+yesterday, and said she was goin' to be Queen June-ho at the 'cademy."
+
+"But she will not be, Miranda," said Armstrong sadly; "it was execrable.
+Ah, my little lass, what a pity it is that you could not stand for the
+figure."
+
+"Me, sir!  Oh, my!" cried the girl, giggling.  "Why, I'm a perfect
+sight.  And, oh!--I couldn't, you know.  I mustn't stop, sir.  I on'y
+come to tell you I was opening the front top winder, and see your funny
+friend, Mr. Pacey, go into Smithson's.  He always do before he comes
+here."
+
+"Keren-Happuch!" came faintly from below.
+
+"Comin', mum," cried the girl, and she dashed out of the studio.
+
+"Poor, patient little drudge!" said Armstrong, half aloud.  "Well
+washed, neatly clothed, spoken to kindly, and not worked to death, what
+a good faithful little lassie she would be for a house.  I wish Cornel
+could see her, and see her with my eyes."
+
+He turned sharply, for there was a step--a heavy step--on the stair, and
+the artist's sad face brightened.
+
+"Good little prophetess too.  Here's old Joe at last.  Where's the
+incense-box?"
+
+He took a tobacco-jar from a cupboard and placed it upon the nearest
+table, just as the door opened and a big, heavy, rough, grey-haired man
+entered, nodded, and, placing his soft felt hat upon his heavy stick,
+dropped into an easy-chair.
+
+"Welcome, little stranger!" cried Armstrong merrily.  "Why tarried the
+wheels of your chariot so long?"
+
+There was no answer, but the visitor fixed his deeply set piercing eyes
+upon his brother artist.
+
+"Was there a smoke somewhere last night, old lad, and the whisky of an
+evil brew?"
+
+"No!" said the visitor shortly.
+
+"Why, Joe, old lad, what's the matter?  Coin run out?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"But there is something, old fellow," said Armstrong.  "Can I help you?"
+And, passing his brush into the hand which held his palette, he grasped
+the other by the shoulder.
+
+"Don't touch me," cried the visitor angrily, and he struck Armstrong's
+hand aside.
+
+There was a pause, and then the latter said gravely--
+
+"Joe, old fellow, I don't want to pry into your affairs, but if I can
+counsel or help you, don't shrink from asking.  Can I do anything?"
+
+"Yes--much."
+
+"Hah! that's better," cried Armstrong, as if relieved.  "What's the good
+of an Orestes, if Pú does not come to him when he is in a hole!  But you
+are upset.  There's no hurry.  Fill your pipe, and give me a few words
+about my confounded picture while you calm down.  Joe, old man, it's
+mythological, and it's going to turn out a myth.  Isn't there a woman in
+London who could sit for my Juno?"
+
+"Damn all women!" cried the visitor, in a deep hoarse tone.
+
+"Well, that's rather too large an order, old fellow.  Come, fill your
+pipe.  Now, let's have it.  What's wrong--landlady?"
+
+The eyes of the man to whom he had been attracted from his first arrival
+in London, the big, large-hearted, unsuccessful artist, who yet
+possessed more ability than any one he knew, and whose advice was
+eagerly sought by a large circle of rising painters, were fixed upon him
+so intently that the colour rose in Armstrong Dale's cheeks, and, in
+spite of his self-control, the younger man looked conscious.
+
+"Then it's all true," said Pacey bitterly.
+
+"What's all true?" cried Dale.
+
+"Armstrong, lad, I passed a bitter night, and I thought I would come
+on."
+
+The young artist was silent, but his brow knit, and there was a
+twitching about the corner of his eyes.
+
+"I sat smoking hard--ounces of strong tobacco; and in the clouds I saw a
+frank, good-looking young fellow, engaged to as sweet and pure a woman
+as ever breathed, coming up to this hell or heaven, London, whichever
+one makes of it, and going wrong.  Ulysses among the Sirens, lad; and
+they sang too sweetly for him--that is, one did.  The temptation was
+terribly strong, and he went under."
+
+Armstrong's brow was dark as night now, and he drew his breath hard.
+
+"Do you know what that meant, Armstrong?  You are silent.  I'll tell
+you.  It meant breaking the heart of a true woman, and the wrecking of a
+man.  He had ability--as a painter--and he could have made a name, but
+as soon as he woke from his mad dream, all was over.  The zest had gone
+out of life.  You know the song, lad--`A kiss too long--and life is
+never the same again.'"
+
+"I made you my friend, Joe Pacey," said Armstrong huskily, "but by what
+right do you dare to come preaching your parables here?"
+
+"Parable, man?  It is the truth.  Eight?  I have a right to tell you
+what wrecked my life--the story of twenty years ago."
+
+"Joe!"
+
+There was a gripping of hands.
+
+"Ah!  That's better.  I tell you because history will repeat itself.
+Armstrong, lad, you have often talked to me of the one who is waiting
+and watching across the seas.  Look at me--the wreck I am.  For God's
+sake--for hers--your own, don't follow in my steps."
+
+Neither spoke for a few minutes, and then with his voice changed--
+
+"I can't humbug, Joe," said Armstrong.  "Of course I understand you.
+You mean about--my commission."
+
+"Yes, and I did warn you, lad.  It is the talk of every set I've been
+into lately.  There is nothing against her, but her position with that
+miserable hound, Dellatoria, is well-known.  He insults her with his
+mistresses time after time.  Her beauty renders her open to scandal, and
+they say what I feared is true."
+
+"What?  Speak out."
+
+"That she is madly taken with our handsome young artist."
+
+"They say that?"
+
+"Yes, and I gave them the lie.  Last night I had it, though more
+definitely.  I was at the Van Hagues--all artistic London goes there,
+and a spiteful, vindictive woman contrived, by hints and innuendoes, as
+she knew I was your friend, to let me know the state of affairs."
+
+"Lady Grayson?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"The Jezebel!"
+
+"And worse, lad.  But, Armstrong, my lad--I have come then too late?"
+
+Pride and resentment kept Dale silent for a few moments, and then he
+said huskily--
+
+"It is false."
+
+"But it is the talk of London, my lad, and it means when it comes to
+Dellatoria's ears--Bah! a miserable organ-grinder by rights--endless
+trouble.  Perhaps a challenge.  Brutes who have no right to name the
+word honour yell most about their own, as they call it."
+
+"It is not true--or--there, I tell you it is not true."
+
+"Not true?"
+
+For answer Armstrong walked to the side of the studio, took a large
+canvas from where it stood face to the wall, and turned it to show the
+Contessa's face half painted.
+
+"Good," said Pacey involuntarily, "but--"
+
+"Don't ask me any more, Joe," said Dale.  "Be satisfied that history is
+not going to repeat itself.  I have declined to go on with the
+commission."
+
+"Armstrong, lad," cried Pacey, springing from his seat, and clapping his
+hands on the young man's shoulders to look him intently in the eyes.
+"Bah!" he literally roared, "and I spoiled my night's rest, and--Here:
+got any whisky, old man?  'Bacco?  Oh, here we are;" and he dragged a
+large black briar-root, well burned, from his breast and began to fill
+it.  Then, taking a common box of matches from his pocket--a box he had
+bought an hour before from a beggar in the street, he threw himself back
+in the big chair, lifted one leg, and gave the match a sharp rub on his
+trousers, lit up, sending forth volumes of cloud, and in an entirely
+different tone of voice, said quite blusteringly--
+
+"Now then, about that goddess canvas; let's have a smell at it.  Hah!
+yes, you want a Juno--a living, breathing divinity, all beauty, scorn,
+passion, hatred.  No, my lad, there are plenty of flesh subjects who
+would do as well as one of Titian's, and you could beat an Etty into
+fits; but there isn't a model in London who could sit for the divine
+face you want.  Your only chance is to evolve it from your mind as you
+paint another head."
+
+"Yes; perhaps you are right," said Dale dreamily.  "Sure I am.  There,
+go in and win, my lad.  You'll do it.--Hah! that's good whisky.--My dear
+old fellow, I might have known.  I ought to have trusted you."
+
+"Don't say any more about it."
+
+"But I must, to ease my mind.  I ought to have known that my young
+Samson would not yield to any Delilah, and be shorn of his manly
+locks.--Yes, that's capital whisky.  I haven't had a drop since
+yesterday afternoon.  A toast: `Confound the wrong woman.'  Hang them,"
+he continued after a long draught, "they're always coming to you with
+rosy apples in their hands or cheeks, and saying, `Have a bite,' You
+don't want to paint portraits.  You can paint angels from clay to bring
+you cash and fame.  Aha, my goddess of beauty and brightness, I salute
+thee, Bella Donna, in Hippocrene!"
+
+"Oh, do adone, Mr. Pacey," said the lady addressed to wit,
+Keren-Happuch.  "I never do know what you mean, I declare,"--(sniff)--"I
+wouldn't come into the studio when you're here if I wasn't obliged.
+Please, Mr. Dale, sir, here's that French Mossoo gentleman.  He says,
+his compliments, and are you too busy to see him?"
+
+"No, Hebe the fair, he is not," cried Pacey.  "Tell him there is a
+symposium on the way, and he is to ascend."
+
+"A which, sir?  Sym--sym--"
+
+"Sym--whisky, Bella Donna."
+
+The girl glanced at Dale, who nodded his head, and she hurried out.  The
+door opened the next minute to admit a slight little man, most carefully
+dressed, and whose keen, refined features, essentially French, were full
+of animation.
+
+"Ah, you smoke, and are at rest," he said.  "Then I am welcome.  Dear
+boys, both of you.  And the picture?"
+
+He stood, cigarette in teeth, gazing at the large canvas for a few
+moments.
+
+"Excellent!  So good!" he cried.  "Ah, Dale, my friend, you would be
+great, but you do so paint backwards."
+
+"Eh?" cried Pacey.
+
+"I mean, my faith, he was much more in advance a month ago.  There was a
+goddess here.  Where is she now?"
+
+"Behind the clouds," said Pacey, forming one of a goodly size; and the
+others helped in a more modest way, as an animated conversation ensued
+upon art, Pacey giving his opinions loudly, and with the decision of a
+judge, while the young Frenchman listened to his criticism, much of it
+being directed at a flower-painting he had in progress.
+
+The debate was at its height, when the little maid again appeared with a
+note in her hand.
+
+"Aha!" cried Pacey, who was in the highest spirits--"maid of honour to
+the duchess--the flower of her sex again.  Hah! how sweet the perfume of
+her presence wafted to my sense of smell."
+
+"Oh, do adone, please, Mr. Pacey, sir.  You're always making game of me.
+I'll tell missus you call her the duchess--see if I don't.  It ain't me
+as smells: it's this here letter, quite strong.  Please, Mr. Dale, sir,
+it was left by that lady in her carriage."
+
+"Keren-Happuch!" came from below stairs as the girl handed Dale the
+note; and his countenance changed as he involuntarily turned his eyes to
+his friend.
+
+"Keren-Happuch!" came again.
+
+"Comin', mum," shouted the girl, thrusting her head for a moment through
+the ajar door, and turning back again.
+
+"Said there wasn't no answer, sir."
+
+"Keren-Happuch!"
+
+"A call from the Duchess of Fitzroy Square," said Pacey merrily.
+
+"No, sir, it was that Hightalian lady, her as is painted there," said
+the girl innocently, and pointing to the canvas leaning against the
+wall, as she ran out.
+
+"Confound her!" roared Pacey, springing to his feet, and turning upon
+his friend, with his eyes flashing beneath his shaggy brows; "is there
+no such thing as truth in this cursed world?"
+
+"What do you mean?" cried Dale hotly, as he crushed the scented note in
+his hand.
+
+"Samson and Delilah," said Pacey, with savage mockery in his tones.
+"Here, Leronde, lad," he continued, taking up his glass, "a toast for
+you--Vive la gallantry.  Bah!"
+
+He lifted the glass high above his head, but did not drink.  He gave
+Armstrong a fierce, contemptuous look, and dashed the glass into the
+grate, where it was shivered to atoms.
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+THE SCENTED NOTE.
+
+Leronde stood for a moment watching his friends excitedly; and then, as
+Pacey moved towards the door, he sprang before it.
+
+"No, no!" he cried; "you two shall not quarrel.  I will not see it.
+You, my two artist friends who took pity on me when I fly--I, a
+communard--for my life from Paris.  You, Pacie, who say I am brother of
+the crayon, and help me to sell to the dealaire; you, Dale, dear friend,
+who say, `Come, ole boy, and here is papaire and tobacco for cigarette,'
+and at times the dinner and the bock of biere, and sometimes wine--you
+shake hands, both of you.  I, Alexis Leronde, say you muss."
+
+"Silence!" roared Pacey.  "Whoever heard of good coming of French
+mediation?"
+
+"Be quiet, Leronde," cried Armstrong firmly.  "Joe, old fellow, let me--
+a word--explain."
+
+"Explain?" growled Pacey, as the young Parisian shrugged his shoulders
+and stood aside to begin rolling up a cigarette with his thin deft
+fingers.
+
+"Stop, Joe!" cried Armstrong, "you shall not go.  The letter is some
+request about the picture--for another artist to finish it.  Here, read
+it, and satisfy yourself."
+
+He tore open the scented missive, glanced at it, and was about to hand
+it over to his friend; but a few words caught his eye, and he crushed
+the paper in his hand, to stand flushed and frowning before his friend.
+
+"All right: I see," said the latter, with a bitter, contemptuous laugh.
+"We're a paltry, weak lot, we men.  Poor little daughter of the stars
+and stripes across the herring-pond!  I'm sorry, for I did think I could
+believe your word."
+
+"Dear boys--ole men!" cried Leronde, advancing once more to play
+mediator.
+
+"Shut up!" roared Pacey, so fiercely that the young Frenchman frowned,
+folded his arms across his chest, and puffed out a cloud of smoke in
+defiance.
+
+"Joe, I swear--"
+
+"Thank you," said Pacey ironically.  "I can do enough of that as I go
+home;" and, swinging open the door, he strode out and went downstairs,
+whistling loudly the last popular music-hall air.
+
+"Aha! he flies," cried Leronde, biting through his cigarette, the
+lighted end falling to the floor, while he ground up the other between
+his teeth.  "I go down.  He insult me--he insult you, my dear friend.  I
+pull his nose on ze door mat, and say damn."
+
+"Be quiet, lad!" cried Armstrong fiercely.  "It is nothing to do with
+you.  It is my affair."
+
+"Yes, I understand, dear ole man," said Leronde, placing his fingers to
+his lips, and nodding his head a great deal, while Armstrong stood
+dreamy and thoughtful, frowning, as if undecided what to do.  "I know I
+am French--man of the whole world, my friend.  I love the big Pacie.  So
+good, so noble, but he is not young and handsome.  The lady, she
+prefaire my other good friend.  What marvel?  And the good Pacie is
+jealous."
+
+"No, no; you do not understand."
+
+"But, yes.  Cherchez la femme!  It is so always.  They make all the
+mischief in the great world, but we love them always the same."
+
+"I tell you that you do not understand," cried Armstrong angrily.
+
+"Well, no; but enough, my friend.  Ah, there is so much in a lettaire
+that is perfumed.  I do not like it; you two are such good friends--my
+best friends; you, the American, he, the big honest Jean Bull.  I do not
+like you to fight, but there, what is it?--a meeting for the honour in
+Hyde Park, a few minutes wiz the small sword, a scratch, and then you
+embrace, and we go to the dejeuner better friends than before.  You are
+silent.  I will make another cigarette."
+
+"I was thinking," said Dale slowly.
+
+"What--you fear to ask me to be your second?  Be of good courage, my
+friend.  I will bear your cartel of defiance, and ask him who is his
+friend."
+
+"Bah!" ejaculated Dale, so roughly that Leronde frowned.  "There, don't
+take any notice of me, old fellow," he cried.  "Sit down and smoke.  You
+will excuse me."
+
+Leronde bowed, and Armstrong hurried into his inner room, where he
+smoothed out the note, and read half aloud and in a disconnected way:--
+
+"_How can you stay away--those long weary weeks--my unhappy state--force
+me to write humbly--appealingly--my wretched thoughts--Lady Grayson--her
+double looks of triumph over me--will not believe it of you--could not
+be so base for such a heartless woman as that--heartbroken--my first and
+only love--won from me my shameless avowal--not shameless--a love as
+true as ever given--for you so good and noble.  In despair--no rest but
+in the grave--forgive your coldness.  Come back to me or I shall die--
+die now when hope, love, and joy are before me.  You must--you shall--I
+pray by all that is true and manly in your nature--or in my mad
+recklessness and despair I shall cast consequences to the winds and come
+to you_."
+
+Dale crushed up the letter once again, and as he stood frowning and
+thoughtful, he struck a match, lit the paper, and held it in his hand
+till it had completely burned out, scorching his hand the while.  Then,
+going to the window, he blew the tinder out and saw it fall.
+
+"The ashes of a dead love," he muttered; and then quickly, "No, it was
+not love.  The mad fancy of the moment.  There, it is all over.  Poor
+woman! if all she says is honest truth, she must fight it down, and
+forgive me if I have been to blame.  Yes; some day I can tell her.  She
+will not forgive me, for there is nothing to forgive.  Poor little
+woman!  Ah, if the one who loves us could see and know all--the life,
+the thoughts of the wisest and best man who ever breathed!  Nature, you
+are a hard mistress.  Well, that is over; but poor old Joe!  He will
+find out the truth, though, and ask my pardon.  Everything comes to the
+man who waits."
+
+He crossed to a desk lying on a table by his bed, opened it, took out a
+photograph, and gazed at it for a few moments before replacing it with a
+sigh.
+
+"You can be at rest, little one.  Surely I am strong enough to keep my
+word."
+
+Then he started and bit his lip, for a hot flush came to his temples as
+the last words in the letter he had burned rose before him: "_cast
+consequences to the winds and come to you_."
+
+He shivered at the idea, as for the moment he saw the beautiful,
+passionate woman standing before him with her pleading eyes and
+outstretched hands.
+
+"No!" he cried aloud, "she would not go to the man who treats her with
+silence and--"
+
+"Did you call me, mon ami?" said a voice at the door.
+
+"No, old fellow; I'm coming," cried Dale; and then to himself, as one
+who has mastered self.  "That is all past and gone--in ashes to the
+winds.  Now for work."
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+IN THE SCALES.
+
+"Nothing like hard work.  I've conquered," said Dale to himself one
+morning, as he sat toiling away at his big picture, whose minor portions
+were standing out definitely round the principal figure, which had been
+painted in again and again, but always to be cleaned off in disgust, and
+was now merely sketched in charcoal.
+
+He was waiting patiently for the model who was to attend to stand for
+that figure--the figure only--for Pacey's idea had taken hold, and,
+though he could not dwell upon it without a nervous feeling of dread,
+and asking himself whether it was not dangerous ground to take, he had
+determined, as he thought, to prove his strength, to endeavour to
+idealise the Contessa's features for his Juno.  It was the very
+countenance he wished to produce, and if he could have caught her
+expression and fixed it upon canvas that day when the Conte entered, so
+evidently by preconcerted arrangement with Lady Grayson, the picture
+would have been perfect.
+
+"It need not be like her," he argued; "it is the expression I want."
+
+He knew that in very few hours he could produce that face with its
+scornful eyes, but he always put it off.
+
+After a time, when the trouble there was not so fresh, it would be more
+easy--"and the power to paint it as I saw it then have grown faint," he
+added in despair, with the consequence that between the desire to paint
+a masterpiece, and the temptation to which he had been exposed, the face
+of Lady Dellatoria was always before him, sleeping and waking; though
+had he made a strong effort to cast out the recollection of those
+passionate, yearning eyes, the letters he received from time to time
+would have kept the memory fresh.
+
+"At last!" he cried that morning, as steps were heard upon the stairs.
+"But she has not a light foot.  I remember, though: they told me that
+she was a fine, majestic-looking woman."
+
+There was a tap at the door.
+
+"Come in."
+
+Jupiter himself, in the person of Daniel Jaggs, thrust in his noble
+head.
+
+"All right, Emperor, come in," said Dale, going on painting, giving
+touches to the background of his Olympian scene, with its group of
+glowing beauties, who were to be surpassed by the majesty of the
+principal figure still to come.  "What is it?  Don't want you to-day."
+
+"No, sir.  I knowed it was a lady day, but I've come with a message from
+one."
+
+"Not from Lady--"
+
+He ceased speaking, and his heart beat heavily.  Jaggs had been to and
+from Portland Place with the canvas.  Had she made him her messenger?
+
+"Yes, sir; from Lady Somers Town."
+
+"What?" cried Dale, with a sigh of relief, though, to his agony, he felt
+that he longed to hear from the Contessa again.
+
+"Lady Somers Town, sir; that's what Mr. Pacey used to call her.  Miss
+Vere Montesquieu of the Kaiserinn."
+
+"Miss Vere Montesquieu!" said Dale contemptuously.
+
+"Well, that's what she calls herself, sir.  Did you say what was her
+real name, sir?"
+
+"No, I didn't, but I thought it.  Oh, by the way, Jaggs, I must have
+another sitting or two from you.  We haven't quite caught the expression
+of Jupiter's lips."
+
+"No, sir, we haven't, sir," said the model, looking at the canvas
+wistfully.  "I know azactly what you want, but it's so hard to put it
+on."
+
+"It is, Jaggs."
+
+"You want him to be looking as he would if he was afraid of his missus,
+and she'd just found him out at one of his games."
+
+"That's it."
+
+"Well, sir, I'll try again.  Perhaps I can manage it next time.  I was a
+bit on the other night, and I did get it pretty warm when I went home.
+I'll try and feel like I did then, next time I'm a settin'."
+
+"Yes, do," said Dale, who kept on with his work.  "Ah, that's better.
+Well, you were going to say something.  Is anything wrong?"
+
+"Well, sir, I'm only a poor model, and it ain't for me to presoom."
+
+"Lookers-on see most of the game, Jaggs.  What is it?"
+
+"Well, sir, I was looking at Jupiter's corpus."
+
+"Eh?  See something out of drawing?"
+
+"No, sir; your nattomy's all right, of course.  Never see it wrong.
+You're splendid on 'ticulation, muskle, and flesh.  But that's Sam
+Spraggs as sat for the body, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes; I've fitted it to your head."
+
+"Well, sir, not to presoom, do you feel sure as it wouldn't be more
+god-like, more Jupitery as you may say, if you let me set, painted that
+out, and give the head the proper body.  Be more nat'ral like, wouldn't
+it?"
+
+"No.  What's the matter with that?--the composition of a more muscular
+man with your head is, I think, excellent."
+
+"But it ain't nat'ral like, sir.  You see, Sam's too fat."
+
+"Oh no, Jaggs.  He only looks as if Hebe and Ganymede had poured him out
+good potions of a prime vintage, and as if the honey of Hybla often
+melted in his mouth."
+
+"Well, sir, you knows best.  Maria Budd says--"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Miss Montesquieu, sir.  She's old Budd's--the Somers Town
+greengrocer's--gal."
+
+"Humph!  Idiot!  Well, what message has she sent?  Not coming again?"
+
+"No, sir.  She's very sorry, sir; but she's got an engagement to early
+dinner at Brighton to-day, and won't only be back in time to take her
+place in the chorus to-night."
+
+"Confound the woman!  I shall never get the figure done.  Do you know of
+any one else, Jaggs?"
+
+"No, sir; and I'm afraid that you won't after all be satisfied with
+her."
+
+"All, well, you needn't wait.  Seen Mr. Pacey lately?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  Looks very ill, he do.  Good morning, sir."
+
+"Good morning."
+
+"Beg pardon, sir; but my missus--"
+
+"There, there, I don't want to hear a long string of your inventions,
+Jaggs.  How much do you want?"
+
+"Oh, thankye, sir.  If you could manage to let me have five shillings on
+account.--Thankye, sir.  You are a gentleman."
+
+"The Emperor" departed, winking to himself as if he had something on his
+mind; and Dale threw down brushes and palette, sat back with his hands
+clasped behind his head, gazing at the blank place in his great canvas,
+till by slow degrees it was filled, and in all her majestic angry beauty
+Juno stood there, with her attendants shrinking and looking on, while
+she seemed to be flashing at her lord lightnings more terrible than
+those he held in his hand.
+
+The face, the wondrous figure, in all its glow of mature womanhood, were
+there; and then the eyes seemed to turn upon Dale a look of love and
+appeal to him to think upon her piteous state, vowed to love and honour
+such a man as that.
+
+Armstrong shuddered and wrenched his eyes away, wondering at the power
+of his vivid imagination, which had conjured up before him the Contessa
+in all the pride of her womanly beauty; and strive how he might to think
+of her only in connection with his picture, as he felt that he could
+produce her exactly there, and make the group a triumph of his work, he
+knew that his thoughts were of another cast, and that, in spite of all,
+this woman had inspired him with a passion that enthralled his very
+soul.
+
+He started up, for the maid entered with a letter, and he fancied that
+she seemed to read his thoughts, as he took it and threw it carelessly
+on the table.
+
+He did not look at the address.  There was the Conte's florid crest,
+face upward, and it lay there ready to be burned as soon as he left his
+seat, for the matches were over the fireless grate.
+
+Keren-Happuch had reached the door.
+
+"'Tain't scented up like some on 'em," she said to herself; and then she
+turned to look wistfully at the artist, whose eyes were fixed upon
+vacancy, for he was reading the letter in imagination.  He knew every
+word of sorrowful reproach it would contain, for the letters were little
+varied.  She would tell him of her solitary state, beg him to reconsider
+his decision, and ask him whether, in spite of the world and its laws,
+it was not a man's duty to take compassion upon the woman who loved him
+with all her heart.  Yes: he could read it all.
+
+"Must get away," he said to himself.  "Why not go back home, and seek
+for safety behind the armour of her innocency?  My poor darling, I want
+to be true to you, but I am sorely tempted now.  It cannot be love; only
+a vile, degrading passion from which I must flee, for I am--Heaven
+knows, how weak."
+
+"Ain't yer well, sir?" said Keren-Happuch, in commiserating tones.
+
+He started, not knowing that the girl was there.
+
+"Well?  Oh yes, Miranda, quite well."
+
+"No, you ain't, sir, I know; and it ain't because you smokes too much,
+nor comes home all tipsy like some artisses does, for I never let you in
+when you wasn't just what you are now, the nicest gent we ever had
+here."
+
+"Why, you wicked little flatterer, what does this mean?" cried Dale
+merrily.
+
+"No, sir, and that won't do," said the girl.  "I'm little, but I'm
+precious old, and I've seen and knows a deal.  You ain't well, sir!"
+
+"Nonsense, girl!  I'm quite well.  There, run away."
+
+"No, sir, there ain't no need; she's out.  There's no one at home but me
+and puss.  I can talk to you to-day without her knowing and shouting
+after me.  She 'ates me talking to the lodgers.--I knows you ain't
+well."
+
+"What rubbish, my girl!  I'm well enough."
+
+"Oh no; you ain't, sir.  I don't mean poorly, and wants physic, but ill
+with wherritin', same as I feels sometimes when I gets it extry from
+missus.  I know what's the matter; you've got what Mr. Branton had when
+he spent six months over his 'cademy picture as was lovely, and they
+sent it back.  He said it was the blues.  That's what you've got,
+because you can't get on with yours, which is too lovely to be sent
+back.  I know what a bother you've had to get a model for the middle
+there, and it worries you."
+
+"Well, yes, Miranda, my girl, I'll confess it does."
+
+"I knowed it," she cried, clapping her hands; "and just because you're
+bothered, none of the gents don't seem to come and see you now.  Mr.
+Leerondee ain't been, and Mr. Pacey don't seem to come anigh you.
+Sometimes I feel glad, because he teases me so, and allus says things I
+don't understand.  But I don't mind: I wish he'd come now and cheer you
+up."
+
+"Oh, I shall be all right, Mirandy, my little lassie, as soon--"
+
+"Yes, that you will, sir, because you must get it done, you know.  It is
+lovely."
+
+"Think so?" said Dale, who felt amused by the poor, thin, smutty little
+object's interest in his welfare.
+
+"Think so!  Oh, there ain't no thinking about it.  I heard Mr. Pacey
+tell Mr. Leerondee that it was the best thing he ever see o' yours.  I
+do want you to get it done, sir.  It seems such a pity for that big bit
+in the middle not to be painted."
+
+"Yes, girl; but it must wait."
+
+"Mr. Dale, sir, you won't think anything, will you?"
+
+"Eh?  What about?"
+
+"'Cause of what I'm going to say, sir," she said bashfully.  "I do want
+you to get that picture well hung, sir, and make your fortune, and get
+to be a RúA."
+
+"Thank you.  What were you going to say?"
+
+"Only, sir, as I wouldn't for any one else; no, not if it was for the
+Prince o' Wales, or the Dook o' Edinburgh hisself, but I would for you."
+
+"I don't understand you," said Dale, wondering at the girl's manner.
+
+"I meant, sir, as sooner--sooner--than you shouldn't get that picture
+done and painted proper, I'd come and stand for that there figure
+myself."  Dale wanted to burst out laughing at the idea of the poor,
+ill-nurtured, grubby little creature becoming his model for the mature,
+graceful Juno; but there was so much genuine desire to help him, so much
+naive innocency in the poor little drudge's words, that he contained
+himself, and before he could think of how to refuse without hurting her
+feelings, there was a resonant double knock and ring at the front door.
+
+"Why, if it ain't the postman again," cried the girl.  "He was here just
+now.  I know: it's one o' them mail letters, as they calls 'em, from
+foreign abroad."
+
+Keren-Happuch was right, for she came panting up directly with a thin
+paper envelope in her hand, branded "Boston, UúSúA."
+
+"For you, sir," she said; and she looked at him wistfully, as in an
+emotional way he snatched the letter from her hand and pressed it to his
+lips.
+
+"Salvation!" he muttered, as he turned away to go to the inner room.
+"God bless you, darling!  You are with me once again.  I never wanted
+you worse."
+
+"It's from his sweetheart over acrost the seas," said Keren-Happuch, as
+she spread her dirty apron on the balustrade, so as not to soil the
+mahogany with her hand as she leaned upon it to go down, sadly.  "And
+he's in love, too; that's what's the matter with him.  Puss, puss,
+puss!"
+
+There was a soft mew, and a dirty-white cat trotted up to meet her, and
+leaped up to climb to her thin shoulders, and then rub its head
+affectionately against her head, to the disarrangement of her dirty cap.
+
+"Ah! don't stick your claws through my thin clothes.--Yes," she mused,
+"he's in love.  Wonder what people feel like who are in love, and
+whether anybody 'll ever love me.  Don't suppose any one ever will: I'm
+such a poor-looking sort o' thing.  But it don't matter.  You like me,
+don't you, puss?  And them as is in love don't seem to be very happy
+after all."
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+THE MODEL.
+
+Armstrong Dale did not hear the door close.  Picture--the Contessa--
+everything was forgotten, and for the time he was back in Boston.  For
+he had thrown himself into a chair, and torn open the envelope.  But he
+could not rest like that.  He wanted room, and he came back to begin
+striding about his studio, reading as he walked.
+
+But it did not seem to him like reading, for the words he scanned took
+life and light and tone as he grasped the pure, sweet, trusting words of
+the writer, breathing her intense love for the man to whom she had
+plighted her troth.  And as in imagination he listened to the sweet
+breathings of her affection, and revelled in her homely prattle about
+those he knew, and her hopeful talk of the future, when he would have
+grown famous and returned home to the honours which would be showered
+upon him by his people--to the welcome for him in that one true
+throbbing heart, his own throbbed, too, heavily, and his eyes grew moist
+and dim.
+
+"God bless you, darling!" he cried passionately; "you have saved me when
+I was tottering on the brink and ready to fall.  The touch of your dear
+hand has drawn me back when all was over, as I thought.  I will keep
+faith with you, Cornel.  Forgive me, love!  Heaven help me; how could I
+be so mad!"
+
+There was a brightness directly after in his eyes, as he carefully
+bestowed the letter in his pocket-book and placed it in his breast.
+
+"And they say the day of miracles is past, and that there is no magic in
+the world," he cried proudly.  "Poor fools! they don't know.  Lie there,
+little talisman.  You are only a scrap of paper stained with ink, but
+you are a charm of the strongest magic.  Bah!  It was all a passing
+madness, and I have won.  What a silly, weak, morbid state I was in," he
+continued, as he stood in front of his picture, and snatched up palette
+and brushes.  "Why, Cornel darling, you have burned up all the clouds
+with the bright sun of your dear love.  And I can finish you now, my
+good old daub.  Jupiter can easily have that hang-dog, cowardly,
+found-out look imported into his phiz.  I feel as if I can see, and do
+it now.  The nymphs are as good as anything I have done.  I don't always
+satisfy myself, but that background is jolly.  I've got so much light
+and sunshine into it, such a dreamy, golden atmosphere effect, that it
+brightens the whole thing, and what a nuisance it is that old Turner
+ever lived!  If he had never been born, my background would have been
+grand.  As it is--well, it's only an imitation.  No, no; come, old
+fellow: say, a good bit of work by an honest student of old Turner's
+style.  Yes," he continued, drawing back, "I think it will do.  Even
+dear old Joe praised that; he said it wasn't so bad.  Poor old chap!  I
+wish we were friends again.  And as for my Juno, I think I can manage
+her.  Montesquieu shall come--esquieu--askew--no, not askew; I'll get
+her into a noble, dignified position somehow.  I hope she has a good
+figure.  While her face--why, Cornel, my darling, it shall be yours."
+
+He paused to stand thoughtfully before the great canvas, drawn out upon
+its easel into the best light cast down from the sky panes above, and
+let his mahlstick rest upon the picture just above the blank,
+paint-stained portion left for the principal figure.
+
+"Queer way of working," he said with a laugh, "finishing the
+surroundings before putting in the mainspring of my theme.  That's
+hardly fair, though, for I painted my Juno first--ah! how many times,
+and rubbed her out.  Never mind; she must come strong now to stand out
+well in front of these figures.  She must--she shall."
+
+He stood there motionless for a few minutes; and then, quite eagerly--
+
+"Why not?" he said.  "Too soft, sweet, and gentle-looking?  Cornel,
+darling, it shall be an expiation of a fault, and some day in the future
+you shall stand before it and gaze in your own true face as I have
+painted you--made grand, crushing, majestic, full of scorn and contempt,
+as it would have been, had you stood face to face with me, awaking to
+the fact that I was utterly lost, unworthy of your love.  I can--I
+will--paint that face, and that day, darling, when you turn to me with
+those questioning eyes, and tell me you could not have looked like this,
+you shall know the truth."
+
+The inspiration was there, and with wonderful skill and rapidity he
+began to sketch in the face glowing before him in his imagination.  No
+model could have given him the power to paint in so swiftly those
+lineaments, which began to live upon the canvas as the hours went on.
+For he was lost to everything but the task before him, and he grew
+flushed and excited as the noble frowning brow threatened, and then by a
+few deft touches those wonderful liquid eyes began to blaze with
+passionate scorn.  The ruddy, beautifully curved lips were parted,
+revealing the glistening teeth; and at last, how long after he could not
+tell, he shrank away from the great canvas, to gaze at the features he
+had limned, trembling, awe-stricken, knowing that his work was masterly,
+but asking himself whether the painting was his, or some occult
+spiritual deed of which he had been the mere animal mechanism, worked by
+the powers of evil to blast him for ever.
+
+His lips were parched, his tongue and throat felt dry with the fever
+which burned within him, as he stood trying to gather the courage to
+seize a cloth and wipe out the face that gazed at him and made him
+shrink in his despair.
+
+He dragged his eyes from the canvas, and looked wildly round the great
+studio, where all was silent as the grave.  The bright light had passed
+away; and he knew that it must be about sunset, for all was cold and
+grey, save the shadows in the corners of the room, and they were black.
+Everything was growing dim and misty, save the face upon his canvas, and
+that stood out with its scornful, fierce anger, though, through it all,
+so wonderful had been the inspiration beneath whose influence he had
+worked, there was an intense look of passionate love and forgiveness;
+the eyes, while scornfully condemning and upbraiding, seemed to say, "I
+love you still, for you are and always will be mine."
+
+"Cornel!" he groaned.  "Heaven help me! and I have fought so hard.  Ah!"
+he cried, with a sigh of relief, for there were hurried footsteps on the
+stairs, and the fancied dimness of the studio seemed to pass away as
+little, meagre Keren-Happuch gave one sharp tap on the door, and then
+ran in, to stop short, looking wonderingly at the artist's ghastly,
+troubled face.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Dale, sir, you do work too hard," she cried reproachfully.
+Then, in an eager whisper, "It's all right, sir.  The model's come.  I
+told her she was too late for to-day, but she said she'd see you all the
+same."
+
+"Where is she?" said Armstrong, in a voice which startled him.
+
+"In the 'all, sir.  I made her wait while I come to know if you'd see
+her.  She's got on a thick wail, but sech a figger, sir.  She'll do."
+
+"Send her up," said Dale, "but tell her I cannot be trifled with like
+this."
+
+"Yes, sir.  I'll tell her you're in a horful rage 'cause she didn't come
+this morning."
+
+Dale hardly heard the words, but turned away as the girl left the room,
+to stand gazing at the face which had so magically sprung from the end
+of his brush; and he still stood gazing dreamily at the canvas when the
+door was once more opened, there was the rustling of a dress, and
+Keren-Happuch's voice was heard, saying snappishly--
+
+"There's Mr. Dale."
+
+Then the door was shut, and muttering, "Stuck-up, orty minx," the girl
+went down to her own region.
+
+Dale did not stir, but still stood gazing at the canvas, fascinated by
+his work.  But his lips moved, and he spoke half-angrily, but in a weary
+voice.
+
+"I had given you up, Miss Montesquieu.  I want you for this figure, but
+if you cannot keep faith with me--yes," he said, as his visitor stepped
+toward him, drawing off her veil--"for this."
+
+He turned sharply then, as if influenced in some unaccountable way, and
+started back in horror and despair.
+
+"Valentina!"
+
+"Armstrong!" came in a low, passionate moan, as she flung herself upon
+his breast--"at last, at last!"
+
+The palette and brushes dropped from his hands--he was but man--and she
+uttered a low sigh of content as his arms closed round her soft yielding
+form, and his lips joined hers in a long, passionate, clinging kiss.
+
+Then reason mastered once more, and he thrust her from him.
+
+"No, no," he gasped; "for God's sake, go!  Why have you come?"
+
+"A cold welcome," she said, smiling.  "I come to beg that you will grant
+his prayer."
+
+"I do not understand you."
+
+"My husband wrote begging you to reconsider your determination, and come
+to finish my portrait."
+
+"Impossible!  He did not write."
+
+She pointed to the unopened letter lying upon a table, with the florid
+crest plainly showing.
+
+"I had not opened it," he said.  "I thought--"
+
+"That it was from me.  How cruel men can be!  He asks you to come back."
+
+"At your persuasion?" cried Dale fiercely.
+
+"Yes, at my persuasion, and you will come.  You must--you shall."  She
+clung closer to him.  "Armstrong," she whispered, "I cannot live without
+you.  You have drawn me to you; I could bear it no longer;" and she held
+to him once more in spite of his repellent hands.
+
+"It is madness--your husband--your--your title--your fair fame as a
+woman."
+
+"Empty words to me now," she said in a low, thrilling whisper.  "I could
+not stay.  You are my world--everything to me now."
+
+"Woman, I tell you again, this is madness--your husband?"
+
+"With Lady Grayson, I believe.  What does it matter?  I am here--with
+you.  Armstrong, am I to go on my knees to you?  I will--you have
+humbled me so.  Why are you so cruel, when you love me too?"
+
+"I--love you--no!"
+
+She laughed softly as, in spite of his shrinking, her arms enfolded him
+once more, and her words came in a low sweet murmur to his ear.
+
+"Yes; you love me--as wildly and passionately as I love you.  I knew
+it--I could feel it, though you would not answer my appeals.  Look," she
+whispered, "it is as I felt; you are always thinking of me.  I am ever
+in your thoughts.  But am I as beautiful as that?  Yes: to you.  But
+look from the picture to my eyes.  They could not gaze so fiercely and
+scornfully as that.  Now, tell me that you do not love me, and I was not
+in your thoughts."
+
+She pointed to the features, glowing--almost speaking, from the canvas--
+her faithful portrait, full of the angry majesty he had sought to
+convey.
+
+Alas! poor Cornel.  Not a lineament was hers.
+
+Armstrong groaned.
+
+"Heaven help me!" he muttered.  "Is it fate?"
+
+His hands repulsed her no longer, and he stood holding her at arm's
+length, gazing into the eyes which fascinated, lost to everything but
+her influence over him, till with a hasty gesture, full of anger, she
+shrank away and sought her veil from the floor.
+
+"Some one!" she whispered fiercely, for there was a step upon the stair.
+
+"The Conte," cried Dale, startled at the interruption.
+
+"Hide me, quick!  That room," cried the Contessa; and she took a step
+toward it as she veiled her face.  "No," she cried, turning proudly, and
+resisting an inclination to step behind the great canvas close to which
+she stood, "Let him see me.  His faithlessness has divorced us, and
+given me to the man I love.  You will protect me.  Kill him if you wish.
+I am not afraid."
+
+This in a hasty whisper as the steps came nearer, and Valentina's eyes
+glistened through her veil as she saw the artist draw himself up, and
+take a step forward to meet the intruder.
+
+"Better that it should be so at once," she whispered.  "Let him come."
+
+The door was thrown quickly open as she spoke.
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY.
+
+Armstrong's teeth and hands were clenched for the encounter with the
+angry husband who had tracked his wife to the studio, and he was ready
+to accept his fate, for he told himself that he could fight no more
+against his destiny.  The woman had told him that he would defend her,
+and he must--he would.
+
+There was no feeling of dread, then, in his breast as he advanced to the
+encounter, but only to stop speechless with amazement as Pacey entered
+in his abrupt, noisy manner, to grasp his hand and clap him on the
+shoulder.
+
+"Armstrong, old man," he cried loudly, "I could not stand it any longer.
+You and I must be friends.  I believe you told me the truth, lad, I do
+from my soul.  La Bella Donna told me Miss Montesquieu was here, but I
+thought that wouldn't matter, as she wouldn't be sitting at this time."
+
+Dale could not speak: he was paralysed.
+
+"Don't hold off, old lad," said Pacey, in a low tone.  "We must make it
+up.  Any apology when she's gone."
+
+He turned sharply to where the Contessa stood, closely veiled, and
+nodded to her familiarly.
+
+"Glad you and Mr. Dale have come to terms.  Many engagements on the
+way?"
+
+There was no reply, but the tall proud figure seemed to stiffen, and
+there was a flash of the eyes through the veil at Armstrong, who now
+recovered his voice, while his heart sank low within him.
+
+"Go now," he said, "at once."
+
+"Oh, Montesquieu won't mind my being here.  But do you really--"
+
+Pacey stopped speaking, as he realised for the first time that it was
+not the model he had heard was sitting to his friend.  He stared at her
+hard, as if puzzled, then at the canvas, where the beautiful sketch
+gazed at him fiercely, and he grasped in his own mind the situation.
+
+The paint was wet and glistening: this was the model who had been
+sitting for the face, and it could be none other than the Contessa.
+
+A change came over him on the instant.  His brows knit, the free, noisy
+manner was gone, and he took off his hat, to say with quiet dignity, as
+he bent his head, but in a voice husky with the pain he felt--
+
+"I beg Lady Dellatoria's pardon for my rudeness.  I was mistaken," and
+he turned to go.
+
+"Stay, sir," she cried, in her low, deep, and musical tones; "my visit
+to your friend is over.  Mr. Dale, will you see me to my carriage?  It
+is waiting."
+
+Valentina held out her hand, and, pale now with emotion, Armstrong
+advanced to the door, which he opened, and then offered his arm.  This
+she took, and he led her down to the hall in silence.
+
+"Your imprudence has ruined you," he said then, bitterly, "and disgraced
+me in the eyes of my friend."
+
+"No," she said softly.  "You can trust that man.  He would die sooner
+than injure a woman because she loves.  Now I am at rest.  You will come
+to me, for I have won.  You see," she continued, as Armstrong
+mechanically opened the door, and she stepped out proudly on to the
+steps, "I have no fear.  Let the world talk as it will."
+
+A handsomely appointed carriage drew up, and the footman sprang down to
+open the door, while Dale, who moved as if he were in a dream, handed
+her in, she touching his arm lightly, and sinking back upon the
+cushions.
+
+"I shall expect you to-morrow then, Mr. Dale," she said aloud, "at the
+usual time."  Then to the servant, "Home."
+
+Armstrong stood at the edge of the pavement, bareheaded, till the
+carriage turned the corner out of the square; and then, still as if in a
+dream, he walked in, closed the door, and ascended to the studio to face
+his friend.
+
+Pacey was standing with his hands behind him, gazing at the face upon
+the canvas.  He did not stir when Dale took a couple of steps forward
+into the great, gloomy, darkening room, waiting for an angry outburst of
+reproaches.
+
+A full minute must have elapsed before a single word was uttered, and
+then Pacey said slowly, and in the voice of one deeply moved--
+
+"Is she as beautiful as this?"
+
+Dale started, and looked wonderingly at his friend.
+
+"I say, is she as beautiful as this?" repeated Pacey, still without
+turning his head.
+
+"Yes: I have hardly done her justice."
+
+"A woman to win empires--to bring the world to her feet," said Pacey
+slowly.  "`Beautiful as an angel' is a blunder, lad.  Such as she cannot
+be of Heaven's mould, but sent to drag men down to perdition.
+Armstrong, lad, I pity you.  I suppose there are men who would come
+scathless through such a trial as this, but they must be few."
+
+There was another long pause, and Pacey still gazed at the luminous face
+upon the canvas.
+
+"Is that all you have to say?" said Dale at last.
+
+"Yes, that is all, man.  How can I attack you now?  I knew that you had
+been tempted, and, in spite of appearances, I believed your word.  I
+thought you had not fallen, and that I had been too hasty in all I said.
+Now I can only say once more, I pity you, and feel that I must
+forgive."
+
+Dale drew a deep breath, which came sighing through his teeth as if he
+were in pain.
+
+"Let's talk Art now, boy," said Pacey, taking out his pipe, and, going
+to the tall mantelpiece, he took down the tobacco-jar, filled the bowl,
+lit up, and began to smoke with feverish haste, as he threw one leg over
+a chair, resting his hands upon the back, and gazing frowningly at the
+face, while Dale stood near him with folded arms.
+
+"From the earliest days men gained their inspiration in painting and
+sculpture from that which moved them to the core," said Pacey, slowly
+and didactically.  "Yes, I believe in inspiration, lad.  We can go on
+working, and studying, and painting, as you Yankees say, `our level
+best', but something more is needed to produce a face like that."
+
+He was silent again, and sat as if fascinated by the work before him.
+
+"What am I to say to you, lad?" he continued at last.  "It is like
+sacrificing everything--honour, manhood, all a man should hold dear, to
+his art; but as a brother artist, what am I to say?  I am dumb as a man,
+for I have seen her here and felt her presence.  There was no need for
+me to look upon her face.  It is beautiful indeed.  I say that as the
+man.  As the artist who has done so little for myself--"
+
+"So much for others," said Dale quickly.
+
+"Well, you fellows all believe in me and the hints I give, and some of
+you have made your mark pretty deep.  Yes, as the man who has studied
+art these five and twenty years, I say this is wonderful.  It did not
+take you long?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Of course not.  There is life and passion in every touch.  You must
+finish that, my lad, and we will keep it quiet.  No one must see that
+but us till you send it in.  Armstrong, boy, you are one of the great
+ones of earth.  I knew that you had a deal in you, but this is all a
+master's touch."
+
+"You think it is so good, then?" said Dale sadly.  "Think it good?  You
+know how good it is.  Better, perhaps, than you will ever paint again;
+but would to God, my lad, that you had not sunk so low to rise so high."
+
+Dale sank into a chair, and let his face fall forward upon his hands,
+while Pacey went on slowly, still gazing at the canvas.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it wanted that.  All the rest is excellent.  That bit
+of imitation of Turner comes out well.  The man wants more feeling in
+the face--a little more of the unmasked--but this dwarfs all the rest,
+as it should.  Armstrong, lad, it is the picture of the year.  There,"
+he continued, "my pipe's out, and I think I'll go.  But be careful, lad.
+Don't touch that face more than you can help, and only when she is
+here."
+
+Dale laughed bitterly.
+
+"Why do you laugh?  Is it such bad advice?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+And he partly told his friend how the work was done--leaving out all
+allusion to Cornel--Pacey hearing him quietly to the end.
+
+"I am not surprised," he said at last.  "What you say only endorses my
+ideas.  Good-bye, lad; I'll go."
+
+He rose from the chair, tapped the ashes out of his pipe, looking at
+them thoughtfully, and picked up his hat from where he had cast it upon
+the dusty floor.  He then turned to face Dale, holding out his hand, but
+the artist did not see it, and sat buried in thought.
+
+"Good-bye, old lad," said Pacey again.
+
+Dale sprang to his feet, saw the outstretched hand, and drew back,
+shaking his head.
+
+"Shake hands," said Pacey again, more loudly.
+
+"No," said Dale bitterly; "you cannot think of me as of old."
+
+"No; but more warmly perhaps, for there is pity mingled with the old
+friendship that I felt.  I came here this afternoon, as schoolboys say,
+to make it up.  I was in ignorance then; now I have eaten of the bitter
+fruit and know.  Armstrong, lad, knowing all this, and as one who, with
+all his reckless Bohemianism and worldliness, has kept up one little
+habit taught by her long dead, how can I say `forgive me my trespasses'
+to-night if, with such a temptation as yours, I can't forgive?"
+
+Dale gazed at him wildly, and Pacey went on.
+
+"The bond between us two is stronger now, lad, so strong that I think it
+would take death to snap the cord.  Good-bye.  If you do not see me
+soon, it is not that we are no longer friends."
+
+Then their hands joined in a firm grip, and Pacey slowly left the room,
+muttering to himself as he passed out into the square--
+
+"Fallen so low, to rise so high.  Yes, I must save him, and there is
+only one way in which it can be done."
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+JAGGS MAKES A DISCOVERY.
+
+Letter after letter, which had remained unanswered.
+
+"Their scent sickens me," Dale cried passionately, as he committed them
+to the flames unread, for he frankly owned to himself that he dare not
+read one, lest he should falter in the resolution he had made.
+
+For he had struggled hard to fight against his fate, and though tied and
+tangled by the threads which still clung to him, he had mockingly told
+himself that he was not mad enough to venture into the spider's web
+again.
+
+Then, twice over, he had hastily drawn a curtain in front of his great
+picture upon Keren-Happuch coming up to the studio to bring in a card--
+the Conte's--and bit his lip with rage and mortification as that
+gentleman was shown up, in company with Lady Grayson.
+
+The visit on the first occasion was to complain about Dale's curt
+refusal to go on with the picture; while the young artist haltingly gave
+as his reason that it was impossible for him to complete Lady
+Dellatoria's portrait on account of a large work that he was compelled
+to finish.  And all the while Lady Grayson, with the reckless effrontery
+of her nature, looked at him mockingly, her eyes laughingly telling him
+that he was a poor weak coward, and that she could read him through and
+through.
+
+Then came the second visit with the wretched Italian, blindly, or
+knowingly, to use him as a screen for his own amours, almost imploring
+him to come.
+
+"Lady Dellatoria is so disappointed," he said volubly.  "She takes the
+matter quite to heart.  No doubt, Mr. Dale, there is a little vanity in
+the matter--the desire to be seen in the exhibition, painted by the
+famous young American artist."
+
+"There are plenty of men, sir, who would gladly undertake the
+commission," said Dale angrily.  "I beg that you will not ask me again."
+
+"Mr. Dale, you are cruel," cried Lady Grayson.  "Our poor Contessa will
+be desolate.  Let me plead for you to come and finish the work."
+
+"Aha! yes," cried the Conte, wrinkling up his face, though it was full
+enough before of premature lines.  "A lady pleads.  You cannot refuse
+her."
+
+Dale gave the woman a look so full of contempt and disgust that she
+coloured and then turned away, shrugging her shoulders.
+
+"He is immovable," she said to the Conte.
+
+"No, no!  Body of Bacchus!  I understand;" and he placed his finger to
+his lips, and half closing his eyes, signed to Dale to step aside with
+him.  "Mr. Dale," he whispered, "Lady Dellatoria has set her mind upon
+this, and I see now: a much more highly paid commission that you wish to
+do for some one.  That shall not stand in the way.  Come, I double the
+amount for which we--what do you name it?  Ah, yes--bargained."
+
+Dale turned upon him fiercely.
+
+"No, sir!" he cried; "it is not a question of money.  No sum would
+induce me to finish that portrait."
+
+"Ah, well: we shall see," said the Conte.  "Do not be angry, my young
+friend.  Lady Dellatoria will be eaten by chagrin.  But we will discuss
+the matter no more to-day.  Good morning."
+
+He held out his hand to Lady Grayson, but she did not take it.  She
+moved toward Dale, and held out her gloved fingers.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Dale," she said merrily.  "You great men in oil are
+less approachable than a Prime Minister."  Then in a low tone: "It is
+not true, all this show of opposition.  I am not blind."
+
+She turned and gave her hand to the Conte, and they left the studio,
+Armstrong making no effort to show them out, but standing motionless
+till he heard the door close, when, with a gesture of contempt and
+disgust, he threw open the windows and lit his pipe.
+
+A minute later he had thrown the pipe aside and taken out Cornel's
+letter to read; but the words swam before his eyes, and he could only
+see the face hidden behind that curtain.
+
+"Poor little talisman!" he said, sadly apostrophising the letter, "you
+have lost your power.  Evil is stronger than good, after all."
+
+"Good-bye, little one," he continued, "for ever.  You would forgive me
+if you knew all, for I am drifting--drifting, and my strength has gone."
+
+Two days passed--a week, and hour by hour he had waited, fully expecting
+that Valentina would come.  He shrank from the meeting, but felt that it
+must be, for her influence seemed to be over him sleeping or waking, her
+eyes always gazing into his.
+
+But she did not come.  Only another note, and this he read in its
+brevity, for it contained but these words--
+
+"You will drive me to my death."
+
+"Or me to mine," he muttered, as he burned the letter; and then, in a
+raging desire to crush down the thoughts which troubled him, he turned
+to his work.
+
+"Never!" he cried fiercely.  "I will not go.  If she comes here--well,
+if she does.  That mockery of a man will track her some day, and then,
+in spite of English law, there will be a meeting, and he will kill me.
+I hope so.  Then there would be rest."
+
+The picture which he had now stubbornly set himself to finish, as if he
+were urged by some unseen power, progressed but slowly.  "The Emperor"
+came to sit, and tried to mould his features into the desired aspect
+with more or less success; but, in spite of inquiries, and interview
+after interview with different models recommended by brother artists as
+suitable to stand for the figure, Dale's taste was too fastidious to be
+satisfied, and Juno's face alone looked scornfully from the canvas.
+
+Pacey had been again and again, but only in a friendly way, to chat as
+of old, sometimes bringing with him Leronde to gossip and fence with, at
+other times alone.  No reference was made to the picture or the past.
+
+"I shall never finish it," said Dale, as he sat alone one day gazing at
+his canvas.  "What shall I do--go abroad?  Joe would come with me, and
+all this horrible dream might slowly die away."
+
+"No," he muttered, after a pause; "it would not die.  Better seek the
+true forgetfulness.  Do all men at some time in their lives suffer from
+such a madness as mine?"
+
+His musings were interrupted by a step upon the stairs, and he hastily
+drew the curtain before hi? canvas.
+
+A single rap, which sounded as if it had been given with the knob of a
+walking-stick, came upon the door panel, and directly afterwards, in
+answer to a loud "Come in," Jaggs entered with the knocker in his hand,
+to wit, a silk umbrella--one of those ingenious affairs formed by sewing
+all the folds where they have been slit up by wear and tear, and
+declared by the kerb vendor as being better than new--a fact as regards
+the price.
+
+"Ah, Jaggs, good morning," said Dale.  "But I don't want you.  I shall
+let your face go as it is."
+
+"Quite right, sir," said the man, glancing at the curtain.  "Couldn't be
+better; but I didn't come about that."
+
+"Oh, I see," said Dale sarcastically.  "Your banker gone on the
+Continent?"
+
+"The Emperor" drew himself up, and looked majestic in the face and pose
+of the head, shambling as to his legs, and extremely deferential in the
+curve of his body and the position of his hands and arms.
+
+"Mr. Dale," he said, "I don't deny, sir, as there 'ave been times when a
+half-crown has been a little heaven, and a double florin a delight, but
+I was not agoing to ask assistance now, though I am still a strugglin'
+man, and been accustomed to better things.  It was not to ask help, sir,
+as I'd come, but to bestow it, if so be as you'd condescend to accept it
+of your humble servant, as always feels a pride in your success, not to
+hide the fack that it does me good, sir, to be seen upon the line."
+
+"Well, what do you mean?" said Dale gruffly.
+
+"I want to see that picture done, sir.  It'll make our fortune, sir.
+I'm sure on it, and I say it with pride, there isn't anything as'll
+touch it for a mile round."
+
+"Thank you, Jaggs; you are very complimentary," said Dale ironically,
+but the tone was not observed.
+
+"It's on'y justice, sir, and I ain't set going on for twenty years for
+artists without knowing a good picture when I see one.  But that ain't
+business, sir.  You want a model, sir, and that Miss Montesquieu, as she
+calls herself, won't be here for a month or two, and you needn't expect
+her.  Did you try her as Mr. Pacey calls the Honourable Miss Brill?"
+
+"Pish!  I don't want to paint a fishwife, man."
+
+"No, sir, you don't; and of course Miss Varsey Vavasour wouldn't do?"
+
+"No, no, no! there is not one of them I'd care to have, Jaggs.  If I go
+on with the figure, I shall work from some cast at first, and finish
+afterward from a model."
+
+"No, sir, don't, pr'y don't," cried Jaggs.  "You'll only myke it stiff
+and hard.  It wouldn't be worthy on you, Mr. Dale, sir; and besides,
+there ain't no need.  You're a lion, sir, a reg'lar lion 'mong artisses,
+sir, and you was caught in a net, sir, and couldn't get free, and all
+the time, sir, there was a little mouse a nibblin' and a nibblin' to get
+you out, sir, though you didn't know it, sir, and that mouse's nyme was
+Jaggs."
+
+"What!  You don't mean to say you know of a suitable model?"
+
+"But I just do, sir.  That's what I do say, sir."
+
+"No, no," cried Armstrong peevishly.  "I don't want to be worried into
+seeing one of your friends, Jaggs.  Your taste and mine are too
+different for a lady of your choice to suit my work."
+
+"Don't s'y that, sir," cried Jaggs, in an aggrieved tone of voice.  "I'm
+on'y a common sort o' man, I own, sir, but I do know a good model when I
+see one--I mean one as shows breed.  I don't mean one o' your pretty
+East End girls, with the bad stock showing through, but one as has got
+good furren breed in her."
+
+"Is this a foreign woman, then?"
+
+"That's it, sir.  Comes from that place last where they ketch the little
+fishes as they sends over here for breakfast--not bloaters, sir, them
+furren ones."
+
+"Anchovies?"
+
+"No, sir, t'other ones in tins."
+
+"Sardines?"
+
+"That's it, sir: comes from Sardineyer last, but her father was a Human.
+Sort o' patriot kind o' chap as got into trouble for trying to free his
+country.  Them furren chaps is always up to their games, sir, like that
+theer Mr. Lerondy, and then their country's so grateful that they has to
+come over here to save themselves from being shot."
+
+"But the woman?"
+
+"Oh, she come along with her father, sir, and he's been trying to give
+Hightalian lessons, and don't get on 'cause they say he don't talk pure,
+and he's too proud to go out as a waiter and earn a honest living, so
+the gal's begun going out to sit.  But she don't get on nayther, 'cause
+her figure's too high."
+
+"What! a great giraffe of a woman?"
+
+"Lor' bless you, no, sir! 'bout five feet two half.  I should say.  I
+meant charges stiff; won't go out for less nor arf crown a hour, and
+them as tried her don't like her 'cause she's so stuck-up."
+
+"Look here, Jaggs; is she a finely formed, handsome woman?"
+
+"Well, Mr. Dale, sir, I won't deceive you, for from what I hear her face
+ain't up to much; but she don't make a pynte o' faces, and I'm told as
+she's real good for anything, from a Greek statoo to a hangel."
+
+"Well, I'll see her.  Where does she live?"
+
+"Leather Lane way, sir."
+
+"Address?"
+
+"Ah, that I don't know, sir.  I b'leeve it's her father as does the
+business and takes the money."
+
+"He is her father?"
+
+"Oh yes, sir, it's all square.  I'm told they're very 'spectable people.
+Old man's quite the seedy furren gent, and the gal orful stand-offish."
+
+"Tell him to come and bring his daughter.  If I don't like her, I'll pay
+for one sitting and she can go--"
+
+"Eight, sir; and speaking 'onest, sir, I do hope as she will turn out
+all right."
+
+"Thank you.  There's a crown for your trouble."
+
+"Raly, sir, that ain't nessary," said "The Emperor," holding out his
+hand.--"Oh, well, sir, if you will be so gen'rous, why, 'tain't for me
+to stop you.--Good mornin', sir, good mornin'."
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+THE NEW MODEL.
+
+Two days passed, and Dale was standing, brush in hand, before his
+canvas, thinking.  He had made up his mind to trust to his imagination
+to a great extent for the finishing of Juno's figure: this, with the
+many classic sketches he had made in Greece and Rome, would, he
+believed, enable him to be pretty well independent.  He was in better
+spirits, for he had heard nothing from Portland Place, and flattered
+himself that the impression which had troubled him was growing fainter.
+
+"Come in," he cried, as there was a tap at the door, and Keren-Happuch
+appeared, evidently fresh from a study in black-lead, and holding a card
+between a finger and thumb, guarded by her apron.
+
+"Here's a model, sir, and she give me this."
+
+Dale took a very dirty card, which looked as if it had been for some
+time in an old waistcoat pocket.  Printed thereon were the words--"Dú
+Jaggs.  Head and face.  Roman fathers, etc," and written on the back in
+pencil, in Jaggs' cramped hand--
+
+"Signora Azatchy Figgers."
+
+"Where is she, Miranda?"
+
+"On the front door mat, sir.  And please, Mr. Dale, sir, mayn't I bring
+you some beef-tea?"
+
+"No, thank you, Miranda.  Bring up the visitor instead."
+
+"Oh, dear! he do worry me," muttered Keren-Happuch.  "I do hope he ain't
+going into a decline."
+
+Dale smiled at the dirty card, and waited for the entrance of the new
+model, who was shown in directly by the grimy maid, and immediately, in
+a quick, jerky, excited way, looked sharply round the room before
+turning her face to the artist as the girl closed the door.
+
+On his side he gazed with cold indifference at his visitor, who, after
+taking a couple of steps forward, stopped short, and he saw that she was
+rather tall, wore a closely fitting bonnet, over which a thick dark
+Shetland wool veil was drawn, and was draped from head to foot in a long
+black cloak, which had evidently seen a good deal of service.
+
+"Signora Azacci?" said Dale, glancing at the card again, and making a
+good shot at her name.
+
+It was evidently correct, for the woman said, in a husky voice, as if
+suffering from intense nervousness--
+
+"Si, si."
+
+"You are willing to stand for me--for this picture?" said Dale, scanning
+her closely, but learning nothing respecting her figure on account of
+the cloak; and he spoke very coldly, for the woman's actions on entering
+struck him as being angular and awkward; now they were jerky, as she
+raised her hands to her temples.
+
+"No Inglese, signore," she said then, excitedly; and again, after an
+embarrassed pause, "Parlate Italiano?--No?"
+
+"No," said Dale, shaking his head.
+
+Her hands again came from beneath her cloak in a despairing gesture.
+Then, placing one to her forehead, she looked round at the lumber of
+paintings and properties, as if seeking for a way to express herself,
+till her eyes lit upon the great uncovered canvas.  Bending forward in a
+quick, alert way, she uttered a low, peculiar cry, and almost ran to it,
+leaned forward again, as if examining, and then, with extreme rapidity,
+pointed to the blank place in the picture where Lady Dellatoria's face
+stood out weirdly.  She then took a few quick steps aside from where
+Dale stood, frowning and annoyed at what seemed to be a hopeless waste
+of time.  Then, with a rapid movement, she unclasped the cloak, swept it
+from her shoulders, and holding it only with her left hand, let it fall
+in many folds to the floor, while as she stood before him now in a
+plainly made, tightly fitting black cloth princess dress, she
+instinctively fell into almost the very attitude Dale had in his mind's
+eye, and he saw at once that her figure must be all that he wished.
+
+"Bravo!" he cried involuntarily, and with an artist's pleasure in an
+intelligence that grasps his ideas.
+
+At the word "Bravo!" the woman turned her head quickly.
+
+"Excellent," he continued; "that promises well."
+
+Her face was hidden, but as she shrugged up her shoulders nearly to her
+ears, and raised her hands with the fingers contracted and toward him,
+he felt that she must be wrinkling up her forehead and making a grimace
+expressive of her vexation.
+
+"Yes, it is tiresome," he said; "but we don't want to talk.  I dare say
+I can make you understand.  But I've forgotten every word I picked up in
+Rome."
+
+"Ah!" cried the woman, with quick pantomimic action, as she changed her
+attitude again, and leant toward him--"Roma--Roma?"
+
+"Si, si."
+
+"My lord has been in Rome?" she cried in Italian.
+
+"I think I understand that," muttered Dale, "and if your form proves to
+be equal to your quick intelligence, my picture will be painted.  Now
+then, signora, this is a language I dare say you can understand.  Here
+are two half-crowns.  For two hours--`due ore.'"
+
+"Si, si," she cried eagerly, and she almost snatched the coins and held
+them to her veiled lips.
+
+"Silver keys to your understanding, madam," he muttered, taking a
+mahlstick from where it stood against a chair.  "Humph!  I begin to be
+hopeful.  Yes, more than hopeful," he continued, as the model was
+rapidly drawing off her shabby, carefully mended gloves, before taking a
+little common portemonnaie from her pocket and dropping the coins in one
+by one.  Then aloud, as he pointed with the mahlstick, "La bella mano."
+
+"Aha!" she cried quickly.  But she gave her shoulders another shrug, and
+shook the purse, saying sadly--"Pel povero padre."
+
+"`Padre.'  For her father," muttered Dale.  "Not so sordid as I thought,
+poor thing.  Will you remove your veil?"
+
+She leaned toward him.
+
+"I said, Will you remove your veil?--Hang it, what is veil in Italian?
+`Velum' in Latin."
+
+She was evidently trying hard to grasp his meaning, and at the Latin
+"velum" she clapped her beautifully formed hands to her veil.
+
+"No, no!" she cried haughtily; and then volubly, in Italian--"I am
+compelled to do this for bread.  I do not know you, neither need you
+know me.  My face is not beautiful, and we are strangers.  You wish to
+paint my figure.  I will retain my veil."
+
+"I do not understand you, signora, and yet I have a glimmering of what
+you wish to express," said Dale, as gravely as if his visitor could
+grasp every word.  "There, you seem to be a lady, and--hang it all, this
+is very absurd, my preaching to you, and you to me.  I wish Pacey were
+here.  He speaks Italian like a native.  No, poor lass, I suppose they
+must be starving nearly, or she would not stoop to this.  I don't wish
+Joe Pacey were here."
+
+Then quietly bowing as if acceding to her wishes, he made a sign to his
+visitor to take her attention, and as she watched him from behind her
+thick veil, he walked to the entrance and turned the key.
+
+Crossing the studio to the farther door, he threw it open, and then drew
+forward from the end of the great room a large folding-screen, which he
+placed at the back of the dais and opened wide.
+
+"There, signora," he said, "I am at your service;" and he pointed to the
+inner room, turned from her, and walked to the canvas.
+
+The model stood motionless for a moment or two, and then caught up the
+great cloak from where it lay upon the floor.
+
+"Grazie, Signore," she said then, with quiet dignity, and she was
+hurrying across to the inner room, but he arrested her.
+
+"One moment," he said, with grave respect, and the chivalrous manner of
+a true gentleman toward one whose tones seemed to suggest that she
+trusted him.  "Let us arrange the pose first.  Look at the picture:
+study it well.  You see the subject."
+
+Dale continued speaking, but kept on pointing to the scene he had
+depicted, and, to his intense gratification, she threw the cloak across
+a chair back, gazed intently at the picture for a few moments, letting
+her eyes rest longest upon the beautiful, scornful face, and then went
+quickly to the dais, stepped up, turned, and with rare intelligence fell
+once more into the very position he desired, bettering in fact that
+which she had sketched at first.
+
+"Eccellentissimo!" he cried; and then she stepped down quickly, and
+glided into the inner room, while Dale gazed at his painting with a
+feeling of triumph sweeping away the morbid thoughts which had troubled
+him so long.
+
+"Art is my mistress after all," he said to himself, as he glanced upward
+to see that the skylight was properly blinded, and then, going to a box,
+rapidly prepared his palette, armed himself with a sheaf of brushes, and
+altered the position of his easel a little.
+
+He was hardly ready when he heard the slight rattle of the handle, a
+faint rustling sound, and the swinging of the door again.
+
+But he did not turn as a light step passed behind him, and a faint
+creaking sound announced that the model had mounted upon the dais.
+
+He raised his eyes, and she was standing there apparently as he had seen
+her first, closely veiled, and still draped in the long, heavy, black
+cloak.
+
+Then, with a quick movement, the long garment was thrown aside, and the
+model stood before him in the very attitude, and the perfection of her
+womanly beauty--a beauty made hideous in the ghastly effect produced by
+the black face and head swathed in the thick veil.
+
+But this passed unnoticed by the artist, who, with a triumphant
+ejaculation, began to sketch rapidly, as he muttered to himself without
+vanity--
+
+"Pacey is right: my canvas must be a success."
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+A STRANGE SITTING.
+
+"Yes," said Dale to himself again, "Art is my mistress.  I have betrayed
+one, fought clear of the web of another, and now I am free to keep true
+to the only one I love."
+
+And all through that visit of the Italian, he worked on with a strange
+eagerness, till, at what seemed to be the end of an hour at most, his
+model made a sudden movement.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said, "I ought to have told you to rest more
+often.  Stanca?"  For he recalled a word meaning fatigued or wearied.
+
+"Si--si," she said quickly, and pointed to the clock on the mantelpiece,
+when, to Dale's astonishment, he saw that the two hours had elapsed, and
+that his model had quickly resumed her cloak.  Then, without a word, she
+crossed to the door of the inner room, and about a quarter of an hour
+later emerged, to find him standing back studying his morning's work.
+
+"Grazie," he cried, and then pointed to the roughly sketched in figure.
+"Bravo!" he added, smiling.
+
+She bent her head in a quiet, dignified manner, and raking up another
+Italian word or two, Armstrong said--
+
+"A rivederia--au revoir."
+
+"Ah, monsieur speaks French!" she cried in that tongue, but with a very
+peculiar accent.
+
+"Yes, badly," he replied, also in French.  "That is good; now we can get
+on better.  Can you come to-morrow at the same time?"
+
+"I am at monsieur's service."
+
+"Then I shall expect you.  Thank you for your patient attention.
+Another time, pray rest when you are fatigued."
+
+She bowed in a stately manner, and pointed to the door which he had
+locked, and as soon as it was unfastened, passed out without turning her
+head.
+
+Dale stood working at his sketch for another hour, and then turned it to
+the wall, to light his pipe and begin thinking about his model now that
+he had ceased work.
+
+It was quite mysterious her insisting upon keeping her face covered.
+Why was it?  Had she some terrible disfigurement, or was it from
+modesty?  Possibly.  Her manner was perfect.  She was evidently
+miserably poor, and seemed eager to gain money to support her father--he
+had quite grasped that--and the poor creature being compelled to stoop
+to this way of earning a livelihood, she naturally desired to remain
+incognito.  Well, it was creditable, he thought; but the first idea came
+back.  She was evidently a woman gifted by nature with an exquisite
+form, and at the same time, by accident or disease, her countenance was
+so marked that she was afraid of her clients being repelled, and
+declining to engage her.
+
+"Ah, well, signora, the mysterious Italienne, I will respect your desire
+to remain incog.  It is nothing to me," said Dale, half aloud, as he
+sent a cloud of blue vapour upward.  "I may congratulate myself, though,
+on my good fortune in finding such a model."
+
+He sat back in his chair, dwelling upon the figure, and then went twice
+over to his canvas, to compare his work with the figure in his
+imagination, and returned to his seat more than satisfied.
+
+Then he put work aside, and began thinking of home, and the sweet sad
+face he could always picture, with its eyes gazing reproachfully at him.
+
+"Yes," he said, with a sigh; "poor darling!  It was fate.  I was not
+worthy of her.  When the misery and disappointment have died away--
+Heaven bless her!--she will love and be the wife of a better man,
+unless--unless some day she forgives me--some day when I have told her
+all."
+
+The next morning he was all in readiness and expectant.  The light was
+good for painting, and his mind was more at rest, for there was no
+letter from the Contessa.  But for a few moments he was angry with
+himself on finding that he felt a kind of pique at the readiness with
+which she had given up writing her reproaches.  But that passed off, and
+as the time was near for the coming of the model, he drew the easel
+forward to see whether, after the night's rest, he felt as satisfied
+with his work as he did the previous day.  But he hardly glanced at the
+figure, for the eyes were gazing at him in a terribly life-like way,
+full of scorn and reproach; and as he met them, literally fascinated by
+the work to which his imagination lent so much reality, he shuddered and
+asked himself whether he had after all been able to free himself from
+the glamour--dragged himself loose from the spell of the Circe who had
+so suddenly altered the even course of his life.
+
+He was still contemplating the face, and wondering whether others would
+look upon it with the fascination it exercised upon him, when
+Keren-Happuch came up to announce the arrival of his model, who entered
+directly after, to look at him sharply through her thick veil.
+
+He uttered a low sigh full of satisfaction, for her coming was most
+welcome.  It would force his attention to his work.
+
+"Good morning," he said gravely and distinctly, in French.  "You are
+very punctual."
+
+She bowed distantly, and then her attention seemed to be caught by the
+face upon the canvas, and she drew near to stand gazing at it
+attentively.
+
+She turned to him sharply.  "The lady who sat for that: why did she not
+stay for you to finish the portrait?"
+
+Dale started, half wondering, half annoyed by his model's imperious
+manner.
+
+"It is great!" she said.  Then in a quick, eager tone: "The lady you
+love?"
+
+He was so startled by the suddenness of the question, that he replied as
+quickly--
+
+"No, no.  It is not from a model.  It is imagination."
+
+"Ah!" she said, and she looked at the picture more closely.  "You
+thought of her and painted.  You are very able, monsieur, but I like it
+not.  It makes me to shiver, I know not why.  It makes me afraid to
+look."
+
+"Then don't look," said Dale, in an annoyed tone.  "You will cover it,
+please, monsieur.  The face is so angry; it gives me dread."
+
+"Pish!" ejaculated Dale.  "Very well, though.  Get ready, please.  I
+want to do a long morning's work."
+
+"Monsieur will pay me," she said, holding out her hand in its
+well-mended glove.
+
+He took out a couple of half-crowns, which she almost snatched, and
+then, without a word, pointed to the door almost imperiously.
+
+He nodded shortly, and went to fasten it, while she glided into the
+inner room, and in a wonderfully short space of time returned ready,
+took her place upon the dais, dropped the cloak, and he began to paint.
+
+"Monsieur has not covered the dreadful head," she said hoarsely.
+
+Without a word he took a square of brown paper, gummed it, and covered
+the face; then in perfect silence he went on painting, deeply interested
+in his work as his sketch took softer form and grew rapidly beneath his
+brush.
+
+But the work did not progress so fast as on the previous day: he was
+painting well, but the black head, so incongruous and weird of aspect,
+posed upon the beautiful female form he was transferring to canvas,
+irritated him, and as he looked at his model from time to time, he could
+see that a pair of piercing eyes were watching him.
+
+Half-an-hour had passed, when there was a low, weary sigh.
+
+"We will rest a little," he said quietly, and pointing to a chair and
+the screen, he devoted himself to an unimportant part of the work for
+some ten minutes, but to be brought back to his model by her words--
+
+"I am waiting, monsieur."
+
+He started and resumed his work, remembering to pause for his patient
+model to rest twice over, and then to continue, and grow so excited over
+his efforts--painting so rapidly--that when he heard another weary sigh
+he glanced at the clock, and found that he had kept his model quite a
+quarter of an hour over her time.
+
+"I beg your pardon, mademoiselle," he said.  "You must be very weary."
+
+"Yes, very weary," she said sadly, as she moved towards the door,
+glancing over her right shoulder at the picture.  "It is better now.  I
+can look at your work; the dreadful face makes me too much alarmed."
+
+"A strange sitting," he said.  "Two veiled faces."  There was a quick
+look through the thick veil, but she walked on into the room, and in due
+time passed him on her way, bowed distantly, and went out, leaving Dale
+motionless by his canvas, gazing after her at the door, and conjuring up
+in his mind the figure he had so lately had before him.
+
+He recovered himself with a start, and raised one hand to his forehead.
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+LIFE'S FEVER.
+
+It was with a novel feeling of anxiety that Dale waited for the coming
+of his model.  A peculiar feverish desire to know more of her position
+had come over him, and he made up his mind to question her about her
+father and the cause of his exile.  Jaggs had said that he had had to
+flee for life and liberty, and if he questioned her about these she
+would, foreigner-like, become communicative.
+
+It was nothing to him, of course.  This woman--lady perhaps, for her
+words bespoke refinement--would answer his purpose till the picture was
+finished.  She was paid for her services, and when she was no longer
+required, there was an end of the visits to his studio.
+
+He told himself all this as he sat before his great canvas, working
+patiently, filling up portions, and preparing for his model's coming.
+And as he worked on, with the figure as strongly marked as the model,
+the softly rounded contour of the graceful form began to glow in
+imagination with life, and at last Dale sprang from his seat, threw down
+palette and brushes, and shook his head as if to clear it from some
+strange confusion of intellect.
+
+"How absurd!" he said aloud, and trying to turn the current of his
+thoughts, they drifted back at once to his model, and he gazed at his
+work, wondering which of his ideas was correct about her persistently
+keeping her face covered.
+
+"She cannot be disfigured," he muttered.  "It must be for reasons of her
+own.--She is, as I thought, forced to undertake a task that must be
+hateful to her.--I wonder whether her face is beautiful too?"
+
+"Bah! what is it to me?" he muttered angrily.  "I do not want to paint
+her face, and yet she must be very beautiful."
+
+He sat down again before his canvas, thoughtful and dreamy, picturing to
+himself what her face might be, and the next minute he had seized a
+drawing-board upon which grey paper was already stretched, picked up a
+crayon, and with great rapidity sketched in memories of dark aquiline
+faces that he had studied in Home and Paris, with one of later time--one
+of the women of the Italian colony which lives by the patronage of
+artists.
+
+These soon covered the paper, and he sat gazing at them, wondering which
+would be suited to the figure he was painting.
+
+Then, throwing the board aside, he began to pace the studio impatiently.
+
+"What nonsense!" he muttered.  "What craze is this!  Her face is nothing
+to me.  I'm overwrought.  Worry and work are having their effect.  I
+have had no exercise either lately.  Yes: that's it: I'm overdone."
+
+He stood hesitating for a few moments, and then thrust his hand into his
+pocket, and drew out five shillings.
+
+"I'll rout out Pacey and Leronde, and we'll go up the river for a row."
+
+He rang the bell and waited, giving one more glance at his picture, and
+then turning it face to the wall, with the curtain drawn.
+
+He had hardly finished when Keren-Happuch's step was heard at the door,
+and she knocked and entered.
+
+"You ring, please, sir?"
+
+"Yes.  Take this money.  No--no--stop a moment.  She would be hurt," he
+muttered, and, hastily wrapping it in a sheet of note-paper at the side
+table, he thrust the packet into an envelope, fastened it down, and
+directed it to La Signora Azacci.
+
+"There, Keren-Happuch," he said.
+
+"Don't call me that now, please, Mr. Dale, sir.  I likes the other best,
+'cause you don't do it to tease me, like Mr. Pacey."
+
+"Well then, Miranda, my little child of toil," he said merrily, "I have
+wrapped up this money because the young lady might not like it given to
+her loose.  It isn't that I don't trust you."
+
+The girl laughed.
+
+"Zif I didn't know that, sir.  Why, you give me a fi' pun' note to get
+changed once."
+
+"So I did, Miranda, and will again."
+
+"And sovrins lots o' times.  I don't mind."
+
+"Give this to the Italian lady."
+
+"Is she a lady, sir?  I think she is sometimes, and sometimes I don't,
+'cause she's so shabby.  Why, some o' them models as comes could buy her
+up out and out."
+
+"Yes, Miranda; but don't be so loquacious."
+
+"No, sir, I won't," said Keren-Happuch, wondering the while what the
+word meant.
+
+"Tell her that I'm not well this morning, and have gone into the country
+for a day, but I hope to see her at the same time to-morrow morning."
+
+"There, I knowed you wasn't well, sir," cried the girl eagerly.
+
+"Pooh! only a little seedy."
+
+"But was she to come at the reg'lar time this morning, sir?"
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"Then she ain't comin', sir, for it's nearly an hour behind by the
+kitchen clock."
+
+Dale glanced at his watch in astonishment, then at the clock on the
+mantelpiece.
+
+Keren-Happuch was quite correct in every respect, for the model did not
+come, and Dale felt so startled by this that he did not leave the studio
+all day, but spent it with a growing feeling of trouble.
+
+That night, to get rid of the anxiety which kept his brain working, he
+sought out his two friends and dined with them at one of the cafes,
+eating little, drinking a good deal, and sitting at last smoking, morose
+and silent, listening to Leronde's excited disquisitions on art, and
+Pacey's bantering of the Frenchman, till it was time to return to his
+studio, which he entered with a shudder, to cross to his room.
+
+Keren-Happuch had been up and lit the gas, leaving one jet burning with
+a ghastly blue flame, and when this was turned up, the place seemed to
+be full of shadows, out of which the various casts and busts looked at
+him weirdly.
+
+"Phew! how hot and stuffy the place is," he muttered.  "Am I going to be
+ill--sickening for a fever?  Bah!  Rubbish!  I drank too much of that
+Chianti."
+
+The Italian name of the wine of which he had freely partaken suggested
+the Conte, but only for a moment, and then he was brooding again over
+the failure of the model to keep her appointment.
+
+"Surely she is not ill," he said excitedly; then, with an angry
+gesticulation, "well, if she is, what is it to me?  Poor woman! she will
+get better, and I must wait."
+
+He hurried into his room, and turned up the gas there, but he could not
+rest without going back into the studio and turning the gas on full
+before dragging round the great easel, and throwing back the curtains to
+unveil the picture, with its graceful white figure standing right out
+from the group like sunlit ivory.  But a shadow was cast upon the upper
+part by a portion of the curtain whose rings had caught upon the rod,
+and a strange shudder ran through him, for the paper he had used to hide
+the face looked dark, and, to his excited vision, took the form of the
+close black veil, through which a pair of brilliant eyes appeared to
+flash.
+
+Snatching back the curtain, he wheeled the easel into its place, with
+its face to the wall, turned down the gas after fastening the door, and
+threw himself upon his bed to lie tossing hour after hour, never once
+going right off to sleep, but thinking incessantly of the beautiful
+model, and the masked face whose eyes burned into his brain.
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+AFTER THE LAPSE.
+
+Dale's hands trembled, and there were feverish marks in his cheeks as he
+dressed next morning, and then walked into his sitting-room and rang.
+
+The breakfast things were laid, and in a few minutes Keren-Happuch came
+through the studio with his coffee and toast, while an hour later,
+without daring to speak to him, she bore the almost untouched breakfast
+away.
+
+As soon as he was alone, he made an effort to master himself, and walked
+firmly into the studio, drew forward his easel, and after removing the
+curtain, stood there to study his work and criticise and mark its
+failings.
+
+He found none to mark, but stood there waiting for its living, breathing
+model, knowing well enough that he must check the madness attacking
+him--at once, in its incipient stage.
+
+"I'm as weak a fool as other men," he muttered.  "Bah!  I can easily
+disillusionise myself.  I'll insist upon her removing her veil to-day.
+It is that and the foolish wish to see her face that has upset me, I
+being in a weak, nervous state.  Once I've finished and had the work
+framed, I really will give up painting for a few weeks and rest."
+
+That maddening day passed, but no model came, and as soon as it was dark
+he went out, but not until the last post had come in that was likely to
+bring him a letter of excuse from his sitter.
+
+He went straight to the street where Jaggs lodged, to learn that he was
+away from home.  The people of the house thought that he had gone down
+somewhere in the country to sit for an artist who was doing a
+sea-picture, but they were not sure whether it was Surrey or Cornwall.
+
+Somewhere Leather Lane way, Jaggs had told him that the father lived.
+Perhaps he was ill, and his child was nursing him.  But how could he go
+about asking at random in that neighbourhood about the missing model?
+
+But he did, seeking out first one and then another handsome picturesque
+vagabond belonging to the artistic Italian colony, and questioning them,
+but without avail.  They had never heard the name.
+
+He tried a lodging-house or two, upon whose steps Italian women were
+seated, dark-eyed, black-haired, and with showy glass bead necklaces
+about their throats.  But no; those who could understand him neither
+knew the name, nor had they heard of a Sardinian patriot whose daughter
+went out to sit.
+
+Dale returned to his rooms to pass another sleepless night, hoping that
+the next morning would put an end to his anxiety, fever, or excitement,
+whichever it was--for he savagely refrained from confessing to himself
+that he grasped what his trouble might be.
+
+But the morning came, and seven more mornings, to find him seated before
+his unfinished picture, practising a kind of self-deceit, and telling
+himself that he was feverish, haggard, and mentally careworn on account
+of his dread of not being able to finish his picture as satisfactorily
+as he could wish.
+
+He had tried hard during the interval, but, in spite of all his efforts,
+he had been able to get tidings of neither Jaggs nor the model the man
+had introduced; while to make his state the more wretched, Pacey had not
+been near him, and for some unaccountable reason Leronde, too, had
+stayed away.
+
+He was seated, wild-eyed and despairing, one morning, when Keren-Happuch
+came running in, breathless with her exertions to reach the studio, and
+bear the news which she felt would be like life to the young artist.
+
+"Here she is, sir!" panted the girl, "she's come at last;" and then ran
+down to open the front door.
+
+Dale staggered and turned giddy, but listened with eyes fixed upon the
+door, hardly daring to believe till he saw it open, and the dark,
+closely veiled figure enter quickly.
+
+Then there was a reaction, and he asked himself why he had suffered like
+this.  What was the poorly dressed woman who had just entered to him?
+
+His lips parted, but he did not speak, only waited.
+
+"Am I too late?" she said, in her strongly accented French.  "Some
+other?  The picture finished?"
+
+"No," he said coldly; and he wondered at her collected manner as he
+caught the glint of a pair of searching eyes.  "I have waited for you.
+Why have you been so long?"
+
+"I have been ill," she said simply, and her tones suggested suffering.
+
+"Ill?" he cried excitedly; and he took a step towards her with
+outstretched hand.  "I am very sorry."
+
+"Thank you," she said quietly, and ignoring the extended hand.  "I am
+once more well, and I must be quick.  Shall I stay one more hour every
+day and you pay me more?  Oh, no.  For the same!"
+
+"Yes, pray do," he said huskily, and he thrust his hand into his pocket
+to pay her in advance according to his custom, but she ignored the money
+as she had previously passed his hand without notice, and after pointing
+to the door, she hurried through into his room, to return in a
+wonderfully short space of time and take her place upon the dais.
+
+Dale began to paint eagerly, feverishly, so as to lose himself in his
+work, but in a few minutes he raised his eyes to see the glint of those
+which seemed to be watching him suspiciously through the thick veil, as
+if ready to take alarm at the slightest word or gesture on his part, and
+at once the power to continue his work was gone.  He felt that he must
+speak, and in a deep husky voice he began--
+
+"You have been very ill, then?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur," curtly and distantly.
+
+"I wondered very much at not seeing you.  I was alarmed."
+
+"I do not see why monsieur should feel alarm."
+
+"Of course, on account of my picture," he said awkwardly.  Then laying
+down his palette and brushes, he saw that the model gave a sudden start,
+but once more stood motionless as he took out his pocket-book, and
+withdrew the pencil.
+
+"Will you give me your address?"
+
+"Why should monsieur wish for my address?"
+
+"To communicate with you.  If I had known, I should have been spared
+much anxiety.  Tell me, and I will write it down."
+
+"With that of the women who wait monsieur's orders?  No!"
+
+This was spoken so imperiously that Dale replaced the pencil and book,
+and took up palette and brushes.
+
+"As you will," he said, and he began to paint once more.
+
+But the power to convey all he wished to the canvas had gone, and he
+turned to her again.
+
+"Tell me more about yourself," he said.  "You are a foreigner, and
+friendless here in England: I know that, but tell me more.  I may be of
+service to you."
+
+"Monsieur is being of service to me.  He pays me for occupying this
+degrading position to which I am driven."
+
+There was so much angry bitterness in her tones that Dale was again
+silenced; but his pulse beat high, and as he applied his brush to his
+canvas from time to time, there were only results that he would have to
+wipe away.
+
+"I am sorry you consider the task degrading," he said at last.  "I have
+endeavoured to make it as little irksome as I could."
+
+"Monsieur has been most kind till now," she said quickly; and then, in a
+bitterly contemptuous tone, "monsieur forgets that I am waiting.  His
+pencil is idle."
+
+He started angrily, and went on painting, but the eyes were still
+watching him, and, strive all he would, there was the intense desire
+growing once more to see that face which was hidden from him so closely.
+He knew that he ought to respect his visitor's scruples, but he could
+not, and again and again he shivered with a sensation nearly approaching
+to dread.  But the wish was still supreme.  That black woollen veil
+piqued him, and after a few minutes of worthless work, he asked her if
+she was weary.
+
+"Yes," she replied.
+
+"Then we will rest a few minutes."
+
+"No, monsieur; go on.  I am your slave for the time."
+
+He started at her words, and as much at her tone, which was as full of
+hauteur as if she were some princess.  But now, instead of this driving
+him in very shame to continue his work, it only impressed him the more.
+There was a mystery about her and her ways.  The almost insolent
+contempt with which she treated him made him angry, and his anger
+increased to rage as he fully realised how weak and mortal he was as
+man.  He tried not to own it to himself, but he knew that a strange
+passion had developed itself within him, and with mingled pleasure and
+pain he felt that this beautiful woman could read him through and
+through, and that hour by hour her feelings toward him became more and
+more those of contempt.
+
+He did not stop to reason, for he was rapidly becoming blind to
+everything but his unconquerable desire to see her face.  There were
+moments when he felt ready to rage against himself for his weakness and,
+as he called it, folly; but all this was swept away, and at last, as the
+sitting went on and the model haughtily refused to leave the dais for a
+time to rest, he found himself asking whether there was not after all
+truth in the old legends, and whether, enraged by his shrinking from
+Lady Dellatoria's passionate avowals, the author of all evil had not
+sent some beautiful demon to tempt him and show him how weak he was
+after all.  It was maddening, and at last he threw down palette and
+brushes to begin striding up and down the room, carefully averting his
+eyes from his model, who stood there as motionless as if she were some
+lovely statue.
+
+At last he returned to his canvas.
+
+"You must be tired now," he said hurriedly.  "Rest for a while."
+
+"I'm not tired now," she replied coldly, "if monsieur will continue."
+
+"I cannot paint to-day," he said hoarsely.  "You trouble me.  What I
+have done is valueless."
+
+"I trouble monsieur?" she said coldly.  "Am I not patient?--can I be
+more still?"
+
+He made a mighty effort over self, and for the moment conquered.
+Seizing his brushes and palette, he began to paint once more, but in a
+reckless way, as if merely to keep himself occupied, but as he turned
+his eyes from his canvas from time to time to study the beautiful model,
+standing there in that imperious attitude, strange, mysterious, and
+weird, with the black enmasking above the graceful voluptuous figure, he
+lost more and more the self-command he had maintained.
+
+For a few minutes he told himself that he was mistaken, that her eyes
+must be closed; but it was, he knew too well, a mere mental subterfuge:
+they were gleaming through that black network, and piercing him to the
+very soul.
+
+He could bear it no longer, and again throwing down brushes and palette,
+he paced the room for a minute or two before turning to the marble
+figure standing so motionless before him.
+
+"I tell you I cannot paint," he cried angrily.  "It is as if you were
+casting some spell over me.  I must see your face.  Why do you persist
+in this fancy?  Your masked countenance takes off my attention.  I beg--
+I insist--remove that veil."
+
+"I do not quite understand monsieur," she said coldly.  "He speaks in a
+language that is not mine, neither is it his.  He confuses me.  I am
+trying to be a patient model, but everything is wrong to-day.  Will he
+tell me what I should do to give him satisfaction?"
+
+"Take off that veil!" cried Dale.
+
+The model caught up the cloak and flung it around her shoulders.
+
+"Now, quick!" cried Dale excitedly, "that veil!"
+
+"Monsieur is ill.  Shall I call for help?"
+
+"No, no, I am not ill.  Once more I beg, I pray of you--take off that
+veil."
+
+"But monsieur is so strange--so unlike himself," she cried, as, taking
+another step forward, Dale caught the hand which held the cloak in his.
+
+"Now!" he cried wildly, with his eyes flashing, and trying to pierce the
+woollen mask--"that veil!"  For a moment the warm soft hand clung to his
+convulsively, and the other rose with the arm in a graceful movement
+towards the shrouded face; but, as if angry with herself for being about
+to yield to his mad importunity, she snatched away the hand he held, and
+with the other thrust him back violently.
+
+"It is infamous!" she cried, with her eyes flashing through the veil.
+"It is an insult.  Monsieur, it is to the woman you love that you should
+speak those words;" and, with an imperious gesture, she stepped down
+from the dais as if it had been her throne, and with her face turned
+toward Dale, she walked with calm dignity, her head thrown back, and the
+folds of the cloak gathered round her, to the inner door, passed
+through, and for the first time, when it was closed, he heard the lock
+give a sharp snap as it was shot into the socket Dale stood motionless
+in the middle of the studio, his eyes bloodshot and his pulses throbbing
+heavily, unable for some little time either to think or move.
+
+"Yes," he muttered, as he grew calmer; "it was an insult, and she
+revenges herself upon me.  An hour ago I was to her a chivalrous man in
+whose honour she could have faith.  Now I am degraded in her eyes to the
+level of the brute, and--she trusts me no longer.  Do I love this woman
+whose face I have never seen, or am I going mad?"
+
+But he was alone now, and he grew more calm as the minutes glided by;
+and once more making a tremendous effort to command himself, he waited
+as patiently as he could for the opening of the door.
+
+In a few minutes there was the sharp snap again of the lock being
+turned, the door was thrown open, and the tall dark figure swept out
+into the great studio with head erect and indignant mien.
+
+She had to pass close by him to reach the farther door, but she looked
+straight before her, completely ignoring his presence till in excited
+tones he said--"One moment--pray stop."
+
+She had passed him, but she arrested her steps and half turned her head
+as a queen might, to listen to some suppliant who was about to offer his
+petition.
+
+"Forgive me," he panted.  "I was not myself.  You will forget all this.
+Do not let my madness drive you away."
+
+He was standing with his hands extended as if to seize her again, but
+she gathered her cloak tightly round her, so that he could see once more
+the curves and contour of the form he had transferred to canvas, as she
+passed on to the door, where she stopped and waited for him, according
+to his custom, to turn the key.
+
+Her mute action and gesture dragged him to the door as if he were
+completely under her influence; and, throwing it open, he once more said
+pleadingly, and in a low deep voice which trembled from the emotion by
+which he was overcome--
+
+"Forgive me: I was half mad."
+
+But she made no sign.  Walking swiftly now, she passed out on to the
+landing, descended the staircase, and as he stood listening, he heard
+the light step and the rustling of her garments, till she reached the
+heavy front door, which was opened and closed with a heavy, dull,
+echoing sound.
+
+But still Dale did not move.  He stood as if bound there by the spell of
+which he had spoken, till all at once he uttered a faint cry, snatched
+his hat, and followed her out into the street.
+
+Too late.  There was no sign of the black cloaked figure, and, after
+hurrying in different directions for several minutes, he returned to his
+studio utterly crushed.
+
+"Gone!" he muttered, as he threw himself into a chair.  "I shall never
+see her more.  Great heavens!  Do I love this woman?  Am I so vile?"
+
+"Please, sir, may I come in?"
+
+Dale started up and tried to look composed, as little Keren-Happuch
+entered with a note in her hand.
+
+"One o' them scented ones, sir," said the girl.  "It was in the
+letter-box.  I found it two hours ago, but I did not like to bring it
+in."
+
+As soon as Dale was alone, his eyes fell upon the Contessa's well-known
+hand, and, without opening the letter, he gazed at it, and recalled the
+past.
+
+At last his lips parted, and he said thoughtfully--
+
+"Loved me with an unholy love.  It is retribution!  She must have felt
+as I do now."
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+JOB PACEY AT HOME.
+
+Pacey sat back in a shabby old chair, in a shabby room.  The
+surroundings were poor and yet rich--the former applying to the
+furniture, the latter to the many clever little gems presented to him by
+his artist friends, many of whom were still poor as he, others high up
+on the steps leading to the temple of fame.
+
+Joseph Pacey's hair needed cutting, and his beard looked tangled and
+wild; and as he sat back in his slippers, he looked the very opposite of
+his _vis-a-vis_, the exquisitely neat, waxed-moustached, closely clipped
+young Frenchman who assisted briskly in the formation of the cloud of
+smoke which floated overhead by making and consuming cigarettes, what
+time the tenant of the shabby rooms nursed a huge meerschaum pipe, which
+he kept in a glow and replenished, as he would an ordinary fire, by
+putting a pinch of fresh fuel on the top from time to time.
+
+"Humph!" he ejaculated, frowning.  "And so you think he has got the
+feminine fever badly?"
+
+"But you do say it funny, my friend," said Leronde.  "Why, of course.
+Toujours--always the same.  As we say--`cherchez la femme.'  Vive la
+femme!  But helas!  How she do prove our ruin, and turn us as you say
+round your turn."
+
+There was silence for a few moments, during which, as he sat shaggy and
+frowning in the smoke, Pacey looked as if some magician were gradually
+turning his head into that of a lion.
+
+"Seen him the last day or two?"
+
+"Yes," said Leronde, putting out his tongue and running the edge of a
+newly rolled cigarette paper along the moist tip.  "I go to see him
+yesterday."
+
+"Well.  What did he say?"
+
+"And I ask him to come for an hour to the Vivarium to see the new
+ballet."
+
+"I asked you what he said."
+
+"He say--`Go to the devil.'"
+
+"Well, did you go?"
+
+"Yes.  I come on here at once."
+
+Pacey glowered at him, but his French friend was innocent of any double
+entendre; and at that moment there was a sharp knock at the outer door--
+the well-worn oak on the staircase of Number 9 Bolt Inn.
+
+"Aha!  Vive la compagnie!" cried Leronde.
+
+"Humph!  Some one for money," muttered Pacey.  "Who can it be?  Well, it
+doesn't matter: I've got none.--Here, dandy," he said aloud, "open the
+door.  Shut the other first, and tell whoever it is that I cannot see
+him.  Engaged--ill--anything you like."
+
+"Yes, I see.  I am a fly," said the young Frenchman, and, passing
+through the inner door, he closed it after him and opened the outer, to
+return in a minute with two cards.
+
+"Who was it?" growled Pacey.
+
+"A lady and gentleman.  I told them you could not see any one, and they
+are gone."
+
+Pacey snatched the cards, glanced at them, uttered an ejaculation, and
+springing up, he threw down his pipe, and nearly did the same by his
+companion as he rushed to the door, passed out on to the landing, and
+began to run down the stairs.
+
+"My faith, but he is a droll of a man," muttered Leronde, pointing his
+moustache; "but I love him.  Aha! always the woman.  How he run as soon
+as he read the name.  We are all alike, we men.  What was it?  Mees
+Torpe and--faith of a man--she was pretty.  Mees!  I thought it was her
+husband at first.  H'm!  The lover perhaps."
+
+The door flew open again and Pacey returned, showing in Cornel Thorpe
+and her brother.
+
+"Here, Leronde," cried Pacey excitedly.  "Excuse me--very particular
+business, old fellow."
+
+"You wish me to go?" said Leronde stiffly, as he waited for an
+introduction.
+
+"If you wouldn't mind, and--look here," continued Pacey, drawing him
+outside.  "Don't be hurt, old fellow--this is very particular.  You saw
+the names on the cards?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"Not a word then to Armstrong."
+
+"I do not tiddle-taddle," said Leronde stiffly.  "That's right.  I trust
+you, old fellow.  Come back at six, and we'll go and dine in Soho."
+
+"But--the lady?"
+
+"Bah!  Nonsense, man!  This is business.  Au revoir--till six."
+
+Pacey hurried back and closed both doors, to find his visitors standing
+in the middle of the room, Cornel pale and anxious, and her brother
+stern, distant, and angry of eye.
+
+"I did not expect you, Miss Thorpe," cried Pacey warmly.  "Pray sit
+down."
+
+"I think my sister and I can finish our interview without sitting down,
+sir.  You are Mr. Joseph Pacey?"
+
+"I am," said the artist, as coldly now as the speaker.
+
+"And you wrote to my sister--"
+
+"Michael, dear, I will speak to Mr. Pacey, please," said Cornel, and she
+turned to the artist and held out her hand.  "Thank you for writing to
+me, Mr. Pacey," she continued.  "I thought it better, as my brother was
+coming to England, to accompany him and see you myself."
+
+She sank into the chair Pacey had placed for her, and after a
+contemptuous look round at the shabby surroundings, the doctor followed
+her example.
+
+"My brother is angry, Mr. Pacey; he is indignant on my behalf.  He
+thinks me foolish and obstinate in coming here to see you, and that I am
+lowering myself, and not displaying proper pride."
+
+"I do," said the doctor firmly.
+
+"Out of his tender love for me, Mr. Pacey," Cornel continued, with her
+sweet pathetic voice seeming to ring and find an echo in the old
+artist's heart; "but I felt it to be my duty to come to know the truth."
+
+"You have done wisely, madam," said Pacey.  "When I wrote you it was in
+the hope that you would come and save a man whom I have liked--there,
+call it sentimentality if you please--loved as a brother--I ought to
+say, I suppose, as a son."
+
+"Your letter, sir, suggested that my old schoolfellow--the man who was
+betrothed to my sister--has in some way gone wrong."
+
+Pacey bowed his head.
+
+"Cornel, dear, you hear this.  It is sufficient.  We do not wish to pry
+into Armstrong Dale's affairs.  We know enough.  Now, are you
+satisfied?"
+
+"No.--Mr. Pacey, your words have formed a bond between us greater than
+existed before.  I have heard of you so often from Armstrong, and come
+to you as our friend, in obedience to your letter.  I ask you then to
+keep nothing back, but to speak to me plainly.  Please remember that I
+am an American girl.  I think we are different from your ladies here.
+Not bolder, but firm, plain-spoken, honest and true.  We feel a true
+shame as keenly as the proudest of your patrician maidens; but we crush
+down false, and that is why I come to you instead of writing to and
+making appeals to the man whom I have known from childhood--the man who
+was betrothed to me, and who loved me dearly, as I loved him, only so
+short a time ago.  There, you see how simply and plainly I speak, the
+more so that I know you have Armstrong Dale's welfare at heart."
+
+"God knows I have," said Pacey fervently.
+
+"Then tell me plainly, Mr. Pacey."
+
+"Cornel!"
+
+"I will speak, Michael," she said gently.  "His happiness and mine
+depend upon my knowing the truth.--Mr. Pacey, I am waiting."
+
+Pacey gazed at her with his face full of reverence for the woman before
+whom he stood, but no words left his lips.
+
+"You are silent," she said calmly.  "You fear to tell me the worst.  He
+is not ill: you said so.  He cannot be in want of money.  Then it is as
+I gathered from your letter: he has been led into some terrible
+temptation."
+
+Pacey bowed his head gravely.
+
+"Now, are you satisfied?" said Thorpe earnestly.  "I knew that it was
+so."
+
+"And I clung so fondly to the hope that it was not," said Cornel, gazing
+straight before her, and as if she were thinking aloud.  Then, turning
+to Pacey--"He was becoming famous, was he not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Succeeding wonderfully with his art?"
+
+"Grandly."
+
+"And now this has all come like a cloud," sighed Cornel dreamily.  Then
+again to Pacey, in spite of her brother's frown, "Is she very
+beautiful?"
+
+Pacey paused for a moment, and then said sadly--"Very beautiful."
+
+"And does she love him as he does her?"
+
+"I fear so," said Pacey at last.
+
+Cornel drew a long and piteous sigh, and they saw the tears brimming in
+her eyes, run over, and trickle down her cheeks.
+
+"Let us go, dear," she said softly.  "I was too happy for it to last.
+Forgive me: I felt that I must know--all.  Good-bye, Mr. Pacey," she
+continued, holding out her hand, while her face was of a deadly white.
+"I am glad you wrote.  You thought it would be best, but he must love
+her better than ever he loved me, and perhaps it is for his
+advancement."
+
+"It is for his ruin, I tell you," cried Pacey fiercely.
+
+"But you said she loved him.  Is she not true and good?"
+
+"Girl!" cried Pacey, with his brows knotted by the swelling veins, "can
+the devil who tempts a man in woman's form be true and good?"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Ejaculation as much as sigh, and accompanied by a wild look of horror.
+Then, with her manner completely changed, Cornel laid her hand upon
+Pacey's arm.
+
+"Who is this woman?" she said firmly.
+
+Pacey compressed his lips, but the beautiful eyes fixed upon him forced
+the words to come, and in a low voice he muttered the Contessa's name.
+
+Then he stood looking at his visitor wonderingly, as, with her lips now
+white as if all the blood within them had fled to her heart, she said
+firmly--
+
+"And the Conte?"
+
+"Is a man of fashion--a dog--a scoundrel whom I could crush beneath my
+heel."
+
+"Cornel," cried her brother firmly, "you have heard enough: you shall
+not degrade yourself by listening to these wretched details."
+
+"Yes, I have heard enough," she said firmly; but she did not stir, only
+stood with her brows knit, gazing straight before her.
+
+"Then now you will come back to the hotel," cried the doctor eagerly.
+
+"No: not yet," she said, drawing herself up.
+
+"Not yet?" cried Thorpe, in wonder at the firmness and determination she
+displayed.
+
+"Not yet: I am going to see Armstrong Dale."
+
+"No," cried Pacey excitedly.  "You must not do that.  I will see him and
+tell him you are here.  It may bring him to his senses, and he will come
+to you."
+
+Cornel turned to him, smiling sadly.
+
+"You tell me that he is slipping away into the gulf, and when I would go
+to hold out my hands to save him, you say, `Wait, and he will come to
+you!'"
+
+"At any rate you cannot go," cried Thorpe.
+
+"Armstrong Dale is my affianced husband, and at heart, in his weakness
+and despair, he calls to me for help.  I am going to him now."
+
+"And God speed your work!" cried Pacey excitedly, "for if ever angel
+came to help man in his sorest need, it is now."
+
+The next minute, without a word, Cornel Thorpe was walking alone down
+the old staircase to the street, while Pacey and her brother followed,
+as if they were in a dream.
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+ANOTHER'S LOVE.
+
+Four days had passed, and Armstrong had not left his place, but waited,
+hoping against hope, and at last sinking into a wild state of despair.
+
+"I must have been mad," he said again and again.  "One false step leads
+to another, and I am going downward rapidly enough now."
+
+He smiled bitterly as he sat with his head resting upon his hand,
+feeling that he had driven his beautiful model away for ever, and vainly
+asking himself how it could be that so mad a passion had sprung up
+within him for a woman whose face he had never seen.
+
+Then all at once he sprang to his feet, with his eyes flashing as he
+listened eagerly, and then a strange look of triumph began to glow in
+his countenance.  "I must be more guarded," he said to himself, "or she
+will take flight again:" and catching up palette and brush, he made a
+pretence of painting as he waited with his back to the door for the
+entrance of her whose step was heard ascending the stairs in company
+with Keren-Happuch.  Then he heard the girl's voice, and his heart sank
+like lead in doubt, for he felt that the model would have come up
+without being shown.
+
+But the next moment he was full of hope as the door was opened, closed,
+and he heard the familiar rustle of the drapery, and the step across the
+floor.
+
+He did not turn, but stood there with his heart beating violently, and a
+wild desire bidding him turn round quickly and snatch the veil from his
+models face.  He was a coward, he told himself, not to have done so
+before.  What did her anger matter?  Had she not come back--penitent--
+friendly--
+
+His heart gave a great leap.
+
+--Loving, for she laid her hand upon his shoulder, and he turned round
+with a smile of triumph, to drop palette and brushes and turn white as
+ashes.
+
+"Cornel!"
+
+"Yes, Armstrong.  The world grows very small now.  You wanted me, and I
+am here."
+
+"I--I wanted you?" he faltered, as she took a step or two back, and then
+stood gazing at him wistfully, with her hands clasped before her, and a
+look of love, pity, and despair in her eyes that stung him through and
+through.
+
+"Yes, Armstrong, I heard that you were in great peril.  We were children
+together.  Armstrong--you wanted help--and--I have come."
+
+He sank into the nearest chair with a groan, and she advanced slowly and
+stood close to him.
+
+"I have felt for weeks that there was something: your letters were so
+different.  Then they became fewer; then they ceased.  But I said you
+were busy, and I waited so patiently, Armstrong, till that message
+came."
+
+"What message?" he cried hoarsely.
+
+"That which told me I ought to join Michael, and help you in this time
+of need."
+
+"Who--who wrote to you?" he cried.
+
+"There is no need to hide his name.  Your dearest friend, Mr. Pacey."
+
+"The wretched meddler!"
+
+"The true, honest gentleman you have always said he was, Armstrong.  I
+have come from him now."
+
+"The cowardly hound!" muttered Dale.
+
+"No; your truest and best friend.  He wrote to me for your sake and
+mine, Armstrong, and I have come."
+
+"What for?--to treat me with scorn and contempt?" he cried angrily,
+snatching at a chance to speak; "to tell me that all is over between us?
+Why have you not brought your brother with you, to horsewhip me and add
+his insults to your upbraidings?"
+
+"Michael is here,"--Dale started, and looked with a coward's glance at
+the door--"he is in London, but it was not his duty to come to the man
+who is my betrothed.  I came alone to ask you--if it is all true?"
+
+He drew a hoarse breath, and then forced himself to speak brutally, to
+hide the shame and agony he felt.
+
+"Yes," he said roughly; "it is all true."
+
+She winced as if he had struck her, and there was silence for a few
+moments before she spoke again, and then in a curiously changed voice,
+from her agony of heart.
+
+"No, no," she whispered at last; "it cannot be true.  It is a strange
+dream.  I cannot--I will not believe it."
+
+He strove again and again to speak, but no words would come.  He tried
+to speak gently and ask her to forgive him, but in vain; and at last,
+even more brutally than before, he cried--
+
+"I tell you it is true!  If you knew all this, how could you come?"
+
+There was a pause before Cornel spoke again, and then she drew herself
+up with an imperious gesture, and her words came firmly and full of
+defiance of the world.
+
+"I came because I heard the man I loved was beaten down and wounded in
+the fight of life, and I said--`What is it to me?--he loved me very
+dearly, and if he has been met by a strange temptation, and has fallen,
+my place is there.  I will go to him, and remind him of the past, and
+point out again the forward way.'  Armstrong, that is why I have come."
+
+He groaned, and his voice was softened now, and half-choked by the agony
+and despair at his heart.
+
+"Go back," he said, "and forget me, Cornel; I am not the man you
+thought.  I left you strong in my belief in self, ready for the fight,
+but your knight of truth and honour has turned out to be only a sorry
+pawn.  I don't ask you to forgive me: I only say, for your own sake, go,
+and forget that such a villain ever lived."
+
+"Then it is all true?" she said sternly.
+
+"I don't know what Joe Pacey has said," he cried bitterly, as he gazed
+in the sweet womanly face before him, "but I make the only reparation
+that I can.  I speak frankly, Cornel dear, and tell you that the worst
+he could say of me would not exceed the truth.  Utterly unworthy--
+utterly base--I am not fit to touch your hand."
+
+As he spoke now in his excitement, he took a step toward her, and she
+drew back.
+
+"Yes!" he cried bitterly; "you are right.  Shrink from me and go."
+
+"No," she said, after another pause, "I will not shrink from you; I will
+not upbraid; I will only say to you, Tear these scales from your eyes,
+and see, as Armstrong Dale, my old playfellow--brother--lover--used to
+see.  Break from the entanglement, like the man you always were, and be
+yourself again."
+
+"No!" he groaned, "I am no longer master of myself.  For God's sake,
+go!"
+
+"And leave you to this--caught in these toils, to struggle wildly for a
+time, and for what?--a life of misery and repentance?  It is not true;
+you are too strong for this.  Armstrong, for your own sake--for all at
+home--one brave effort.  Pluck her from your heart."
+
+He looked at her sadly for a few moments, and then shook his head.
+
+"Impossible!" he groaned.  "It is too late."
+
+"No!" she cried excitedly; "even on the very edge there is time to drag
+you away.  Armstrong--I cannot bear it--come with me, dearest.  You
+loved me once; you made me care for you and think of you as all the
+world to me.  This woman--she cannot love you as I do, dear.  For I do
+love you with all my poor heart.  Don't quite break it, dear, for I
+forgive you everything, only come back with me now.  Do you not hear me?
+I forgive you everything, and you will come."
+
+She staggered toward him with her arms open to clasp him to her breast,
+but he shrank away with a groan of despair.
+
+"No," he said; "it is too late--too late!"
+
+She heaved a piteous sigh, and her hands fell to her sides.  Then, with
+her head bent, she walked slowly to the door, passed out, and he heard
+her steps descending.  A few moments later there were voices in the
+hall, followed by the heavy closing of the door, which seemed to shut
+him for ever from all that was good and true, alone with his despair as
+he turned to his canvas, where he gazed upon the form he had created,
+apparently the only memory of a mad passion which had crushed him to the
+earth.
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+GAGE OF BATTLE.
+
+"You, Mr. Pacey?  Where is my brother?"
+
+"Gone back to the hotel.  Left me to wait till you came out.--Seen him?
+Bah!  I needn't have asked that."
+
+Cornel was silent for a few moments as she walked on side by side with
+her strange-looking companion.
+
+"Why did my brother go back to the hotel?"
+
+"To cool himself."
+
+Cornel looked round wonderingly.
+
+"Temper," said Pacey shortly.  "Said he couldn't contain himself; that
+he was mad to let you come to see Armstrong; and at last I persuaded him
+to go back, and said I'd see you safely to the hotel."
+
+"And do you think I was doing wrong to go, Mr. Pacey?" she said, turning
+upon him her candid eyes.
+
+"No: I stood out here feeling more religious than I have these twenty
+years.  Ah! you don't understand.  Never mind.  Tell me you've brought
+him to his senses."
+
+Corners brow contracted, and she shook her head.
+
+"Oh, but you should have done, my dear," cried Pacey angrily.  "You've
+been too hard upon him.  Try and forgive him just a little bit.  It's
+life and death, ruin and destruction to as fine a lad as ever stepped."
+
+"Yes," said Cornel piteously.
+
+"Then you shouldn't have been so stern with him, you know.  He has been
+a blackguard; he deserves something.  I am more bitter with him than
+ever, but, my dear--don't flinch because I speak so familiarly: I'm old
+enough to be your father--I say, if there is to be no forgiveness,
+there'll be very few of us men in heaven, I'm afraid, for we're a bad
+lot, my child, a very bad lot, though I don't think it's all our fault."
+
+Cornel looked up at him again, with her nether lip quivering.
+
+"That's right," said Pacey; "I don't know much about women, but that
+means being sorry for him just a little.  Now, look here: don't you
+think you and I might go back together, and I leave you with him five
+minutes while you bring him to his knees, and then promise to forgive
+him some day?"
+
+Pacey stopped short to say this, and took a half turn to go back.  To
+his surprise, Cornel placed her hand upon his arm.
+
+"Take me out of this busy street," she whispered, "or I shall break
+down.  You do not know how I pleaded to him and offered him
+forgiveness."
+
+"You did?"
+
+"Yes," in a faint whisper, "I offered to forgive everything if he would
+come away."
+
+"And he wouldn't?  You tell me he wouldn't?"
+
+"No!" in the faintest of whispers.
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Pacey, as he hurried her along.  "That settles it then.
+You offered to forgive him, and he refused?  Then you've had an escape,
+my dear.  He is not worthy of another thought.  There, let me take you
+back to your brother.  I thought better of him, and that the sight of
+the sweetest, truest little woman who ever breathed would bring him to
+his senses--make a man of him again.  There, I'm very sorry--no, I'm
+not, for I've done my duty by him, and you've done yours."
+
+"No, we have not," said Cornel, growing firmer once more.  "There is
+much to do yet.  This lady--this Contessa?"
+
+"Well, what about her?" said Pacey, frowning.
+
+"You told me that she is very beautiful."
+
+"Yes, and so is some poison--clear as crystal."
+
+"You know, then, where she lives?"
+
+"Oh yes, I know where she lives," growled Pacey savagely.
+
+"Take me to her."
+
+Pacey shook himself free, and literally glared at the plainly dressed
+girl at his side.
+
+"I wish you would take me to her, Mr. Pacey.  I must see her at once."
+
+"You?  You see her?  That tiger lily of a woman!  No, that won't do at
+all."
+
+"Mr. Pacey, I must see her.  I have failed with Armstrong, but something
+tells me that I may succeed with her."
+
+"But do you know what sort of a woman she is?"
+
+"A lady of title, beautiful and rich."
+
+"Oh yes; but, my dear child, you who are as fresh as a little
+lily-of-the-valley, what could you say to her?  Why, she is a heartless
+woman of fashion, proud as a female Lucifer, and you would only be
+exposing yourself to insult."
+
+"She would injure herself more than me," replied Cornel.  Then, after
+they had walked a few yards in silence, she turned to her companion.
+
+"Mr. Pacey, you are Armstrong's most trusted friend?"
+
+"I was once, but that's over now."
+
+"No; true friends do not leave those they love when they are in their
+sorest need.  I must--I will save Armstrong from this woman's toils.  He
+has ceased to love me, but I cannot, when a word might save him, keep
+back that word.  Take me to this lady's home."
+
+"But, my dear Miss Thorpe--"
+
+"I have known you for over a year, Mr. Pacey, though we only met to-day
+for the first time."
+
+"Yes; and I've known you, my dear," said Pacey, "though he never half
+did you justice."
+
+"Then I am Cornel Thorpe to you.  Now listen: we must save him."
+
+"But--"
+
+"What is this lady's name?"
+
+"The Contessa Dellatoria."
+
+"Take me to her at once."
+
+"And she could not master him?" muttered Pacey.  "She masters me."
+
+He was already walking her on fast towards Portland Place, where fortune
+favoured the mission, for a carriage and pair passed them, driven
+rapidly, as they were close to the house, and Pacey told his companion
+that the fashionably dressed lady leaning back was the Contessa, with
+the effect of making Cornel hasten her pace after quitting Pacey's arm;
+while, resigning himself to the inevitable, he advanced more slowly,
+watching the scene before him as the carriage stopped.  The footman ran
+up and gave a thundering knock and heavy peal, with the result that the
+door was thrown open at once, two more servants waiting to receive their
+lady.
+
+By the time the steps were rattled down, and Valentina had alighted,
+Cornel was at her side, pale and trembling, in her simple, plainly cut
+black dress, cloak, and bonnet with its thin silk veil.
+
+"Can I speak to you, madam?" she said faintly.  The Contessa turned upon
+her in wonder, and Cornel shrank for the moment from the beautiful,
+magnificently dressed woman.
+
+"Speak to me?" she said haughtily, as her eyes swept over the American
+girl.  Then, as she walked towards the door, "Who are you? what are
+you--a hospital nurse?"
+
+"Sometimes," said Cornel, fighting hard to be firm.
+
+"Oh, I see: then you want a subscription for your charity.  This is
+neither the time nor the place."  The Contessa swept on, but Cornel was
+at her side again before she could reach the door.
+
+"No, no, madam, you are mistaken," she cried in a low voice.  "I wish
+to--I must see you."
+
+Valentina's eyes dilated a little, and she looked wonderingly at the
+speaker.
+
+"I--I have a message for you.  I must speak to you.  Take me to your
+room, for Heaven's sake."
+
+A policeman was approaching, and the butler stepped out, saying
+significantly--
+
+"Shall I speak to the young person, my lady?"  No answer was vouchsafed,
+for just then Cornel caught the Contessa by the arm and whispered--
+
+"You must see me, madam.  It is life or death to one you know--one whom,
+I believe, you would not injure."
+
+"Hush!  Who cure you?"
+
+"A stranger from a distant land, madam."  Valentina started, and the
+rich blood flushed to her cheeks.
+
+"I landed from America yesterday.  Pray hear me.  Your future depends
+upon it, and--perhaps--my life."
+
+The Contessa made a sign to Cornel to follow, and entered the door; and
+a minute after, as Pacey passed slowly by, he ground his teeth when he
+heard the coachman say to the footman, who was crossing the pavement
+with a shawl over one arm, and a basket containing a carriage clock,
+scent bottle, card case, and Court Guide--
+
+"I say, Dicky, what game do you call that?"
+
+"Last noo dodge for raising the wind," said the footman, and he went in
+and closed the door.
+
+"A hurricane, I should say," muttered Pacey.  "Poor little girl, can she
+face the storm?--I don't know though--there's a strength in her that
+masters me."
+
+Meanwhile Lady Dellatoria led the way to the boudoir, held aside the
+portiere, and signed to Cornel to enter.  Then following, the great
+velvet curtain was dropped, and they stood face to face, scanning each
+other's features, and measuring the one whom a natural instinct taught
+each to consider the great enemy of her life.  Cornel's heart sank as
+she stood thus in the presence of her beautiful rival.  For the moment,
+she was ready to sink into one of the luxurious lounges, and sob for
+very despair as she felt how unlikely it was that Armstrong could still
+care for the simple homely girl who had come across the wide ocean to
+save him--him, a willing victim to one who gazed at her with such
+contempt, and who at last broke the silence.
+
+"Well," she said, "I have granted your request.  Why do you not speak?"
+
+"I was thinking, madam, how beautiful you are."
+
+Valentina smiled faintly, and raised her eyebrows.  It was such an old
+compliment paid to her.
+
+"You wished to speak to me about some one I know.  Have you brought a
+message?  Who are you?"
+
+"I am the poor American girl to whom Armstrong Dale plighted his troth
+before he left us to make his name and fame."
+
+The Contessa's eyes were slightly veiled.  It was no message then from
+him, and she avoided the searching eyes, so full of innocence and truth,
+that gazed at her, as she said huskily--
+
+"Well, what is that to me?"
+
+Cornel looked at her wonderingly, asking herself whether there was a
+mistake; but growing confident, she went on--
+
+"This, madam: my lover--I speak to you in the homely fashion of our
+people--my lover came here to England, and his success was beyond my
+wildest dreams.  We wrote to each other, and we were happy in the
+expectation of our future, till he saw you, and then--all was changed."
+
+"Is this the beginning of some romance?  But, of course--your
+love-story."
+
+"Yes, madam, and no romance.  But I do not come to speak angrily to
+you--I do not heap reproaches upon your head.  I come to you simply as
+one woman in suffering should appeal to another."
+
+The Contessa made a contemptuous gesture.
+
+"In my simple, faithful love for the man pledged to be my husband--the
+man who has sinned against me in what is but a base love for you--I am
+ready to forgive him, and look upon the past as dead.  And now I come as
+a suppliant to you, asking you to set him free, that he may sin no
+more."
+
+"What!  How dare you?" cried the Contessa.  "Such words to me!"
+
+"From his promised wife, madam!  Yes: I dare tell you, because, with all
+your wealth and beauty, even your power over his weakness, I am stronger
+in my right.  You have blinded him--turned him from the path of duty--
+you are the destroyer of his future."
+
+"Absurd, girl!  This Mr. Dale, the artist employed by my husband--surely
+in his vanity he has not dared--"
+
+She ceased speaking, and shrank from Cornel's clear, candid gaze.
+
+"No, madam, he has not dared--he has not spoken.  He does not know that
+I have taken this step."
+
+"Most unwisely."
+
+"No, madam, I know that I am acting wisely--in his interest and yours."
+
+"My good girl, this is insufferable.  If you were not a stranger to our
+customs in England, I would not listen to you."
+
+"There is no custom, madam, in a woman's love, here or in America.
+Heart speaks to heart.  He is my promised husband: give him back to me.
+I plead to you for your own sake as well as mine."
+
+"This is mere romance."
+
+"Again I say no, madam, but the truth.  Think of your peril, too."
+
+"Silence!"
+
+"I will not be silent," said Cornel firmly.  "You love him: I see it in
+your quivering lips, and the blood that comes and goes in your cheek.
+You hate me, madam, as a rival.  Well, let me prove your love for him."
+
+"Will you be silent, girl?" cried the Contessa hastily.
+
+"No; I must speak now.  You would not have listened to me so long had I
+not spoken truth.  You love him--you dare not deny it.  Well, I love him
+too, and I tell you that your love came like a blight upon his life."
+
+"Woman, will you--"
+
+"No; I will not be silent," said Cornel firmly: "but even if I ceased to
+speak, my words would ring in your ears.  It is not love that holds him
+to you, or you to him, but a blind mad passion, the destroyer of you
+both.  Call it love if you will, but prove that love by giving him up to
+return to his old, peaceful life."
+
+"And your arms?" whispered the Contessa maliciously.
+
+"Ah!  The proof!" cried Cornel.  "No one but a spiteful rival could have
+spoken that.  But your love is not as mine.  I will not ask you to give
+him back to me, but to set him free before some horror descends upon you
+both.  Your husband--"
+
+"Hush!"
+
+Valentina gave a quick look round, and Cornel flushed in her eagerness
+as she exclaimed--
+
+"The shadow over both your lives!  You know it.  Now, madam, prove your
+love by freeing him from such a risk.  How can you call it love that
+threatens him with danger and disgrace!"
+
+"And if I tell you that you, a foolish, jealous girl, are conjuring up
+all this in your excited brain--that I have listened to you patiently--
+and that I will hear no more?"
+
+"I will tell you that your love for Armstrong is a mockery and snare,
+that you throw down the guage, and that I will save him from you yet."
+
+"And how?  Bring some false charge against him to my husband?  Set about
+some lying slander on my name?"
+
+"Bring you to public shame--bring disgrace upon the head of the man I
+love?  No, madam.  You refuse my offer?--No: you will hear me.  Give him
+up, as I will for his sake--woman--sister--am I to plead in vain?"
+
+The Contessa pointed to the door.
+
+"Yes," said Cornel quietly.  "I will go, but I will save him yet."
+
+"Then it is war," muttered the Contessa, whose eyes contracted as she
+stood listening as if expecting a return; "and you will save him?  Yes:
+to take to your heart?  Not yet."
+
+She hurried to the window as the faint sound of the closing door was
+heard, and held aside the curtain, so as to gaze down the wide place,
+and see Cornel take Pacey's arm, and, as if weak and suffering, walk
+slowly away.
+
+"Bah!  What is she to me, with her pitiful schoolgirl love?--`Save him
+yet!'"
+
+She crossed the room and rang.  Then, throwing herself into a lounge,
+she waited till the servant entered.
+
+"Is your master in?"
+
+"No, my lady.  Lady Grayson called.  Gone to the Academy, I think."
+
+"That will do."
+
+Left alone, Valentina sprang to her feet, and pressed her temples.
+
+The next minute, with a smile upon her lip, and an intense look as of a
+set purpose in her eye, she went slowly from the room.
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN.
+
+CHECK.
+
+What to do?
+
+Armstrong's constant question to himself.
+
+His determination, arrived at again and again, was to flee at once from
+the horrible passion which was sapping the life out of him--his insane
+love for a woman who evidently despised him, and whose face he had never
+seen.
+
+He argued that, by going right away to Rome, Florence, or even merely to
+Paris, he would avoid Lady Dellatoria, who would soon forget him as he
+would forget this Italian woman, who--he could not explain to himself
+why--had, as it were, woven some spell round him and made him half mad.
+
+He reasoned with himself, called upon the teaching of his early life,
+mocked at his folly, and told himself that he had got the better of the
+insane passion--that he had disgusted this woman by his insults, and
+that he was free, for she would come no more.  But in another hour he
+was watching for her coming, and trying to contrive some means of
+tracing her, and begging her to come again.
+
+Why?--that he might stand spell-bound again before that masked face,
+tortured, enslaved, and in greater despair than ever?
+
+"It is of no use!" he muttered passionately.  "I have not the mental
+strength of a child.  I must go right away from the horrible
+temptation--and at once."
+
+He made a step or two toward his room.  He had money enough; a few
+things could be packed, and in an hour he might be on his way to Dover.
+After that the world was before him, so that he could seek for peace.
+
+No.  Michael Thorpe and his sister were in London.  It would be the act
+of a coward to flee now, and be dragging himself down lower still in
+their eyes.  He could not go: Michael Thorpe would be sure to come
+before long, he felt, and he wished he would.  It would be a relief to
+have some savage quarrel.  Hah! there was an opportunity: Pacey, who had
+betrayed him and brought Cornel over for that shameful scene, after
+which he had felt that his life had better end.
+
+"No," he said half aloud, "I can't quarrel with poor old Joe.  He meant
+well, and he was right.  But I cannot leave London now."
+
+He burst into a mocking laugh the next minute, for he would not indulge
+in self-deceit.  He knew that it was not merely the dread of being
+thought cowardly which kept him there, but his mad passion for this
+woman, who treated him as if he were a dog.
+
+Then he grew calmer, and tried to reason with himself.  She had not
+treated him as a dog.  Her conduct had been irreproachable.  No lady
+could have been more modest or refined in her conduct throughout.  She
+had come there merely as a model, and he had conceived this strange
+passion for her in spite of distant coldness, and complete disdain.  He
+remembered in a score of things how she had borne herself as if
+conferring a favour by coming and taking his money; and he knew, too,
+how it was forced upon her by her filial affection.
+
+"No!" he groaned, "she is not to blame.  I shall never see her more,
+thank Heaven! and in time the recollection will die out."
+
+His eyes reverted to the picture, as this thought held him for the
+moment, and he again laughed bitterly and cried aloud, while gazing at
+the beautiful figure which inspiration and the work of his brush had
+placed upon the canvas.
+
+"Die out, while she is there to renew my passion hour by hour, minute by
+minute!  Curse the picture!" he raged.  "Why did I ever conceive the
+vile thought?"
+
+He stepped to it and tore off the paper which covered the face.
+
+The next moment he had stepped back, startled and wondering at the
+perfection of his art, as Lady Dellatoria's eyes seemed to be gazing
+passionately into his.
+
+He shivered and turned away, holding one hand to his brow.
+
+"I am ill," he said, in a low, muttering tone, "unstrung, half wild.
+Well, this shall be the first step toward a cure;" and, taking a large
+Spanish knife from among the knick-knacks upon the table, he felt the
+point and edge, stepped forward, and was in the act of thrusting the
+blade through the canvas close to the frame, when the door-handle
+rattled, and the grimy face of Keren-Happuch was thrust in.
+
+"She's come again," said the girl gleefully.
+
+"The lady who was here yesterday?" cried Dale, throwing the knife from
+him.
+
+"No, sir; her!" cried the girl.  "She's coming up now."
+
+She pointed to the canvas as she spoke, and Dale involuntarily turned to
+see the counterfeit presentment of Lady Dellatoria looking at him from
+the group with indignant scorn, and as if enraged at his mad passion for
+the model whose steps were now heard as the girl slipped out.
+
+"It is fate!" muttered Dale, as the door was flung open, and the closely
+veiled and cloaked figure stood before him.
+
+For some moments neither spoke.  The model stood just within the closed
+door, proud and imperious in her pose, and with the glint of her eyes
+flashing through the thick veil, while, a prey to his emotion, Armstrong
+strove to find words as the struggle within him continued.
+
+He would master himself, he thought.  It was madness, and he called upon
+his manhood to protect this woman, who trusted to him, from a repetition
+of his last insult.
+
+"You have returned, then," he said to her coldly, but with his voice
+trembling.
+
+"Yes, monsieur," she replied, in her peculiarly accented French.  "It
+was necessary.  Monsieur wishes me to continue?"
+
+He made a sign toward the door at the other end of the studio, and she
+seemed to hesitate, but the next moment she walked firmly across to the
+room and disappeared, while Dale fastened the outer door.
+
+Then mechanically drawing the easel into its proper position in the
+light, he took up palette and brushes, and stood gazing straight before
+him, his nerves astrain, and pulses beating with a heavy dull throb.
+
+His back was to the entrance of his room, and with a mist before his
+eyes he waited, ignorant of how the time passed till he heard the door
+behind him open, and the rustling sound of the heavy cloak as it swept
+over the rug-covered floor.
+
+Then, with every sense at its acutest pitch, he felt her approach till
+she was close behind his chair on her way to the dais.
+
+The model stopped suddenly, and he turned to see that she was gazing
+fixedly at the uncovered face upon the canvas, as if struck by the
+intense gaze of the goddess's eyes.
+
+It was almost momentary, that pause.  Then she continued her way to the
+dais, and mounted it to resume her familiar attitude, and, once more,
+Dale began to paint; a quarter of an hour before about to destroy, now
+eagerly bent upon finishing the task, while the piercing eyes gleamed
+through the veil, and seemed to pierce him.
+
+"It is fate!" he muttered, as those eyes fixed his, meeting them through
+the veil; but was it lovingly tempting him, or watching him in dread--a
+dread born of the doubt he inspired at the last visit?
+
+He could not tell, but everything of the past died away in that present,
+and in a voice which he hardly knew as his own, he said softly--
+
+"Why were you so angry with me last time?"
+
+There was no reply, but the eyes gleamed distrustfully through the veil.
+
+"You are angry still," he continued.  "Was it so great an offence to ask
+you to discard your veil?"
+
+"Monsieur is wasting time," was the reply, and he went on using his
+brush angrily for a few minutes.
+
+"Tell me," he said at last, "why you are so obstinate?  Do you not wish
+me to see your face?"
+
+She shook her head quickly, and he watched her, telling himself that
+there was something coquettish in the act.
+
+"But you will not refuse me now?" he said.  "I beg--I pray of you--let
+me see your face."
+
+"It is not possible.  I do not wish you to know me again if we ever
+meet."
+
+"Why not?" he said eagerly.  "For Heaven's sake, do not be so distant
+with me."
+
+"I come here at your wish, monsieur, and you pay me to be your model.--
+Monsieur insults me once more."
+
+"No!" he cried passionately, as he threw down palette and brush; "a man
+cannot insult a woman he loves with all his soul."
+
+He took a step or two towards her, but with one quick movement, she
+stooped and swung the great cloak about her shoulders, and, unseen by
+him, caught up the knife he had so recently held.  The next moment she
+made for the inner room, but he intercepted her.
+
+"No, no!" he cried wildly.  "You must not leave me again like this.
+Listen: you will hear me.  Once for all, you shall remove that veil."
+
+"I--will--not," she cried firmly.  "Why does monsieur wish to see my
+face?"
+
+"You, as a woman, know," he cried, in a low, excited voice.  "It is of
+no use.  I must speak now.  I tell you again, I love you."
+
+"It is not true!" she whispered.  "You dare to tell me that, when I know
+that it is not true.  That is the woman whom you love, monsieur!" and
+she pointed scornfully at the face upon the canvas.
+
+"No!" he cried, half startled by her manner, "I swear that you are
+wrong."
+
+"It is her portrait, monsieur."
+
+"It is no one's portrait.  Imagination, every stroke," he cried.  "Now
+let me see the face of the woman I really love."
+
+He raised one hand to snatch off the veil, but with a quick movement she
+sprang from him, and, with her eyes gleaming through the film, flung one
+white arm from the cloak, gave her wrist a turn, and he saw that she was
+holding the great Spanish knife dagger-wise, with the point towards his
+breast.
+
+"Don't come near me, or it will be your death," she panted.
+
+"Ah!" he said, with a half-laugh, as, stirred now to the deepest depths,
+he bent forward trying to penetrate her disguise, but without avail;
+"can you punish me so cruelly as that for loving you?  Well, you have
+made me yours, and it is my fate.  Better death than the misery I have
+suffered, the despair of losing you and not seeing you again."
+
+"It is a mockery!" she cried, and her voice now was strangely altered.
+"A man cannot love a woman whose face he has not seen."
+
+"You know that is not true," he whispered, as he still advanced, and she
+now began to retreat--"you know I love you with all my soul.  I have
+told you so, and you know it in your heart."
+
+"Keep back!" she cried huskily, as she retreated, keeping the
+knife-point toward his breast.
+
+"No!  Remove your veil."
+
+"Bah!" she cried contemptuously, and with her voice resuming its former
+tone.  "Go, monsieur; dwell upon and love your picture when I am gone."
+
+"No; I love you, the living, breathing embodiment.  Now, if I die for
+it, I will see your face."
+
+He stretched out one hand, and touched her veil, but it was tightly
+knotted behind her head, and with her left hand she caught his fingers
+and held them firmly, their warm contact sending a thrill through every
+nerve.
+
+At the same moment, he felt the point of the knife touch his breast, but
+he did not shrink, only struggled to free his hand.
+
+Then, as if moved by the same impulse, they remained motionless, gazing
+into each other's eyes, and he felt her warm breath upon his lips.
+
+"Then you do love me?" she whispered in a voice that, in its soft
+passionate tones, made every fibre vibrate in strange music to the
+melody of her utterance.
+
+"More than life," he whispered back.  "You see."
+
+A low mocking laugh came from her lips as she loosened her grasp, flung
+up her hands, and the knife fell far away upon the floor.  Then, with a
+sudden movement, as he seized her waist and drew her to him, she threw
+herself back, snatched off the veil, flung it upon the dais, and clasped
+her arms about his neck.
+
+"Valentina!--You!"
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY.
+
+THE CONTRETEMPS.
+
+A mingling of rage, passion, disappointment, and delight swept over Dale
+at the revelation.  One moment he wondered at his blindness in not
+divining long before that it was she; then at her daring recklessness,
+and the skill with which she had played her part, deceiving him
+completely to the very end.
+
+And as she gazed in his eyes, clasped then in his arms, yielding as he
+did to what he told himself again was fate, a mystery which he could not
+unravel, he asked himself the question, did he love her or did he not?
+His passion had been for another woman, and paradoxically it was she
+from whom he had literally lied, and from whom, had she come openly, he
+would have turned in disgust.
+
+And yet how beautiful she was.  What love and passion beamed from the
+half-closed eyes that sought his, as her lips murmured words that told
+him she was his at last, as he was hers, her very own; while, mastered
+by her tenderness, he found no words then of angry reproach or blame.
+
+"Venus victrix."  She had brought him to her feet, but there was no
+sound of triumph in her tones.  Every word was a caress, and he found
+himself wondering that he could ever have treated her with the coldness
+he had shown.
+
+"I knew you loved me," she murmured in his ear, "and that in your mad
+belief in what you told yourself was your duty, you were punishing
+yourself and me.  It was a mere schoolboy friendship pledged years ago,
+against which nature rebelled.  For the first time in my unhappy life I
+knew what it was to love, and knowing, as a woman soon divines, that you
+loved me, I felt a new joy in my heart that I was so beautiful, and that
+it pleased you, the only man I ever felt that I cared for--that I did
+love, for I knew that you were mine as I was yours.  And so I had no
+hesitation about running all the risks I have, deceiving even Lady
+Grayson, who watches me like a cat.  I said in my heart that I would
+dare all, even to degrading myself--no: it was no degradation, for it
+was for the sake of him I loved.  But tell me now; you did know me from
+the beginning?"
+
+"I swear I had not the least idea," he said angrily.
+
+"You had not," she sighed; and then mockingly, "and, cruel to the last,
+you began to love another as you thought.  I saw it growing from the
+first, and for a minute it made me angry, and ready to turn and revile
+you, instead of carrying on the deceit; but a feeling of intense joy ran
+through me, for was not all your loving passion for me--was I not
+winning you to confess the love you always did feel, though blindly
+thinking that you had conquered self?  You did love me--did you not?"
+
+"Yes, I always loved you," he whispered, "and I fought so hard for both
+our sakes."
+
+"And lost," she said with a laugh.  "I have won.  No, no," she whispered
+caressingly, "don't repulse me now.  You are so much to me.  But yes, if
+you will.  I do not mind.  Strike your poor slave if you wish; she will
+never murmur or complain.  Your blows would be like tender caresses to
+me now, for your words have dragged me forth from an age of misery and
+despair into a new life of hope and brightness and joy.  You told me you
+loved me with all your soul."
+
+"No, no," he cried angrily, in his last struggle for truth and honour;
+"it is not true.  It was all an imaginary passion for an imaginary
+being."
+
+"Am I an imaginary being?" she whispered, as she wreathed her arms about
+him and drew him to her breast.  "No, no; it was all a solemn truth, the
+outspeaking of your heart to the only woman you love.  You could not lie
+to me, my hero--my idol.  What is the world to us, Armstrong?  You
+cannot retract your words.  I have won you--my own--my own.  You can
+never leave me now."
+
+As those words left her lips, Dale started from her arms, for a carriage
+had stopped, and a heavy double knock resounded through the house.
+
+Valentina stood listening as Dale crossed rapidly to the door, unlocked
+it, and returned, after relocking it, silently.
+
+"Well?" she said calmly, "a visitor?  Send him away."
+
+"Your husband," he whispered.
+
+"Bah!" she cried contemptuously.  "The man the world calls my husband--
+the wretch who bought me as he would some trinket that gratified his
+eye."
+
+"But the risk--the scandal," he whispered.  "For your sake--there,
+dearest, for your sake," he whispered, as he clasped her to his breast.
+
+"Yes, you do love me," she said softly.
+
+"There, quick! in there!  He must not know."
+
+"And why?" she said calmly, as she clung to him.  "I do not fear him;
+and as for you," she cried, with a look of pride, "you are brave and
+strong.  Let him come: kill him as you would some wretched snake."
+
+He gazed at her half in wonder, half in horror, as she laughed
+mockingly, but there was a look of intense hatred and disgust in her
+eyes which told him how truly earnest were her words--how great her
+loathing for this man.
+
+At that moment there was a tapping at the door, and Dale crossed to it
+quickly.
+
+"Yes?" he said.
+
+"This gent would like to see you, sir," came in Keren-Happuch's voice,
+and a card was shot under the door.
+
+He caught it up, and hesitated a moment.
+
+"Not at home," he said.
+
+"Please, sir, I said as you was."
+
+"Then show him up," said Dale desperately, and darting across to where
+Valentina stood, he pointed to the inner door.
+
+"Quick!" he cried.
+
+"For your sake, yes," she said, smiling calmly enough; but as he threw
+open the door, she flung one arm about his neck, and pressed her lips to
+his before he closed it upon her.
+
+Then crossing quickly, he unfastened the other, caught up palette and
+brush, and dragged his great canvas round with its face to the wall.
+
+He had not a moment to spare, for as he faced round, firm and defiant
+now, ready for anything that might come, Keren-Happuch entered, looked
+round wide-eyed and wondering for the model, and held the door wide for
+the Conte to enter.
+
+Her position and the glance she gave round were not lost upon Armstrong,
+who frowned at her so severely that she hurried out.
+
+"The crisis!" thought Dale, growing firm now that he was face to face
+with danger; and his eyes involuntarily measured his visitor's physique.
+
+The Conte's first words set him wondering whether they were genuine or
+part of a plan laid by the wily Italian.  For his face was smooth and
+smiling, and he came forward offering his hand in the frankest manner.
+
+"Ah! my dear Mr. Dale," he cried, "it is a pleasure to see you again."
+
+Armstrong could not help taking the hand, but his grasp was cold and
+limp as that of his visitor.
+
+Then, unasked, the Conte placed his glass in his eye, took out a
+cigarette, and gave it a wave.
+
+"May I?" he said.
+
+Armstrong bowed coldly, and the little, wrinkled, elderly-looking man
+struck a scented fusee, lit his cigarette, glanced round and seated
+himself.
+
+"And how do the fine arts march?" he said cheerily.  "By the way," he
+continued, without waiting to be answered, "my dear Mr. Dale, I was
+close by, and I thought I would call to ask if you have reconsidered
+that decision of yours?"
+
+"My decision?" said Dale, following his example.
+
+"Yes; about her ladyship's portrait.  We were discussing it this
+morning.  I believe I introduced the subject, but her ladyship took to
+it eagerly.  You will go on with it?"
+
+"Surely, my lord, there are plenty of better artists in London who will
+be glad to undertake the commission," said Dale quietly.
+
+"Perhaps so, but you began the sketch, and we were so well satisfied
+that we wish you to continue it."
+
+"Then he suspects nothing," Armstrong said to himself; and for the
+moment he felt ready to agree to the proposal.  But directly after, a
+suspicious idea came to him.  Suppose this were a deeply laid plan to
+entice him to the Conte's place, so that an opportunity might be
+afforded for a discovery?
+
+He had gone through so much excitement of late that his brain felt
+confused, and he was unable to calculate coolly.  At the first he had
+decided in his own mind that the Conte must be aware of his wife's
+visits to the studio, and had now tracked her there.  All this talk then
+was for some ulterior reason, and in all probability he was waiting for
+an excuse to search the place, or else to trap her when she tried to
+leave.  For aught the young artist knew, there might be half-a-dozen
+spies about the place, waiting to see her go, and his brow grew rugged
+with the intensity of his thoughts.
+
+The Conte rose from his seat, and Dale started up.
+
+"No, no; don't move," said the Conte.  "I was only about to look round
+while you thought the matter over.  Ah! you object?  Good.  I will
+reserve myself for your show day.  Pardon, a thousand times."
+
+He resumed his seat, smiling, while in agony Dale thought of the great
+picture not twenty feet from where his visitor had stood.
+
+"My proposal troubles you, I see; but why let it, my friend?  Let us
+consider it as men of the world--as we did at first.  It will do you
+good as an artist--it will do me good amongst my friends, for I shall be
+proud to see the face of my beautiful wife--a lady of society--upon the
+Academy walls.  We made our little arrangement--I will not insult you by
+talking of money--and all was well.  Then came this little pique.  I
+affronted you by some thoughtless remark, and you retired."
+
+Dale was about to speak, but the Conte interrupted him.
+
+"One word, my friend, and I have done.  It is my wife's wish that the
+picture should be finished; it is mine.  I apologise as one gentleman to
+another.  Now, say that I am pardoned, and that you will do it."
+
+The temptation was terribly strong.  This man begged him to come; it
+meant endless freedom, the run of the house, and constant meetings with
+Valentina; but Dale's manly instincts rose in revolt against so
+degrading an intimacy.  He and the Conte could only be deadly enemies,
+and he rose slowly from his seat.
+
+"It is impossible, sir," he said.  "I thank you for your consideration
+and your apology, but I must hold to my decision.  I cannot--I will not
+commence the portrait again."
+
+"You are too hasty, Mr. Dale.  Take time.  With your permission I will
+smoke another cigarette.  Let us talk of other things."
+
+"No, sir," replied Armstrong; "let us talk of this, and let me tell you
+plainly that I cannot and will not undertake this commission."
+
+"But, my dear friend, you did undertake it."
+
+"And repented almost at once," said Armstrong bitterly.
+
+"You English--I mean you Americans--are too hard and decisive," said the
+Conte, with a smile and shrug.  "Ah, as you know, everything depends
+upon the diplomat.  I am a poor ambassador.  I should have brought
+Madame the Contessa here to plead to you."
+
+Armstrong could not suppress a start, and he looked keenly at the Conte,
+whose eyes seemed to be fixed searchingly upon his, as if to read the
+secret thoughts of his heart.  And now he felt sure that all this was
+subterfuge--a means of gaining time for some reason.  He had tracked his
+wife there, and was waiting for the moment when the eruption ought to
+break forth; and a quarrel with a foreigner and for such a cause could
+only mean one thing.
+
+"Ah," said the Conte gaily, "the mention of madame has, I see, its
+effect.  Say, if she comes and pleads you will yield?"
+
+"This man is too subtle for me," thought Armstrong.  "He is playing with
+and torturing me before he strikes.  Heavens! what have I done to bring
+me into such a position?"
+
+"Come, you are giving way," cried the Conte gaily, "and I may go back
+soon--after our friendly chat, as you people call it, and tell her
+ladyship that I have made our peace."
+
+"No, sir," began Armstrong, keeping well upon his guard, in the full
+conviction that there was another motive for the visit, and determined
+to strike his visitor down if he approached the inner room.  But he was
+interrupted again.
+
+"By the way--in passing--apropos of portraits--Lady Grayson's--is it
+commenced?"
+
+"Lady Grayson's?"
+
+"Yes; you know her; you met her at our house.  My wife's bosom friend."
+
+"I remember Lady Grayson, of course, perfectly."
+
+"And you are painting her portrait?"
+
+"I regret to say that you have been misinformed, sir."
+
+"But--how strange!  Lady Grayson told us that she was going to ask you
+to undertake the commission.  Of course--yes--and she said, laughingly--
+I remember now, perfectly--that she should visit you at your studio, be
+a most perfect sitter, and that there would be no giant--no, no, it was
+ogre of a husband--to pass criticisms and offend the artist."
+
+He laughed merrily as he spoke, and twisted his cane about in a peculiar
+way, suggesting to Armstrong that he meant to strike with it at first;
+and then, as he saw a gold garter-like band around it about six inches
+from the knob, his heart gave one throb, for he felt certain that there
+was a keen rapier-like blade concealed within.
+
+But he spoke quite calmly.
+
+"Lady Grayson has been premature in her announcement, Conte.  I am under
+no promise to paint any such portrait, neither shall I undertake the
+commission."
+
+"Body of Bacchus!" cried the Conte, laughing, "how droll!  Truth is more
+strange than romance, as you people say.  Come, now, confess you have
+been too scrupulous--too secretive.--My dear Lady Grayson, this is
+wonderful.  Your name was on our lips."
+
+For as he was speaking, Keren-Happuch ushered in the fashionably dressed
+woman, gave Dale an imploring look, which plainly said, "Forgive me,"
+glanced at the fastened door, next at the dais, and then disappeared.
+
+"Ah, Conte, you here!  Mr. Dale, pray forgive me for coming unannounced.
+I want to make a petition--to lay an appeal before you."
+
+She held out her hand with a most winning smile, and then turned and
+shook hands with the Conte.
+
+"What he has been waiting for," thought Dale--"her coming--she, his
+mistress, to be a witness of his own wife's shame."
+
+There was an angry, determined look in his eyes.  A minute before, a
+feeling of misery and despair troubled him.  There was a sensation akin
+to pity in his breast for the man who was being basely deceived; but now
+rage took its place, compunction was gone, and he felt hard as steel, as
+he prepared himself for the fight, determined at all hazards to save
+Valentina from such a humiliation as this.
+
+The thoughts flew like lightning through his brain as, in her most silky
+tones, Lady Grayson addressed him.
+
+"May I lay my petition before you now, Mr. Dale?"
+
+"Oh, I will not be _de trop_," cried the Conte.  "I am going.  My dear
+Mr. Dale, you will think over that, and write to me, I am sure?"
+
+"I assure you, sir," began Dale; and then he bit his lip savagely, for
+in a playful, girlish way, Lady Grayson had stepped aside, ostensibly
+that the gentlemen might speak together; really to obtain a glimpse of
+the picture on the easel.  She succeeded, and turned back directly.
+
+"I beg pardon," she cried.  "Oh, do forgive me, Mr. Dale; it was very
+rude."
+
+Their eyes met, and he saw a look of malicious triumph in hers, which
+told him that this woman had recognised the face upon the canvas, and
+that her suspicion of the Contessa coming to sit for him was confirmed.
+
+"I do so love pictures!" she cried.  "But you need not go, Conte.  I
+will stand aside till you have finished with Mr. Dale."
+
+"Conte Dellatoria has finished his proposal to me, madam," said
+Armstrong firmly.  "I regret, sir, that I must hold to my decision."
+
+"Oh!" cried Lady Grayson, "don't say that you have refused to continue
+my dearest friend's portrait!"
+
+"Yes, madam, I have declined decisively."
+
+"Oh, but that is too cruel," cried Lady Grayson, looking quickly round
+the studio; and once more there was a look of triumph in her eyes which
+met his sparkling with malice, as they both cast them on the same
+object, which he too saw for the first time.
+
+The thick veil Valentina had snatched off, lay upon the edge of the
+dais, where she had thrown it, and a chill of horror ran through
+Armstrong as he felt that they were in this woman's power, even if he
+were wrong, and she had not been brought, as he had imagined.
+
+Then a fresh idea struck him.  He was perhaps mistaken, and his feeling
+of rage increased.  It was an assignation; they had arranged to meet
+there for some reason--why they had chosen his studio, he could not
+divine.
+
+"I am so sorry," said Lady Grayson, after an awkward pause.  "It augurs
+so badly for my success."
+
+"Shall I leave you to discuss the matter, my dear Lady Grayson?  Mr.
+Dale is a tyrant--an emperor among artists.  As for me, I am crushed."
+
+"No, no; you will stay and help me to plead.  My dear Mr. Dale, do not
+be so cruel.  I do so want to be on the line this year, and if you would
+consent to paint a poor, forlorn, helpless widow, I cannot tell you how
+grateful I should be."
+
+"It is impossible, madam," said Armstrong coldly, but with a burning
+feeling of rage against his visitors seething in his breast.  It was an
+assignation then, but Lady Grayson had divined Valentina's presence, and
+he had seen her glance again and again at the further door.  He was in a
+dilemma too: for if he refused this woman's prayer, she would perhaps
+spitefully declare all she knew to the husband.  But he cast that aside.
+If she did not speak now, she would at some other time, and in his then
+frame of mind he could only fight.  He could not fence.
+
+"Impossible!--you hear this cruel man, Conte? he is a tyrant indeed.
+Mr. Dale, is it really in vain to plead?"
+
+"I tell you again, madam, it is impossible."
+
+"But if I wait a week--a month--any time you like?"
+
+"My answer would only be the same, madam, as I have given Conte
+Dellatoria.  I can paint no more portraits for any one.  I have, I think
+I may say, painted my last."
+
+"I am disappointed," she said, giving him a peculiar look.  "But, no--
+you will not refuse me.  Come, Mr. Dale--for the Exhibition.  Only this
+one portrait at your own terms, and I will promise to preserve secrecy."
+
+The malicious look in her eyes intensified as she said these words,
+telling him plainly that she knew all, but that the Conte was, after
+all, still in ignorance.
+
+His answer would have been a promise, for the sake of the unhappy woman
+within that room; but at that moment there was a sharp rap at the door,
+Keren-Happuch opened it, and blurted out--
+
+"Oh, if you please, sir, here's that there lady as you began to paint."
+
+Dale turned upon her dumbfounded.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"That there countess, sir, from Portland Place."
+
+The Conte turned excitedly to Lady Grayson.
+
+"She must not find me here," he whispered.
+
+"Show the lady up," said Armstrong recklessly, for, whoever it might be,
+it would rid him of his visitors.
+
+"Yes, sir;" and the door closed.
+
+"My dear Mr. Dale," said the Conte quickly, "I must speak plainly.  I
+have reasons for not wishing to meet my wife here this morning.  You
+will not ask me to explain, but let me step in here for a few minutes
+till she is gone.  Remain here and meet her," he said in a low voice to
+Lady Grayson, and as steps were heard upon the stairs, he stepped
+quickly to the inner door.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
+
+THE RUSE.
+
+There was a puzzled look in Lady Grayson's face as Dale sprang at the
+Conte, and swung him round, sending him staggering from the door, before
+which he placed himself, his face dark with wrath.
+
+For the moment, the Italian looked utterly astounded.  Then, with a
+fierce ejaculation, he made at Dale with his cane raised, and his
+countenance convulsed.
+
+"Dog!" he muttered in Italian; and the artist clenched his fist, ready
+to proceed to any extremities now in Lady Dellatoria's defence.
+
+But Lady Grayson flew between them, whispering to the Conte eagerly, and
+Dale caught a word or two here and there--
+
+"Scandal--mistake--my sake--meet her now."  The Conte drew himself up
+and pressed Lady Grayson's hand, as he gave her a significant look.
+Then, veiling his anger with a peculiar smile, he turned to Dale.
+
+"Lady Grayson is right," he said, with grave courtesy; "it was a
+mistake.  I was quite in the wrong, Mr. Dale.  I ought not to have
+attempted to break in upon your privacy.  We all have our little
+secrets, eh?  There, it is quite past.  An accident, that Lady
+Dellatoria should be calling now when we are here?"
+
+"Yes--a very strange accident," said Lady Grayson, with a malicious look
+at the artist.
+
+"It does not matter," continued the Count.  "All this contretemps
+because ladies are vain enough to wish the world to see how beautiful
+they are.  But she is long coming, this wife of mine."
+
+No one spoke for a few moments, all standing listening for the steps
+upon the stairs, and the rustling sound of the Contessa's dress, but
+everything was perfectly still, and at last, with a shrug of the
+shoulders, the Conte turned to Armstrong.
+
+"Is the lady in some ante-room waiting for our departure?"
+
+"No," said Dale sharply.
+
+"Because we would relieve you of our company, but we would rather meet
+the lady now."
+
+"Of course," cried Lady Grayson.  "We do not wish our visit to be
+misconstrued."
+
+"I do not understand it," said Dale; and going to the bell, he rang
+sharply.  Then once more there was silence, till shuffling steps were
+heard, then a tap at the door, and Keren-Happuch entered in answer to a
+loud "Come in," wiping her hands upon her apron, and with her face
+scarlet.
+
+"Where is the lady you announced just now?" said Dale sharply.
+
+"Plee, sir, she's gone, sir."
+
+"Gone?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Lady Grayson uttered a low sigh of satisfaction.
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"Nothin', sir."
+
+"Did you tell her that this lady and gentleman were here?"
+
+"Oh no, sir.  I never said nothin' to her, sir."
+
+"But she said she would call again?"
+
+"That she didn't, sir.  She couldn't.  She just comed and goed,"
+faltered the girl.
+
+"But did she not hear our voices in the studio?"
+
+"No, sir; she couldn't.  Why, she never come no further than the
+street-door mat, and you can't hear no talking in here, even if you
+stand just outside."
+
+"Oh, you have tried?" said the Conte laughingly.  "That I hain't, sir,
+but I've seed missus more'n once."
+
+"That will do."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Keren-Happuch, but Dale checked her.
+
+"Don't go," he said.
+
+"Ah, well then, Mr. Dale, as the lady is not coming up to see us, we
+will go and see her: Mahomet to the mountain, eh! my dear Lady Grayson?
+May I see you to your carriage?"
+
+"I have no carriage here," she said quickly.  "Yes, we had better go."
+
+"After our double failure to-day; but Mr. Dale will alter his decision
+on our behalf.  Good day, my dear modern representative of Fra Lippo
+Lippi.  It is grand to be a handsome young artist," the Conte continued,
+as he took a step toward the dais, and raised something on the end of
+his cane, "supplicated by beautiful ladies to transfer their features to
+canvas; but you should warn them not to leave their veils behind when
+they take refuge in another room.  Look, my dear Lady Grayson;" and he
+held the veil toward her on the end of his cane, "thick--secretive--
+admirable for a disguise.--Come."
+
+He tossed the veil back on to the dais, and opened the door for his
+companion to pass out, while Dale stood fuming with rage, and Lady
+Grayson gave him a mocking look as he advanced.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Dale," she said laughingly, and then in a
+whisper--"secret for secret, my handsome friend.  You and I cannot play
+at telling tales out of school."
+
+"Lor', if it ain't like being at the theayter," thought Keren-Happuch,
+as the door was shut, and Dale crossed quickly to reopen it, and stand
+listening till the front door closed.  Then he came back to where the
+little maid stood waiting, while, faintly heard, came a call from below.
+
+"Keren--Hap--puch!"
+
+"Comin', mum.  Please, Mr. Dale, sir, missus is a callin' of me; may I
+go?"
+
+"Who was the lady who came just now?"  Keren-Happuch writhed slightly,
+as she looked in a frightened way in the artist's face.
+
+"Do you hear me?  I said, Who was the lady who came just now?  It was
+not the Contessa?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Was it that--that American lady?"
+
+"What! her with the pretty face, who went away crying, sir?  Oh no; it
+wasn't her."
+
+The girl's words sent a sting through him.
+
+"Then who was it?"
+
+"Please, Mr. Dale, sir, I don't like to tell you."
+
+"Tell me this instant, girl," he cried, catching her fiercely by the
+arm.
+
+"Oh, don't, please, Mr. Dale," she whimpered.  "You frighten me."
+
+"Then speak."
+
+"Yes, sir; but I shall holler if you pinch my arm, and that 'Talian
+girl'll hear me."
+
+"Who was it, then?"
+
+"Please, sir, it was a cracker."
+
+"What?"
+
+"A bit of a fib, sir.  I knowed you wanted to get rid of them two 'cause
+you'd got her as you're so fond on shut up in there."
+
+"Silence!"
+
+"Yes, sir, but missus can't hear; she's down in the kitchen."
+
+"Then nobody came?"
+
+"No, sir; I thought if I come and said that, you'd like it, because it
+would send them away.  I've often done it for missus when some one's
+been bothering her for money."
+
+"Go down," said Dale, writhing beneath the sense of degradation he felt
+at being under this obligation to the poor little slut before him.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Dale, sir; but please don't you be cross with me.  I don't
+mind missus, but it hurts me if you are."
+
+"Go down."
+
+"Yes, sir," said the girl, with a sob; and the tears began to make faint
+marks on her dirty face.  "I wouldn't ha' done it, sir, on'y I knowed
+you was in love with her and wanted to be alone."
+
+"Poor Cornel!" muttered Dale as he turned away.  "Fallen so low as this!
+If you only knew!"
+
+"Please, Mr. Dale, sir, have I done very wrong?" she whimpered.
+
+"No; go down now."
+
+"Keren--Hap--puch!"
+
+"Comin', mum," cried the girl, thrusting her head out of the door, and
+then turning back "Oh, thankye, sir.  I don't mind now."
+
+Dale fastened the door after her; and as he turned back, that of the
+inner room opened, and Valentina came out with her eyes flashing and a
+joyful look upon her face, as she took his arm and nestled to him.
+
+"We must never forget that poor, brave little drudge, dear," she
+whispered fondly.  "Don't look so serious.  All that is nothing to us."
+
+"Nothing?" he said, as he bent down, fascinated by the beautiful eyes
+which gazed so tenderly into his.
+
+"Nothing.  I am glad they came, to show you how little cause for
+compunction you have.  You see what she is--what the wretched woman is
+who gives me her sickly kisses and calls me her friend."  She clung to
+him, and passed her soft white hand over his brow as she looked into his
+eyes, her voice growing gentle like the cooing of some dove, as she
+almost whispered--
+
+"I am going now for awhile, but when I am gone don't think of me as a
+mad, reckless woman, abandoned to her passion, false to her husband and
+her oaths.  I never loved but you, Armstrong: I shall never love
+another.  Try and think of me as one who was forced into a marriage with
+that despicable wretch who in one week taught me to loathe him; and till
+I saw you I was the wretched being whose life was void, a kind of gilded
+doll upon which he hung his jewels, and whom he paraded before his
+guests, while in private my life was a mockery.  Wife?  By law, yes,
+till we can break the tie, and then you will take me to your heart,
+dear, away from all that black despairing life, to a new one all delight
+and joy.  For I shall be with you, my brave, noble--husband!  May I call
+you husband then?"
+
+She sank upon her knees, clasped her arms about him, and laid her cheeks
+against his hands, murmuring softly--
+
+"If you will take me for your wife, dearest.  If not, I should be always
+happy as your slave."
+
+He would have been more than man if he had not raised the beautiful
+appealing woman to his breast, and held her tightly there.
+
+"I love you--I love you!" she murmured, as her soft, swimming eyes gazed
+in his, "and it is misery to leave you now.  But there is all that new
+joy in my heart to keep me waiting and hopeful till I come again."
+
+"But the risk--for you?" he said.
+
+"Risk?" she laughed softly.  "You will protect me.  I must go now, and
+you will wait till your poor Italian model is here once more--she whom
+you love so well."
+
+He clasped her to his heart, and held her till she faintly struggled to
+be free, and then laughingly covered her face with the thick veil her
+husband had thrown down.
+
+"There," she said merrily.  "Now I must go.  Back to my faithful Jaggs."
+
+"What!"
+
+"He is my slave--`The Emperor,' he says you call him.  He has been my
+slave from the first day you sent him to the house.  He told me
+everything about you in answer to my questions regarding the portrait
+you had painted from memory, and then--`Armstrong does love me with all
+his heart' I said to myself, and I was ready to risk everything to win
+that love."
+
+"And did he suggest that you should be my model?" said Dale.
+
+"No; that was my idea, when he told me how hard you were pressed.  He
+helped me, and I came.  And now, once more, I must go.  It will not be
+like life until I am here again."
+
+She gave him her white hands, which he held passionately to his lips.
+Then, covering them hastily with her common gloves, she drew her cloak
+about her.
+
+"One moment," he whispered.  "The address?  Where are you now--for
+this?"
+
+"Always in your heart," she said, in a passionate whisper.  Then, "A
+rivederla," she said aloud, and was gone.
+
+"Poor Cornel!" sighed Dale, as he sank into a chair.  "Forgive me, dear.
+She is right; a boy and girl's pure gentle love, of which I am not
+worthy.  It is fate, dear, and this is really love--a love for which a
+man might sacrifice honour--even sell his very soul."
+
+So he said, for it has been written of old--"Love is blind."
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
+
+A LAST EFFORT.
+
+"Corny, I've no patience with you," cried Dr. Thorpe, as they sat at
+dinner in their hotel with a guest that evening--Joe Pacey.
+
+"Not to-night, dear," she said, with a quiet, grave smile.--"He has very
+little patience with me when he comes home tired from the hospitals,"
+she continued, turning to Pacey.  "He works too hard."
+
+"Yes: he does seem a glutton over work; but we must work hard nowadays
+to succeed."
+
+"Hah, you are right," said the young doctor.  "It was all very well a
+hundred years ago.  Plenty of medical men went through life then without
+half the knowledge I possess, while I'm a perfect baby to your big
+doctors."
+
+"No, you are not, dear," said Cornel quietly.  "You know that you stand
+first among our young medical men."
+
+"Humph! not saying much that; but this is begging the question.  I shall
+want to stay in England another three months, and, as I was saying, the
+Hudsons go back by the next boat.  I've been to the office: you can have
+a cabin, so you had better accompany them."
+
+"No, dear, I shall stay and go back with you."
+
+Thorpe pushed his chair away from the table impatiently.
+
+"My dear sister, where is your pride?"
+
+"My dear brother, where is your sympathy?"
+
+"How can I have sympathy for a girl who is so blind to her own dignity!
+Now, my dear Pacey, do you not agree with me that my sister is behaving
+very foolishly?"
+
+"No," said Pacey, holding his glass of wine to the light, shutting one
+eye and scowling at it with the other--"no, sir, I don't."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Pacey," said Cornel, laying her hand upon the table, so
+that he could take it in his and press it warmly.
+
+"Can't kiss it before company," he said, in his abrupt way.  "Please
+take it as being done--or owing."
+
+"You are as bad over the scamp as she is," cried Thorpe sharply.
+
+"Come, come, doctor," cried Pacey; "you are too hard.  If Armstrong were
+suffering from a bodily disease, you would stand by him."
+
+"Of course.  But this--"
+
+"Is a mental disease," cried Pacey, "so why blame your sister for
+standing by the patient?"
+
+"Bah!  Don't talk like that.  I haven't patience with her.  I thought
+her firm, self-reliant, and proud of her position as a woman."
+
+"Quite right," said Pacey, turning and smiling at Cornel.  "She's all
+that."
+
+"I join issue," cried Thorpe.  "No: she is neither one nor the other."
+
+"And I say that she is all three," cried Pacey, bringing his fist down
+on the table with a thump, which drew the waiters' attention.  "I beg
+pardon," he said hastily.  "No, I don't.  I'm not ashamed of my
+earnestness."
+
+"Just eight," said Thorpe, looking at his watch.  "I've a meeting to
+attend.  You will stop and talk to my sister?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+Ten minutes later they were alone, and Cornel's manner changed.
+
+"You will not mind my brother's manner to you?" she said earnestly.
+
+"Not I," replied Pacey bluffly.  "He's mad against Dale, naturally.
+Wouldn't be a good brother if he were not.  I'm mad against him, and get
+worse; every day."
+
+"But tell me now--what news have you for me?"  Pacey looked at her with
+pitying thoughtfulness, and then said gravely--
+
+"You have trusted me thoroughly since the first day we met, and made me
+your friend."
+
+"Completely," she said earnestly.
+
+"And a friend would be nothing unless sincere."
+
+"No."
+
+"I have no news, then, that is good."
+
+Cornel sighed, and rested her head upon her hand.
+
+"Can nothing be done?" she said at last.  "Oh! it is too dreadful to let
+his whole career be blasted like this!  Mr. Pacey, you are his friend;
+pray, pray, help me!  Tell me what to do."
+
+Pacey's brow wrinkled so that he looked ten years older, and he sat for
+some time with his eyes averted.
+
+At last he spoke.
+
+"I know what I ought to say to you as your friend."
+
+"Yes; what?" she cried eagerly; but Pacey shook his head.
+
+"Nothing but--be strong and bear your cruel disappointment like a true
+woman, proud of her dignity."
+
+"I could bear all that," she said piteously, "even if it broke my heart,
+but I cannot bear the knowledge that the boy with whom I walked hand in
+hand as a child, grew up with as if he were my own brother, and whose
+child-love ripened into a sincere affection, should drift away like
+this.  Mr. Pacey--this woman!  I know how beautiful she is, and how she
+has ensnared him.  I ceased to wonder when we stood face to face.  I
+know too what influence she has, but nothing but horror and misery can
+result from it all, and it cuts me to the heart to think of what he will
+suffer--of the bitter repentance to come."
+
+Pacey sighed.
+
+"To me, night and day, it is as if he were drowning--being swept away;
+and if--utterly worn out--I sleep for a few minutes, I wake up with a
+start, for his hands seem to be stretched out to me to save him before
+it is too late."
+
+Pacey was silent still as he sat with his arms resting upon his knees,
+and his head bent, gazing at the carpet.
+
+At last he looked up, to meet her appealing eyes fixed on his.
+
+"Yes," he said, and he took a long deep breath: "there is no other way."
+
+"You--you have thought of something?" she cried eagerly.
+
+"It is a forlorn hope," he replied.  "I ought not to advise it, and your
+brother will blame me, and tell me I am not acting as an honest friend."
+
+"The danger sweeps away all ideas of worldly custom, Mr. Pacey," she
+cried with animation, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks flushed; and as he
+gazed at her, the artist mentally said that if his friend could see the
+woman he had so cruelly jilted, now, he would humbly ask her to pardon
+him, and take him back to her heart.
+
+"Yes," he said firmly, "this is not time to study etiquette.  Go to him,
+then.  Don't look upon it as sinking your womanly dignity, but as a last
+effort to save the man you once loved from a deadly peril."
+
+"Yes; and when I go," said Cornel faintly, "what can I say more than I
+have said?"
+
+"Say nothing, child.  If your face, and your reproachful forgiving eyes
+do not bring him to your feet, come away, and go down upon your knees to
+thank God for saving you from a man not worthy of a second thought."
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
+
+TOO LATE.
+
+"And my poor painting," said Armstrong, smiling, as Valentina, cloaked
+and ready to go once more, still clung to him--"not a step farther;" and
+he unlocked the door.
+
+"No," she whispered softly, "not a step farther," and she looked up
+through her thick veil in his saddened face.  "Let fate be kind to us
+and the work go on for years and years."
+
+"Until I am old and grey."
+
+"And I a bent, withered creature," she whispered.  "No; you will never
+be old and grey in my eyes, but always the same as now.  Can you say
+that to me?"
+
+She laid her hands upon his shoulders, and forced him back, so that she
+could gaze searchingly in his eyes.
+
+"Yes!" he cried passionately.  "You know only too well."
+
+"Yes, I know it well," she murmured.  "And it shall go on and on.  What
+is the praise of a fickle public worth?  It is your masterpiece, but
+what of that?  It might bring you fame and fortune, but it has already
+brought us love that can know no change."
+
+"That can know no change, dearest.  Now you must go, or you will be
+breaking faith with me again to-morrow, and you have made me so that I
+cannot live without you now."
+
+"Yes, once more," she sighed, "I must go--back to my gilded prison."
+
+She clung to him fondly again, and her voice was very soft and tender,
+as she rested her brow upon his breast.
+
+"When will you say to me--`Stay; go back no more?'  Armstrong, this life
+is killing me.  End all the miserable trickery and subterfuge.  That
+woman is planning and plotting to take my place.  Once it roused up all
+my pride and hatred; now all that is past.  Let him sue for his divorce
+if Lady Grayson wishes, and then I shall have my revenge: for he will
+laugh in her false, deceitful face.  Marry her?--Not he.--What is it,
+dearest?"
+
+He had started back, and as she raised her eyes, she saw that he was
+looking angrily at something behind her.
+
+She turned slowly, calling upon herself for readiness to meet the face
+of her husband, as she believed, but it was Cornel standing just within
+the doorway, flushed, proud, and stern, and she uttered a sigh of
+relief.
+
+"A domani, signore," she said quietly to Armstrong, and then turned and
+took a step toward the door, but Cornel raised her hand, and the proud,
+haughty-looking figure shrank back a step or two in surprise.
+
+"Stop!" said Cornel firmly; and she closed the door behind.  "I wish to
+speak to you both."
+
+"Cornel!" cried Armstrong, in a low and excited voice, "this is madness.
+For Heaven's sake, go.  Have you no delicacy--no shame?"
+
+"You ask me that!" she cried scornfully; and he shrank from her
+indignant eyes.  "Man, where is your own delicacy?--woman, where is your
+shame?  I claim the right--in the name of truth and honour--to come and
+upbraid you both."
+
+Valentina made a gesture with her hands, and turned to Armstrong to say
+in French--
+
+"What does the strange lady mean?"
+
+Cornel took a step forward, with her eyes flashing.
+
+"Mean, Lady Dellatoria!" she cried loudly; and her rival started and
+drew herself up.
+
+"Cornel!  Silence, for Heaven's sake."
+
+"You invoke Heaven?" she cried; and she turned from him with a look of
+disgust and scorn.  "It means," she cried, "that this is no scene in
+amateur theatricals played by your set, but real life.  You are face to
+face with me--the woman whose love you have outraged, whose life you
+have wrecked as well as his.  And for what?  Your pastime for a few
+weeks."
+
+"No!" said Valentina, throwing back her head and seizing Armstrong's
+hand, to hold it tightly between her own.  "He is mine--my love for
+ever.  I told you, when you came and defied me, that I could laugh at
+your girlish efforts to separate us--for it was fate.  There, you have
+tracked me down and seen; now go."
+
+"Yes, I have tracked you down and seen, and you throw off your
+contemptible disguise--this paltry cloaking and veiling.  Armstrong, is
+this the type of the boasted British woman--an example to the world?"
+
+"Cornel, silence!  Pray go!"
+
+"Not yet.  I have a right here in the home of my affianced husband.  I
+find him being dragged to ruin and despair by a heartless creature,
+devoid of love as she is of shame."
+
+"You lie!" cried Valentina fiercely, as she made a quick movement toward
+Cornel, but Armstrong held her back.  "Yes," she said, calming as
+quickly as she had flashed into rage; "poor child, she is half mad with
+misery and disappointment.  I will not speak--but pity."
+
+Cornel held out her hands to Armstrong as Lady Dellatoria half turned
+away and linked her fingers upon his arm.
+
+"Before it is too late, Armstrong," said Cornel softly.  "No word of
+reproach shall ever come from those who love you."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Listen, dear," she whispered, but her voice thrilled both.  "I come to
+you a weak woman, but strong in my armour of love and truth.  They tell
+me it is lowering, weak, and contemptible--that I am utterly lost to a
+woman's sense of dignity and shame.  But they do not know my love for
+you--yes, my love for you, I say it even before this creature, who
+cannot know the depth and truth of a true woman's love--I come, I say,
+once again to plead, to beg of you to come.  Let her go back to her own
+people; come you to yours, before it is too late."
+
+"It is too late, girl," said Valentina gently.  "I forgive you all you
+have said in ignorance that my love is stronger, more womanly, than
+yours.  In Heaven's sight this is my husband now.  We sorrow for you,
+and can pity.  But go now, and leave us in peace.  I tell you again--it
+is too late."
+
+"Yes," said Cornel, with a piteous sigh.  "God forgive you, Armstrong!
+I am beaten."  Then, as if inspired, her eyes flashed, and the colour
+left her cheeks, and she cried wildly, "Yes, it is too late."  There
+were voices on the stairs coming plainly to them, for Cornel had in
+ignorance left the door unlatched, so that the sounds were
+uninterrupted.
+
+"He's got a lady with him."
+
+"I know, girl.  Stand aside.  Do you know who I am?"
+
+"Yes, sir; Count Delly-tory, sir."
+
+"Yes!" cried Cornel, with a wail of horror; "her husband.  Then it is
+indeed too late."
+
+"No!" cried Valentina fiercely; "your opportunity for revenge."
+
+She drew back, and stood there erect and proud, with defiance flashing
+through her thick veil as the Conte entered, quickly followed by Lady
+Grayson.  A heavy, gold-topped, ebony stick was in his hand, his lips
+were compressed, and it was plain to see in his pallid face and dilated
+nostrils that he was struggling with suppressed passion.
+
+He was making straight for Armstrong when his eyes fell upon Cornel, who
+stood now white and calm, as if ready to interpose.  Then he looked
+sharply at the cloaked and veiled figure just on the artist's right.
+
+He stopped in astonishment, confused, and as if the supply of vital
+force which had urged him on had suddenly been checked.
+
+It was Armstrong's opportunity.  A few carelessly spoken, contemptuous
+utterances as to the meaning of this intrusion and the like would have
+sufficed to send the Conte back, mortified, and in utter ignorance, to
+vent his rage upon Lady Grayson, who, in her malignant desire to cast
+down her dearest confidante and friend from her throne, had brought him
+on there to be a witness of one of his wife's secret meetings with her
+lover, such as she had vowed to him were taking place.  But Armstrong,
+in utter scorn of all subterfuge, stood there manly and ready to meet
+the man in full defiance, come what might.
+
+A terrible silence followed, of moments that felt to all like hours,
+while each waited for others to speak.
+
+It was Cornel's opportunity too, to bring her rival to her knees and
+sweep her for ever from her path, and Valentina felt it as she stood
+there with her teeth clenched and face convulsed behind the thick veil.
+For, after all, in spite of her bravery and readiness to defy the man
+whose name she bore, she was a woman still, and instinctively shrank
+from the denouement, knowing as she did that a terrible scene must
+follow; and another later, in spite of English laws, for it was an
+Italian pitted against a man who would dare all.
+
+But Cornel remained silent, and Lady Grayson scanned all in turn, ending
+by fixing her eyes upon the great canvas whose back was toward them
+where they stood.
+
+"I--I beg pardon--some mistake," stammered the Conte.  "I did not know
+that--Curse you," he whispered to Lady Grayson, and relapsing in his
+excitement into broken English, "You make me with you silly cock-bull
+tale a fool."
+
+Armstrong still made no movement, said no word, but Lady Grayson read
+him as if he were an open page laid before her, and her eyes twinkled
+and flashed.
+
+The keen-witted American girl saw it too, and with all her gentleness
+and love, she possessed the quick perception and readiness of a people
+born in a clearer air and warmer clime.  In those moments, with all her
+hatred and scorn for the woman who was the blight upon her life, she
+shrank in all the tenderness of her nature from seeing her humbled to
+the very dust.  More; she grasped the horror of the situation; how that,
+beneath the weak flippancy of the man of fashion, there smouldered the
+hot passions of his countrymen--passions which, once roused, are as hot
+and destructive as the lava of their great volcano.  She saw in
+imagination, blows, and Armstrong injuring or injured, either being too
+horrible to be borne.  Lastly, she grasped Lady Grayson's plan.
+
+"It is for his sake," she said to herself, "not for hers;" and as,
+apparently prompted by a whisper from Lady Grayson, the blood flushed
+into the Conte's face again and he fixed his eyes on his wife, Cornel
+stepped forward and held out her hand.
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Dale," she said gently; "you have business with this lady
+and gentleman; we shall see you another time.  Come, signora."
+
+She turned and held out her hand to Valentina, proving herself a better
+actress, for there was a smile upon her lip, and she bent forward as if
+whispering something through the veil, the only utterances being the
+words--
+
+"Don't hesitate.  Quick!"
+
+Valentina stared at her--half stunned.  Then, as if moved by a stronger
+will than her own, she laid one white hand on Cornel's arm, and, just
+bending her head to Armstrong, they moved slowly toward the door.
+
+It was the left hand, and ungloved.
+
+Cornel saw it, and could not restrain a start.
+
+The hand was ungloved, and upon it sparkled several rings--for there had
+been no need of late to keep up the disguise so closely--and one of
+those rings was of plain gold.
+
+They were nearly at the door, the Conte drawing back on one side to let
+them pass, Lady Grayson on the other, Armstrong still motionless, and
+feeling as if a hand were compressing his throat, while Cornel, as she
+went on with the set smile upon her lip, felt that the hand upon her arm
+trembled, and fancied she heard a sob.
+
+"It is for his sake," she said to herself, "for his sake;" and the next
+minute they would have been outside the door, when, with one quick
+movement, Lady Grayson reached out her hand, and snatched the veil from
+Valentina's face.
+
+The Conte uttered a cry of rage, and made a dash at her, but she avoided
+him, and sprang toward Armstrong, who caught her to his breast, but so
+as to have his right hand at liberty.
+
+But it was not free in time, for the Conte, with a cry of rage, swung
+round, and brought down the heavy ebony stick with a sickening crash
+upon the artist's head, then caught Valentina from him as he fell inert
+and senseless upon the floor.
+
+"Well, am I such a simple idiot and fool?" said Lady Grayson in a quick
+whisper.
+
+"Yes; to talk now," was the fierce reply.  "Help me; get her away, or I
+shall kill him."
+
+Without another word she went to Valentina's side, and between them they
+dragged her, sick at heart, trembling, and half fainting, out of the
+studio and down the stairs to Lady Grayson's carriage, which was waiting
+at the door.
+
+"Is anything the matter, miss?  Can I do anything?" said a voice.
+
+Cornel looked up from where she was kneeling on one of the rugs with
+Armstrong's head in her lap, and saw that the grimy little face of
+Keren-Happuch was peering in at the door.
+
+Cornel looked at her wildly for a few moments, and then, in a low hoarse
+voice, whispered--
+
+"Yes: quick, water!"  Then, with a piteous sigh, "Oh, the blood--the
+blood!  Help!--quick, quick!  He is dying.  Oh, my love, my love, that
+it should come to this!"
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
+
+THE AWAKENING.
+
+"Don't you be in a flurry, miss," said Keren-Happuch coolly; "he ain't
+so very bad.  Here, you'll soon see."
+
+She rushed into the bedroom, and returned with a basin, sponge, and
+towel, which, to her surprise and annoyance, were taken from her hand;
+and she saw Cornel, with deft manipulation, bathe the cut, examine it,
+and then take from her pocket a little case, out of which she drew a
+pair of scissors and a leaf of adhesive plaster.  A minute later she had
+closely clipped away a little of the hair, pressed the cut together, and
+cleverly strapped it up.
+
+"Hold this handkerchief pressed to it tightly, while I bathe his
+temples," said Cornel; and, as the little maid obeyed, she watched with
+wide open eyes the pulse felt and the temples bathed before a few drops
+from a stoppered bottle were added to a wine-glass full of water, and
+gently poured between the insensible man's lips.
+
+"Lor', if she ain't one o' them female doctors," thought Keren-Happuch.
+"Wonder what she's give him to drink?"
+
+There was a singular look of dislike condensed into a frown on the
+girl's brows as she watched Cornel, and a jealous scowl or two as she
+saw her take Armstrong's hand and kneel by his side, waiting for some
+signs of returning animation; but at last it seemed as if the girl could
+not keep her tongue quiet.
+
+"I say," she whispered, "are you a doctor, miss?"
+
+"No: my brother is a medical man, though, and I have been often to a
+hospital and helped him as a nurse."
+
+"Oh, then you know what's right.  But oughtn't he to have some
+beef-tea?"
+
+Cornel shook her head, and Keren-Happuch was silent for a few minutes,
+but she could refrain no longer.
+
+"You're the 'Merican lady he was engaged to, aren't you?"
+
+Cornel bowed.
+
+"I thought you was.  I've took him your letters with Bosting on 'em,
+lots o' times."
+
+Cornel sighed.
+
+"You're going to marry him, ain't you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then it's all off?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Keren-Happuch looked relieved.  The scowl disappeared from her
+countenance, and she smiled at Cornel.
+
+"Don't you take on about it, miss.  It ain't worth it.  I allers liked
+Mr. Dale, and he makes me feel as if I'd do anything for him, and I
+allus have done as much as missus'd let me; but it's no use to worry
+about artisses; they're all like Mr. Dale--all them as we've had here."
+
+Cornel looked at her indignantly.
+
+"Oh, it ain't my fault, miss.  I never wanted him to have ladies come to
+see him.  I've gone down into the kitchen along with our old cat, and
+had many a good cry about it.  Not as he ever thought anything about
+me."
+
+Cornel looked at the girl in wonder and horror.
+
+"But he was allus kind to me, and never called me names, and made fun of
+me like the others did.  On'y Mirandy, and I didn't mind that.  Them
+others teased me orful, you know.  Men ain't much good; but you can't
+help liking of 'em."
+
+"Hush!" whispered Cornel; "he is coming to."  For there was a quivering
+about Dale's lips, and then his eyes opened wildly, to gaze vacantly
+upward for some moments before memory reasserted itself, and he gave a
+sudden start and looked sharply round.
+
+Cornel suppressed a sigh.
+
+"Not for me," she said to herself; and she was right.  The look was not
+for her.
+
+She knew it directly, for he turned to her, caught her wrist, and said
+excitedly--
+
+"Gone?"
+
+"Yes; they are gone."
+
+"But Lady Dellatoria--gone--with him?"
+
+The words seemed as if they would choke her, but Cornel spoke out quite
+plainly, and without a tremor in her voice, though there was a terrible
+compression at her breast.
+
+"Yes," she said calmly, though every word she uttered caused her a pang;
+"she has gone back with her husband."
+
+Armstrong lay perfectly still for a few minutes, thinking deeply.  Then,
+as if resolved what to do, he said sharply--
+
+"Help me up."
+
+Cornel bent over him, but he turned from her.
+
+"No, no, not you: Miranda."
+
+The girl eagerly helped him to rise, and he leaned upon her as she
+guided him to a chair.
+
+"Thanks," he said huskily.  "Now, you wait there."
+
+The girl stopped at the place he had pointed out, watching Armstrong as
+he signed to Cornel to approach, and held out his hand.
+
+She took it mechanically, and held it fast.
+
+"Thank you for what you have done," he said.
+
+"Now go and forget me.  You see I am hopelessly gone.  It was to be, and
+it is of no use to fight against fate.  Now go back to your brother."
+
+"And leave you--sick?"
+
+"Yes; even if I were dying.  God bless you, dear!  Think of me as I used
+to be."
+
+"Armstrong!" she cried, with her hands extended toward him.  But he
+waved her off.
+
+"No, no.  I am a scoundrel, but not black enough for that.  Go back to
+your brother."
+
+"Go?"
+
+"Yes; I insist.  You cannot forgive me now."
+
+She could bear no more.  Her chin sank upon her breast, and with one
+low, heart-wrung sigh, she went quickly from the room.
+
+"Thank Heaven! that's over," muttered Armstrong.  "Now for the end, and
+the quicker the better.  Life is not worth living, after all."
+
+He looked sharply round to where Keren-Happuch stood, wiping her eyes
+upon her apron.
+
+"Here, girl!" he cried.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Dale, sir."
+
+"Go at once to Mr. Leronde's rooms--you know--in Poland Street, and ask
+him to come on here at once."
+
+"But are you fit to leave, sir?"
+
+"Yes, yes.  Go quickly."
+
+The girl hurried off on her mission, leaving the artist thinking.
+
+"He would challenge me if I did not challenge him.  I suppose it ought
+to come from me after the blow, for me to prove that I am not `un
+lache,' as our French friends term it.  A duel!  What a mockery!  Well,
+better so.  Let him shoot me, and have done with it.  There is not room
+here for us both.  Poor Cornel!  It will be like making some expiation.
+It will leave her free.  She can deal more tenderly with my memory as
+dead than she could with me living still.  I should be a blight upon her
+pure young life.  Ah! if we had never met."
+
+He lay back feverish and excited, for the blow had had terrible effect,
+and there were minutes when he was half-delirious, and had hard work to
+control his thoughts.
+
+For he was wandering away now with Cornel, who had forgiven him because
+Valentina was dead.  Then it was Cornel who was dead, and he was with
+the Contessa far away in some glorious land of flowers, fruit, and
+sunshine; but the fruit was bitter, the flowers gave forth the scent of
+poison, and the sun beat down heavily upon his head, scorching his
+throbbing brain.
+
+He woke up from a dream crowded with strange fancies, and uttered an
+ejaculation of satisfaction, for his brain was clear again, and the
+young Frenchman was standing before him, waiting to know why he had been
+fetched.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
+
+THE SECOND SECOND.
+
+"Ah, oui, of course," said Leronde, exhaling a little puff of smoke.
+"It is so, of course.  I know.  If there had been no knog viz ze stique,
+ze huzziband would shallenge you.  But viz ze knog viz ze stique--so big
+a knog, I sink you shallenge him, and satisfy l'honneur.  I go at once
+and ask him to name his friends."
+
+"Yes, I suppose that will be right," said Armstrong, after a few
+moments' thought.
+
+"But I am not sure that you can fight so soon."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You 'ave ze bad head."
+
+"Bah! a mere nothing.  I am ready; but of course, as you say, it cannot
+be here.  Listen!  Is not that some one on the stairs?"
+
+They were not left in doubt, for Keren-Happuch came in, round-eyed and
+wondering, with a couple of cards held in her apron-guarded thumb and
+finger.
+
+"Please, Mr. Dale, sir, here's two doctors come to see you."
+
+"Ma foi! two," cried Leronde.  "One is bad, too much.  Send zem away, my
+friend."
+
+"Bah!  Show them up," said the artist; and Keren-Happuch hurried out.
+"Look," continued Armstrong; "Italians--his friends, I suppose."
+
+"Aha! that is good," cried Leronde, holding out the cards.  "He
+shallenge then.  I am glad, for I was get in head muddled after all
+vezzer you ought to shallenge.  Now we are quite square."
+
+A minute later two important-looking men were ushered in, to whom
+Leronde at once advanced with a dignified mien, receiving them and
+listening to the declaration of their mission, and after a few exchanges
+of compliments on one side of the studio, away from where Armstrong sat
+scowling, they left with the understanding that Leronde was to wait upon
+them shortly to arrange all preliminaries.
+
+"I am still not quite satisfy," said Leronde thoughtfully.  "I ought to
+have been first, and take your shallenge to him."
+
+"But what does it matter if we are to meet?"
+
+"But you vas ze insulte."
+
+"Indeed!" said Armstrong, with a bitter smile.  "Opinions are various,
+boy.  But let that rest.  Help me to lie down on that couch, and give me
+a cigar."
+
+Leronde obeyed, watching his friend anxiously.
+
+"You vill not be vell enough to fight."
+
+"I will be well enough to fight, man," cried Armstrong savagely.
+"There: wait a bit.  It is too soon to follow them yet;" and for a while
+they sat and smoked, till Leronde burst out with--
+
+"I am so glad you go to fight, my dear Dale."
+
+"Are you?" said Armstrong gruffly.
+
+"Yes; it do me good that you are ready to fight M'sieu le Conte like a
+gentleman.  I thought all Englishmans degrade themself viz le boxe.
+Bah! it is not good.  You have ze muscle great, but so have ze dustman
+and ze navigator; let them fight--so."
+
+"But look here, Leronde; this must be kept a secret from every one."
+
+"Oh, certainement, name of a visky and sodaire.  I tell nobdis.  You
+think I go blab and tell of ze meeting?  Valkaire!  Mums!"
+
+"Have you ever seen one of these affairs at home?"
+
+"Oh no, my friend, not chez-moi--at home.  It was in the Bois de
+Boulogne."
+
+"And you saw one there?"
+
+"Four--five--and all were journalistes.  I was in two as principal, in
+two as friend of my friend, and in ze oder one I go as ze friend of ze
+docteur."
+
+"Then you quite understand how it should be carried out?"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes," said Leronde, nearly closing his eyes, and nodding his
+head many times.  "Soyez content.  I mean make yourself sholly
+comfortable, and it shall all go off to ze marvel."
+
+"Very well, then; I leave myself in your hands."
+
+"That is good.  Everything shall be done, as you say, first-class."
+
+"And about weapons?"
+
+"You are ze person insulte, and you have ze choice.  Le sword, of
+course?" cried Leronde; and, throwing himself on guard, he foiled,
+parried, and hopped about the studio, as if he were encountering an
+enemy.
+
+"Sit down, man," said Armstrong peevishly.  "No; I choose the pistol."
+
+"My friend!  Oh!"
+
+"It is shorter and sharper."
+
+"But you do not vant to shoot ze man for stealing--fence like angels,
+and there will be a little gentlemanly play; you prick ze Conte in ze
+arm, honneur is satisfy, you embrace, and we return to Paris.  What can
+be better than that?"
+
+"Pistol!" said Armstrong sternly.
+
+"But you do not want to shoot ze man for stealing away his vife."
+
+"No," said Armstrong, in a low voice.  "I want him to shoot me."
+
+"Ha, ha!  You are a fonnay fellow, my dear Dale.  You will not talk like
+zat when you meet ze sword?"
+
+"Pistols."
+
+"As you will," said the Frenchman, shrugging his shoulders.  "You are my
+principal, and I see zat your honneur is satisfy.  I go then to see ze
+friend of M'sieu le Conte, and to make all ze preparations for to cross
+to Belgium; but, my faith, my dear Dale, it is very awkward: I have not
+ze small shange for all ze preliminary.  May I ask you to be my banker?"
+
+"Yes, of course.  I ought to have thought," said Armstrong.
+
+He went to his desk and took out the necessary sum, passed it to the
+voluble little Frenchman, who rose, shook him by both hands, looked at
+him with tears in his eyes, told him he was proud of him, and then
+hurried off with his head erect his hat slightly cocked, and his eyes
+now sparkling with excitement.
+
+"Step ze first to be in ordaire; whom shall ve 'ave for ze ozaire
+seconde?"
+
+He frowned severely and walked on a few yards, looking very thoughtful.
+Then the idea came.
+
+"Of course: Shoe Pacey.  He vill be proud to go viz me to meet ze ozaire
+secondes."
+
+Leronde had been in the lowest of low spirits that morning.  The news
+from Paris had been most disastrous for gentlemen of communistic
+principles, who, in spite of crying "Vive la Commune!" saw the
+unfortunate idol of their lives withering and dying daily.  Money, too,
+had been very "shorts," as he called it, and he had gone to Armstrong
+Dale's in the most despondent manner.  But now all that was altered.  He
+had money in his purse, and walked as if on air.  There was no
+opportunity for following the tracks of either "la gloire, or l'amour;"
+but here was "l'honneur," the other person of a Frenchman's trinity,
+calling him to the front; and on the strength of the funds in hand, he
+entered the first tobacconist's, bought a whole ninepenny packet of
+cigarettes, and then smoked in triumph all the way to Pacey's lodgings.
+
+This gentleman was growling over a notice of the Old Masters' Exhibition
+which he had written for a morning paper, and with which, to use his own
+words, "the humbug of an editor had taken confounded liberties."
+
+"Hallo!  Signor Barricado, what's up?  Republic gone to the dogs?"
+
+"No, no, mon ami; but great news--a secret."
+
+"Keep it, then."
+
+"No, no; it is for you as well.  An affaire of honneur."
+
+"An affair of fluff!  Bosh! we don't fight here."
+
+"No," said Leronde, frowning fiercely.  "Belgium."
+
+"Why, you confounded young donkey, whom are you going to fight?"
+
+"I fight?  But, no; I am one seconde.  I come to you as my dear friend
+to be ze ozaire."
+
+"Oh, of course," cried Pacey ironically.  "Exactly--just in my line."
+
+"I knew you would," cried Leronde, lighting a fresh cigarette, and
+offering the packet, which was refused.
+
+"Bah!  I like a draught, not a spoonful," growled Pacey, taking up and
+filling his big meerschaum.  "Now then, about this honour mania?  Who's
+the happy man?"
+
+"Armstrong Dale, of course, for certaine."
+
+"What!" roared Pacey.  "Who with?"
+
+"Ze Conte Dellatoria, my friend."
+
+"The devil.  Has it come to that?"
+
+"But, yes.  Why not?  Zes huzziband is sure to find out some ozaire
+day."
+
+"Phew!" whistled Pacey, wiping his brow.  Then striking a match, he
+began to smoke tremendously.
+
+"And you will help our friend?" said Leronde.
+
+"Help him?  Certainly."
+
+"I knew it.  Pacey, my friend, you are one grand big brique."
+
+"Oh yes, I am," cried Pacey banteringly.  "Now then, how was it?"
+
+"Ze Conte follow his vife to chez Armstrong, find zem togezzer, and knog
+our dear friend down viz a cane."
+
+"Humph!  Serious as that?"
+
+"Oh yes.  There is a great offence, of course.  Zey meet in Belgium, and
+we go togezzer to see ze friend of ze Conte and arrange ze--ze--ze--vat
+you call zem?"
+
+"Preliminaries?"
+
+"Precisely.  Now, my dear ole friend, you put on your boot an' ze ozaire
+coat, and brush your hair--oh! horreur; why do you not get zem cut short
+like mine?"
+
+"Because I don't want to look like a convict.  Come in here."
+
+Pacey seized his tobacco-jar and a box of matches.
+
+"Got any cigarette papers?"
+
+"But yes, and plenty of cigarettes."
+
+"Come in here, then."
+
+He opened the door leading into his little bedroom, and Leronde followed
+him.
+
+Pacey banged down the tobacco-jar upon the dressing-table, and then
+threw open the window.
+
+"Come and look out here," he cried.
+
+"But we have no time to spare, my friend."
+
+"Come and look out here," roared Pacey.
+
+As Leronde approached him wonderingly, Pacey seized him by the collar,
+and half dragged his head out.
+
+"Look down there," he said, pointing into the square pit-like place
+formed by the backs of the neighbouring houses, from the second floor,
+where they stood, to the basement; "you can't jump down there?"
+
+"My faith, no.  It would be death."
+
+"And there is no way of climbing on to the roof."
+
+Leronde shook his head, and looked to see if his friend was mad.
+
+"And you cannot fly?"
+
+"No; I leave zat to your cocksparrow de Londres," said Leronde, trying
+to conceal his wonder and dread by a show of hilarity.
+
+"That's right, then.  You sit down there and smoke cigarettes till I
+come back."
+
+"But, my friend, ze engagement, ze meeting viz ze amis of ze Conte.
+What go you to do?"
+
+"See Armstrong Dale, and bring him to his senses.  If I can't--go and
+break the Count's neck."
+
+"But, mon cher Pacey!" cried Leronde, "l'honneur?"
+
+"Hang honour!" roared his friend.  "I'm going in for common-sense;" and
+before the Frenchman could arrest him, the door was banged to, locked,
+the key removed, and steps were heard on the landing; then the
+sitting-room door was locked, and, with his face full of perplexity,
+Leronde lit a fresh cigarette.
+
+"Faith of a man, these English," he said, "zey are mad, as Shakespeare
+did say about Hamlet, and I am sure, if zey do shave Shoe Pacey head,
+zey will find ze big crack right across him."
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
+
+THE NEWS SPREADS.
+
+"If I have sinned," muttered Armstrong, as he leaned back in his chair,
+for when from time to time he tried to walk about, a painful sensation
+of giddiness seized upon him, "I am having a foretaste of my punishment.
+How long he is--how long he is!"
+
+But still Leronde did not come, and to occupy his mind, the sufferer sat
+and thought out a plan for their journey, which he concluded would mean
+a cab to Liverpool Street, then the express to Harwich, the boat to
+Ostend; next, where the seconds willed: and afterwards--
+
+"What?" said the wretched man, with a strange smile.  "Ah, who knows!
+If it could only be oblivion--rest from all this misery and despair!"
+
+He rose to try and write a letter or two, notably one to Cornel, but the
+effort was painful, and he crept back to his chair.
+
+"She will know--she will divine--that I preferred to die," he muttered,
+"Ah, at last!  Why, he has been hours."
+
+For there was a step outside, and then the door was thrown open, as he
+lay back, with his aching eyes shaded by his hand.
+
+"Come at last, then!" he sighed; and the next moment he started, for the
+studio door was banged to, and locked.  "You, Joe?"
+
+"Yes, I've come at last," cried Pacey, thrusting his hands into his
+pockets, and striding up, to stand before him with his legs far apart.
+
+"Well, then, shake hands and go," said Armstrong quietly.  "I'm not
+well.  I've had an accident."
+
+"Accident?" roared Pacey.  "Yes, you have had an accident, the same as a
+man has who goes and knocks his head against a wall."
+
+"What do you mean?" cried Armstrong, starting.
+
+"Mean?  I mean that you're the biggest fool that fortune ever pampered
+and spoiled."
+
+"Joe Pacey!"
+
+"Hold your tongue, idiot, and listen to me.  Here you are, gifted by
+nature with ten times the brains of an ordinary man; you can paint like
+Raphael or Murillo; fame and fortune are at your feet; and you have the
+love waiting for you of one of the sweetest, most angelic women who ever
+stepped this earth."
+
+"Pacey!"
+
+"Hold your tongue, boy!  Haven't I been like a father to you ever since
+you came into this cursed village?  Haven't I devoted myself to you as
+soon as I saw you were a good fellow, full of genius?  I'm a fool to say
+so, but in my wretched, wrecked life, I felt that I'd found something to
+live for at last, and that I could be proud and happy in seeing you, who
+are as much an Englishman as I am in blood, rise to the highest pitch of
+triumph; while, if you grew proud then and forgot me, it wouldn't
+matter; I could afford it, for you had achieved success."
+
+"You've been a good true adviser to me, Joe, ever since I have known
+you."
+
+"And you have turned out the most ungrateful dog that ever breathed.
+Morals?  You've no more morals than a mahlstick.  You had everything man
+could wish for, and then you must kick it all over, and break the heart
+of an angel."
+
+"Let her rest.  Say what you like to bully me, Joe.  It's all true.  I
+don't fight against it.  But you can't understand it all.  Say what you
+like, only go and leave me.  I want to be alone."
+
+"Do you?" cried Pacey excitedly.  "Then I don't want you to be.  So the
+Conte gave you that crack on the head, did he?"
+
+"What!" cried Armstrong, springing up.  "How came you to think that?"
+
+"How came I to think that?  Why, I was told by a chattering French ape."
+
+"Leronde?  Told you?"
+
+"Of course he did.  Came to me to be your other second."
+
+"The idiot!  Where is he?"
+
+"Locked up where he'll stay till I let him loose."
+
+Armstrong used a strong expression.
+
+"And so we must have a duel, must we?  Go out to Belgium to fight this
+Italian organ-grinder.  Curse him, and his Jezebel of a wife!"
+
+"Silence, man!" cried Armstrong excitedly.  "Pacey, no more of this!
+Where is Leronde?  He must be set free at once.  My honour is at stake."
+
+"His what?" cried Pacey, bursting into a roar of ironical laughter.  "My
+God!  His honour!  You adulterous dog, you talk to me of your honour and
+duelling, and all that cursed, sickly, contemptible code that ought to
+have been dead and buried, and wondered at by us as a relic of the dark
+ages--you talk to me of that?  Why, do you know what it means?  First
+and foremost, murdering Cornel Thorpe: for, as sure as heaven's above
+us, that organ-man will shoot you like the dog you are, and in killing
+you he'll kill that poor girl.  I swear it.  She can't help it.  She
+gave her love to you, poor lassie, and she's the kind of woman who loves
+once and for all.  There's the first of it.  As for you, well, the best
+end of you is that you should be buried at once, out of the way, as you
+would be if I let you go to meet this man."
+
+"If you let me?" raged Armstrong.
+
+"Yes, if I let you; for I won't.  Why, you're mad.  That Jezebel has
+turned your brain, and I'll have you in a strait waistcoat, and then in
+a padded room, before I'll let you go to save your honour and his.  Ha,
+ha!  His honour!  The Italian greyhound!  He never took any notice of
+his wife till he found she had a lover, but was after as many
+light-famed creatures as there are cards in the devil's books.  Then--
+his honour!  Ha, ha! his honour!  Why, the whole gang of French and
+Italian monkeys never knew what honour is, and never will.  Now then, I
+said I'd thrash you, and I have.  I only wish Dellatoria had jolly well
+fractured your skull, so as to make you an invalid for six months.  Look
+here; I've locked up Leronde, I'll lock up you, and if the Conte comes
+here, I'll kick him downstairs."
+
+"You are mad.  I must meet him."
+
+"I'm not mad, and you shan't meet him."
+
+"You mean well, Pacey, but it is folly to go on like this.  Run back and
+set Leronde at liberty."
+
+"I'm going to do what I like, not what you like," cried Pacey fiercely,
+pulling out a knife; "and first of all, I'll finish that cursed
+picture."
+
+He swung the great easel round, and in a few minutes had slashed the
+canvas to ribbons, and torn it from the frame.
+
+"There's an end of that!" he roared.
+
+"So much the better," said Armstrong, who had looked on unmoved.
+
+"Oh! you like that, then?" cried Pacey.  "You're coming round."
+
+"Now go," said Armstrong, "and end this folly."
+
+"You'll swear first of all that you will not meet this man?"
+
+"I'll swear I will," said Armstrong coldly.
+
+"He'll shoot you dead."
+
+"I hope so."
+
+"Armstrong, lad, listen to me," said Pacey, calming down.  "You'll be
+sensible?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And give it up?  For poor Cornel's sake?"
+
+"Silence! or you'll drive me really mad."
+
+"Now then, get your hat, and come with me."
+
+"Will you go?"
+
+"Will you come with me?"
+
+"Look here," said Armstrong.  "I can bear no more.  I want to be cool
+and act like a man to the end, but you are pushing me to the very
+brink.--Will you go?"
+
+"Yes," said Pacey, buttoning up his coat.  "I'm off now, boy."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Straight to the police.  I'll swear a breach of the peace against you
+both, and have you seized, or bound over, or something.  This meeting
+shan't take place.  For Cornel's sake--do you hear?  For her sake, so
+there!"
+
+He strode to the door, unlocked it, opened, and banged it loudly behind
+him, and Armstrong stood thinking what course he ought to pursue, while
+Pacey went straight away, not to the police, but to Thorpe's hotel,
+where he told the doctor how matters stood.
+
+"I don't know what you are to do, sir," said Thorpe coldly.  "I wash my
+hands of the whole business.  He has behaved horribly to my poor sister,
+and turned her brain.  Let him go and be shot."
+
+"Likely," growled Pacey.  "Nice Christian advice to give.  Why, it would
+kill her."
+
+"Not it.  She has too much womanly determination in her, poor girl.  But
+I can do nothing.  She has been to him again and again in opposition to
+my wishes--forgotten all her woman's dignity."
+
+"To try and save your old schoolfellow, her lover."
+
+"Bah! she has cast him off, sir, as the scoundrel deserves."
+
+"Not she," said Pacey.  "She loves him still in spite of all, and in
+time she would forgive him, if he behaved like a man."
+
+"Not if I can prevent it," retorted Thorpe.  "She shall not forgive
+him."
+
+"Well, sir," said Pacey, "I have not come to dispute with you about
+that.  He is almost your brother, and he is in deadly peril of his life.
+That Italian has challenged him; they will fight, as sure as we stand
+here, and the malignant, spiteful scoundrel will shoot Armstrong like a
+dog."
+
+"Nonsense!  What can he care for such a wife?"
+
+"Nothing; but his honour is at stake."
+
+"His honour!" cried Thorpe contemptuously.
+
+"Exactly so.  What such men call their honour.  Armstrong will evade me
+somehow, and go off to Belgium, I am sure; and if he does, he is so
+careless of his own life now, in his despair, misery, and degradation,
+that he will never come back alive."
+
+"Pish!"
+
+"It is a fact, sir.  I have heard that Dellatoria is deadly with sword
+or pistol, and he has been out more than once before--Good heavens, Miss
+Thorpe! are you there?"
+
+"Yes," said Cornel slowly, as she came forward from the door leading
+into an inner room.  "I have heard every word."
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
+
+A POTENT DRUG.
+
+What to do?  Leronde a prisoner; Pacey threatening legal steps.  He must
+go somehow.  The only way open appeared to be this; he must leave London
+at once, telegraphing to the Conte that he had gone on, and would meet
+him and his friends at the principal hotel in Ostend.
+
+Armstrong, after much mental struggling, had come to this decision, when
+there was a knock at the door.
+
+"Too late," he muttered.  Then aloud, "Come in!" and Keren-Happuch
+entered.
+
+"If you please, sir, there's--"
+
+"I know," he said shortly.  "Show them up."
+
+"Please, sir, it ain't them; it's her."
+
+"What?" he cried, starting.  "Whom do you mean?"
+
+"Her in the thick veil, sir, as come before."
+
+"Great Heavens!" panted Armstrong; and his brain seemed to reel.  "No.
+I cannot--I will not see her."
+
+"'M I to tell her so, sir?" cried the girl joyfully, "and send her
+away?"
+
+"Yes.  I'll go no farther," he muttered.  "Send her away at once."
+
+The girl turned to the door, but, when she twisted the handle, it moved
+in her hand, the door was pushed against her, and as she gave way, the
+closely veiled and cloaked figure walked slowly into the room.
+
+Armstrong turned savagely upon Keren-Happuch.  "Go!" he said sharply.
+
+"I knowed it," muttered the girl as she went out.  "Men can't keep to
+their words, and it's very hard on us poor girls."
+
+Armstrong stood facing his visitor as the door closed, and then the
+giddiness came over him again.  He staggered to a chair, dropped into
+it, and his head fell upon his hand.
+
+"How could you be so mad!" he groaned.  "Go back to your husband; we
+must never meet again.  Woman, you have been a curse to me and ruined my
+poor life.  But there, I will not reproach you."  He closed his eyes,
+for his senses nearly left him, and his visitor stood gazing sadly down
+at him not a yard away.
+
+"I suppose you will despise me," he groaned, "but I cannot help that.
+You will think that I ought to hold to you now, and save you from your
+husband's anger.  But I can do nothing.  Broken, conscience-stricken, if
+ever poor wretch was in despair it is I.  There, for God's sake, go back
+to him.  He will forgive you, as I ask you to forgive me now."
+
+He paused, and then went on as if she had just spoken something which
+coincided with his thoughts.
+
+"You will despise me and think me weak, but I am near the end, and I do
+not shrink from speaking and telling you that I go to meet your husband
+with the knowledge that I have broken the heart of as pure and true a
+woman as ever breathed."
+
+A low, pitiful sigh came from behind the veil.
+
+"Don't, for Heaven's sake, don't, now.  It is all over; the mad comedy
+is played out--all but the last scene.  Try and forget it all, and go
+with the knowledge that his life is safe for me, for I will not raise my
+hand against him--that I swear."
+
+He uttered a low moan, for the place seemed strange to him, and his
+words far distant, as if they were spoken by some one else.  Incipient
+delirium was creeping in to assault his brain, and in another minute he
+would have been quite insensible; but a hand was laid upon his shoulder,
+and the touch electrified him, making him spring wildly from his seat
+with a cry.
+
+"No, no," he cried passionately, and with his eyes flashing; "slave to
+you no more; I tell you, woman, all is over between us.  For the few
+hours left to me, let me be in peace."
+
+The veil was slowly drawn aside, and he clapped his hands to his temples
+and bent forward, gazing at his visitor.
+
+"Cornel!" he muttered--"Cornel!--No, no!  It is a dream."
+
+He shook his head, and passed his hand across his eyes, to try and sweep
+away the mist that was gathering in his brain.
+
+"No, no," he muttered again, in a low tone; "a dream--a dream."
+
+"No," came softly to his ears, "it is not a dream, Armstrong.  It is I--
+Cornel."
+
+"Why have you come?" he cried, roused by her words, and staggering up to
+grasp the mantelpiece and save himself from falling.
+
+"To try and save you," she said sadly.  "Armstrong, you are going to
+fight this man?"
+
+He was silent.  The dreamy feeling was coming back.
+
+"You do not deny it.  Armstrong--brother--companion of my childhood--you
+must not, you shall not do this wicked thing.  Think of it.  Your life
+against his.  The shame--the horror of the deed."
+
+He laughed softly.
+
+"I have sinned enough," he said.  "He will not fall."
+
+"Will the sin be less if you let him, in your despair, take his enemy's
+life?  This is madness.  Armstrong, you cannot--you shall not go."
+
+He was silent.
+
+"What am I to say to you again?" she pleaded.  "You are like stone.
+Must I humble myself to you once more, and cast off all a woman's
+modesty and dignity?  Armstrong, weak, doting as it is, I tell you I
+forgive you, dear--only promise me that you will not go."
+
+He passed his hand across his eyes as he clung to the shelf to keep
+himself from falling, and said, in a low, dreamy voice--
+
+"An insult to you--a degradation to me to take your pardon.  No!
+Cornel, and once more, no.  Now, if you have any feeling for me, leave
+me to myself, for I have much to do."
+
+"You will prepare to go?"
+
+He remained stubbornly silent, with his eyes half-closed.
+
+"Then," she cried passionately, as she saw him sway gently to and fro,
+as if prior to falling helpless upon the floor, "I will save you in
+spite of all.  You shall not give away your life like this.  You are
+weak, half-delirious, and cannot command even your thoughts.  You shall
+not go."
+
+He opened his eyes widely, and it was as if it took some moments for him
+to grasp her words.  Then, with a little laugh, he said softly--
+
+"How will you stop me?"
+
+"I would sooner see you dead."
+
+"Well, then--dead--dead--at rest.  Why not!  You are mistress of all his
+secrets--all his drugs.  Why not?  I have injured you; kill me now--at
+once."
+
+"Are you really mad, Armstrong?" she said, looking at him wonderingly.
+
+"Yes--I suppose so--my head swims.  I can't--can't think.  But it is
+time to go."
+
+"Go?--go where?" she cried excitedly.
+
+He uttered a low laugh and shook his head, as if to clear it again, but
+the vertigo increased.
+
+She started and looked wildly round with her eyes flashing; and a
+strangely set look of determination came over her face, as she took a
+step to a table upon which stood a carafe of water and a glass, which
+she rapidly filled.  Then, going toward him again, she hesitated once
+more, and her whole manner changed.
+
+"Armstrong!" she cried, but he did not hear her; "Armstrong!"
+
+She shook him, and he sprang up, fully roused now.
+
+"Ah!" he muttered.  "Giddy from the blow."
+
+He took a step or two aside, and caught the back of a chair.
+
+"You are going!" she said mockingly.
+
+He looked at her sharply.
+
+"You will not go," she said.  "It is all a braggart's boast, to hide the
+cowardice in your heart."
+
+"What!" he cried wildly.
+
+"A man who is going to fight does not tell his friends for fear they
+should stop him."
+
+"No," he groaned.  "I'm not myself.  What have I said?"
+
+"Coward's words," she cried, "to frighten a weak girl.  You bade me
+poison you to end your miserable life."
+
+"I--I said that?" he cried.  "Well, why not?"
+
+"Why not?" she said, gazing at him fixedly, "why not?  Look, then."
+
+He bent forward wondering, as he struggled with the fit that was coming
+on again, while she took a bottle from the little satchel hanging from
+her wrist, snatched out the stopper, and poured a portion of its
+contents into the glass.
+
+"There!" she cried triumphantly.  "The test.  Poison--one of our
+strongest drugs.  Are you brave enough to drink?"
+
+He took a step forward, seized the glass, tottered for a moment, and let
+a little splash over the side on to the floor.  Then, drawing himself
+up, he placed the vessel to his lips, and drained it--the last drop
+seeming to scald his throat, and making him drop the tumbler, and clap
+his hands to his lips.
+
+Then, half turning round, he thrust out his hands again, as if feeling,
+like one suddenly struck blind, for something to save himself from
+falling.  A little later, he lurched suddenly, his legs gave way beneath
+him, and he sank heavily upon the floor.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
+
+TWO WOMEN'S LOVE.
+
+A woman--with the fierce lurid look of a tigress in her dark eyes, and
+in her action as lithe and elastic, she paced up and down her bedroom
+hour after hour.  Now she threw herself upon a couch in utter
+exhaustion, but anon she sprang up again to resume the hurried walk to
+and fro.
+
+At times she went to the door to open it and listen, for it was secured
+only by the locks and bolts of the Grundy Patent--Dellatoria, in spite
+of his newly awakened jealous rage, feeling that his wife would join
+with him in keeping the servants in ignorance of their terrible rupture.
+
+But all was still downstairs; and at last, enforcing an outward
+appearance of composure, Valentina changed her dress, bathed her burning
+eyes with spirit-scented water, and descended to her boudoir, where she
+turned down the lamp beneath its rose-coloured shade, and rang the bell,
+before seating herself in a lounge with her back half turned from the
+door.
+
+"Pretty well time," said the butler, who had been heading the discussion
+below stairs regarding the meaning of what had taken place.  "There,
+cook, you may dish up."
+
+The footman presented himself at the door.
+
+"Your ladyship rang?"
+
+"Yes.  Where is your master?"
+
+"In the lib'ry, my lady."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"No, my lady.  Colonel Varesti and Baron Gratz are with him again."
+
+"That will do."
+
+"Yes, my lady."
+
+The man hesitated at the door.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Does your ladyship wish the dinner to be served?"
+
+"No: wait till your master orders it.  I am unwell.  Give me that flacon
+of salts."
+
+The man handed the large cut-glass bottle, and went down.
+
+The aspect of languor passed away in an instant, and Valentina sprang
+from the seat.
+
+"I might have known it," she panted.  "He is no coward when he is
+roused, despicable as he is at other times.  Those men.  It means a
+meeting.  They will fight, and--"
+
+She clapped her hands to her forehead as in imagination she saw
+Armstrong lying bleeding at her husband's feet.  Strong and brave as he
+was, she doubted the artist's ability to stand before a man like the
+Conte, who had often boasted to her of his skill with the small sword,
+and ability as a marksman.
+
+"And I have wasted all this time."
+
+Then, after a few moments' thought, divining that the inevitable meeting
+would take place abroad, she went up at once to her bedroom and locked
+herself in.
+
+Her brain was still misty and confused by the intense excitement through
+which she had passed, for upon reaching home, and savagely dismissing
+Lady Grayson, the Conte had turned upon her furiously.  The passion of
+his southern nature had been aroused, and a mad jealousy developed
+itself respecting the woman whom of late he had utterly neglected.
+
+In a few moments her mind was quite made up, and, taking a small
+dressing bag, she rapidly emptied into it the whole of the costly
+contents of her jewel-cases, unlocked a small cabinet, and took from it
+what money she possessed, and then hastily dressed for going out.
+
+A very few minutes sufficed for this, and, after pausing for a few
+moments to collect herself, she took up the bag, and, unlocking the
+door, passed out silently on to the thickly carpeted landing, descended
+to the hall, where she paused again as she heard a low buzz of voices in
+the library, and then walked quickly to the door, passed out, and
+hurried up the wide street, breathing freely as she felt that she had
+been unobserved.
+
+Not quite.  Ladies in large establishments live beneath the observation
+of many eyes.  Valentina had no sooner begun to descend the wide stairs
+than a white cap was thrust out from the door of a neighbouring room,
+and the eyes beneath it were immediately after looking down the great
+staircase, while a pair of ears twitched as they listened till the front
+door was heard to close.
+
+The next minute the wearer of the cap was in the bed and dressing rooms,
+gazing at the empty jewel-cases, noting the absence of the bag, cloak,
+and bonnet, even to the veil; and then came the low ejaculation of the
+one word, "Well!"
+
+The Abigail ran down the backstairs and made her way into the hall, just
+in time to meet the butler returning from ushering out the Conte's two
+friends, who had been closeted with him, consulting as to what
+proceedings should be taken, as there had been no appearance put in by
+the other side.
+
+The butler heard the lady's-maids hurried communication, nodded sagely,
+and said oracularly that he wasn't a bit surprised; then coughed to
+clear his voice, waved the maid away, closed the baize door after her,
+and entered the library to repeat what he had heard.
+
+The Conte did not even change countenance.
+
+"Stop all tattling amongst the servants," he said.  "Her ladyship is not
+well--a strange seizure to-day.  It must be past the dinner hour."
+
+"Yes, my lord."
+
+"Let it be served at once."
+
+The butler bowed, and went out solemnly.
+
+The moment he was alone, a sharp grating sound was heard, and a strange
+look came over the Conte's face as he hastily opened a cabinet, took
+something from a drawer, and placed it in his breast pocket.  Then,
+hurrying upstairs, he satisfied himself of the truth of all he had
+heard, and descended, took his hat from the stand and went out quietly,
+unheard, even by the servants.
+
+Meanwhile Valentina had walked straight to the studio.
+
+The street-door was ajar, for Keren-Happuch had just gone into the next
+street to post a letter at the pillar, so the closely veiled woman
+passed in unseen, and went upstairs, stood for a few moments listening,
+and then softly entered.
+
+She uttered a low sigh of relief, glad to have entered the place which,
+for the moment, felt to her like a sanctuary.
+
+It was many hours since she had been surprised there by her husband and
+Lady Grayson; but to her then it seemed only a few minutes before, and
+she looked round the great dim room quickly, with a smile upon her lips.
+
+But the smile froze there, and a horrible sensation of fear came over
+her.  She had waited too long.  There must have been a challenge from
+her husband, and Armstrong had responded.  The street-door open; the
+studio unfastened; and this dim light!  Then she was too late: he had
+gone.  But where?  Belgium?  France?  The thought was horrible--almost
+more than she could bear.
+
+"No, no," she murmured.  "It cannot be."
+
+She advanced into the great dim place excitedly, with the many
+grim-looking plaster figures and busts seeming to watch her furtively
+out of the gloom; and as she looked quickly from side to side, she
+fancied that the faces were menacing and full of reproach, as if telling
+her that she had sent her lover to his death.
+
+She had nearly crossed the room when she started and shrank back in
+horror, for one of the rugs had been kicked slightly aside, and there
+was a wet dark mark upon the boards which she knew at a glance to be
+blood--his blood, for it was here he had fallen when her husband struck
+him down.
+
+With the faintest of hopes amid her despair that she might still be in
+time, she went on to the inner door, seized the handle, and was pressing
+it, but it was twisted from her fingers, the door opened, and she was
+about to fling herself into Armstrong's arms, but only shrank back with
+a look of jealous rage and despair.
+
+For Cornel stood framed in the opening and closed the door, then looked
+her firmly and defiantly in the face.
+
+Neither spoke for a full minute, and as Valentina gazed in the blanched
+countenance before her, she read here so stony and despairing a look,
+that she shrank away in horror, certain that either there was some
+terrible revelation awaiting her beyond the door which had been so
+carefully closed, or else that Cornel's eyes were confirming her worst
+dread, and that Armstrong had gone forth to meet his death.
+
+It was some moments before the Contessa could command herself
+sufficiently to speak aloud.  She wished to get from Cornel's lips the
+truth, and to show her how, possessed as she was of Armstrong's love,
+she could treat her with calm, contemptuous tolerance, as one almost
+beneath her notice.  But the stern disdain in those large flashing eyes
+mastered her and kept her silent.  There was a magnetism in their
+glance, and she felt that if she spoke it would be in a broken feeble
+manner, which would lower her in her rival's eyes.
+
+She fought against it, struggled for a long time vainly, and moment by
+moment felt how strong in her innocence and truth her rival stood before
+her.  It was not until she had lashed herself into a state of fury that
+she could force herself to speak.
+
+"Mr. Dale--where is he?" she cried at last imperiously.
+
+"How dare you come and ask?" said Cornel fiercely, her whole manner
+changed.
+
+"Because I have a right," cried Valentina, who, stung now by her rival's
+words, began to recover herself.  Her eyes too dilated as she went on,
+and something of her old hauteur and contempt flashed out.
+
+"You!--a right?"
+
+"Yes; the right of the woman he loves--who has given up everything for
+his sake."
+
+"Loves!  The woman he loves!" cried Cornel contemptuously.
+
+"Yes, and who loves him as such a woman as I can love.  Do you think
+that you, in your girlish coldness, could ever have won him as I have?
+Tell me where he is."
+
+"That you may join him?" cried Cornel.  "You would give him over to your
+husband--to that horror--and his death."
+
+"Ah!" cried Valentina excitedly; "then he has not gone yet.  He is
+safe."  And, in spite of herself, she gave way to a hysterical burst of
+tears.
+
+"What is it to you?" said Cornel coldly.  "He has escaped from your
+hands.  You have no right here, woman.  Go."
+
+"I am right, then," cried the Contessa, mastering her weakness once
+more.  "You are trying to keep us apart.  He is mine, I tell you, mine
+for ever.  He is there, then; I am not too late--there in that room.
+Armstrong!" she cried loudly, "come to me.  I am here."
+
+She made for the door again, but Cornel seized her, and strove with all
+her might to keep the furious woman back, but she was like a child in
+her hands, and was rudely flung aside.  Valentina thrust open the door,
+entered the study, and passed through it to the chamber beyond, to utter
+a wild cry, and fall upon her knees beside the bed on which Armstrong
+lay cold and still.
+
+Then, starting up, she bent over him, laid her hand upon his brow, her
+cheek against his lips, and staggered back.
+
+"Dead!" she cried, "dead!"
+
+For his eyes were closed, and the bandaged cut upon his brow gave him a
+ghastly look, seen as he was by the shaded light of a lamp upon the
+table by the bed's head.
+
+She rushed back through the little room to the studio, where Cornel
+stood, wild-eyed, and white as the figure upon the bed.
+
+"Wretch! you have killed him in your insane jealousy.  It could not have
+been that blow.  Tell me! confess!" she cried, seizing her by the arms.
+
+"Better so than that he should have fallen back into your power," said
+Cornel bitterly.
+
+"Ah!  You own it, then?  Oh, it is too horrible!"
+
+Her face convulsed with agony, the Contessa seized Cornel by the arm,
+threw down the bag, which flew open, so that the jewels scattered on the
+floor, and tried to drag her toward the studio door, calling hoarsely
+for help.  But her voice rose to the ceiling, and not a sound was heard
+below.
+
+But Cornel resisted now with all her might, and in the struggle which
+ensued wrested herself away, ran across the studio, darted through the
+door of the little room, dashed it to, and had time to slip the bolt
+before her rival flung herself against it, and then beat heavily against
+the panel with her hand.
+
+Pale as ashes, and panting with excitement, Cornel stood with her left
+shoulder pressed against the panel, feeling the blows struck upon it
+through the wood, as, with her eyes fixed and strained, she felt about
+for the key, her hand trembling so that she could hardly turn it in the
+lock.
+
+"No, no!" she muttered.  "I'll die sooner than she shall touch him
+again."
+
+Then she held her breath, listening, for she fancied she heard a sound
+in the studio above the beating on the panel, which suddenly culminated
+in one strangely given blow, accompanied by a wild shriek of agony,
+followed by a heavy fall and a piteous groan.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
+
+HUSBAND AND WIFE.
+
+Startled beyond bearing by the sounds of mortal suffering, Cornel
+unfastened the door, drew it toward her, and then stopped, utterly
+paralysed by the scene in the studio.
+
+There, not a yard away from the door, lay the beautiful woman, her face
+drawn in agony and horror, with the blood welling from a wound in her
+throat: her bonnet was back on her shoulders, and her hair torn down, as
+if a hand had suddenly been savagely laid upon her brow, her head
+dragged back, and a blow struck at her from behind; while standing upon
+the other side, with his compressed lips drawn away from his set teeth,
+eyes nearly closed, and brow contracted, was the Conte, looking down at
+his work.
+
+For a few moments Cornel could not stir.  The studio, with its many
+casts, seemed to perform a ghastly dance round her, and she felt as if
+this were some horrible nightmare.  Then the deathly sickness passed
+off, and she cried wildly to the Conte, who did not even seem aware of
+her presence--
+
+"O Heaven!  What have you done?"
+
+Her piteous appeal made him start back into consciousness, and with a
+hasty motion he hurled something across the studio, where it fell with a
+tinkling, metallic sound.
+
+"I--I struck her," he gasped, in a harsh cracked voice.  "I loved her--
+ah! how I loved her; and she was false.  Look: she had even robbed me,
+and fled with all her jewels--to him.  See where they lie, scattered
+upon his floor.  Ah, signora," he cried passionately, and growing more
+and more Italian in his excitement, "I poured out wealth at her feet.
+There was nothing I would not have done to gratify her.  For I loved
+her--I loved her.  Dio mio, how I loved!"
+
+"Hush!" cried Cornel, recovering herself somewhat in the presence of
+suffering and danger, her medical education asserting itself.  "Go
+quickly and call help.  Send for a surgeon."
+
+"No, no!" he cried excitedly, as his face blanched with dread.  "If I
+call, it means the police, and--oh! horror--they will say I have
+murdered her."
+
+"Man!" cried Cornel, in disgust at his sudden display of selfishness,
+"have you no feeling?--Is this your love?  Quick!--your handkerchief.
+Mine too; take it from my pocket.  God help me, and give me strength,"
+she whispered, as her busy fingers staunched the wound by closing the
+cut.  Then, as the Conte stood looking on, trembling like a leaf, she
+bade him fetch a large wide lotah from where it stood upon a bracket,
+pour water into it from the carafe, and place it upon the floor beside
+the Contessa's head.
+
+And as she knelt there all hatred and horror of the beautiful woman
+passed away.  It was an erring sister and sufferer for sin, bleeding to
+death; and, knowing how precious minutes were at such a time, she tore
+up the handkerchiefs and portions of the Contessa's attire, as, with
+skilled hands, she checked the bleeding, and securely bandaged the
+wound.
+
+She was so intent upon her work, that, after he had obeyed her orders,
+she was hardly conscious of the Conte's presence, while he, after
+watching her acts for some minutes, suddenly looked round, startled by
+some sound which penetrated to where they were.  Then, trembling
+visibly, he began to examine the front of his clothes, passing his hands
+over them, and examining his palms for traces of the deed, but finding
+none.
+
+Then a fresh thought struck him, and after keenly watching Cornel to see
+if she noticed the action, he crept on tip-toe--a miserably bent,
+decrepit-looking figure--to where the tinkling sound had been heard,
+picked up a little ivory-handled stiletto, examined its blade in the
+faint light, with his back to the group by the inner room door, and,
+catching up a piece of Moorish scarf, wiped it quickly, and hid the
+weapon in his breast pocket.
+
+Then creeping on tip-toe to the studio door, he listened, his face full
+of abject fear, and hearing nothing, he turned the key.
+
+He glanced toward Cornel, whose back was toward him, as she busily went
+on with her task, hiding too his wife's face from him by her position.
+
+Hesitating for a moment or two, he then drew a deep breath, and crossed
+softly to where the bag lay open with some of the glittering jewels
+still hanging to its edge: great strings of pearls, and a necklet of
+diamonds.
+
+These he hurriedly thrust back, and then went quickly and silently
+about, picking up rings, bracelets, brooches, and tiaras of emerald,
+ruby, diamond, and sapphire, till, with a sigh of satisfaction, he
+closed the morocco bag, the fastening giving forth a loud snap.
+
+"Is--is she dead?" he whispered; and his lips were so close to Cornel's
+ear that she started round, and let fall the wrist upon whose pulse her
+fingers were pressed.
+
+"No," she whispered.  "I have staunched the wound till you can get
+proper help, but I fear internal bleeding."
+
+At that moment there was a piteous sigh followed by a low moan, and the
+beautiful dark eyes opened, to gaze vacantly for a few moments.  Then
+intelligence came into them, as they rested upon Cornel, who was now
+bending over her.
+
+"Ah," she said softly, as her hand felt for Cornel's, which was laid
+upon her brow; "you?  Good for evil;" and she drew Cornel's hand to her
+lips and kissed it.  "Forgive me," she whispered, "before I die.  I
+loved him so."
+
+A curiously harsh low cry escaped from the Conte, who literally writhed
+in his jealous agony, and Valentina turned her eyes upon him where he
+stood dimly seen, as if looking at her from out of a mist.
+
+"You there!" she said bitterly, as Cornel once more grasped her wrist.
+"Well, are you satisfied?  You have killed my body, as you killed my
+love, when, as a young innocent girl, I was sold to you for your wealth
+and title, and Heaven knows I would have tried to be your true loving
+wife."
+
+"Oh, Valentina! my beautiful--my own!" he groaned; and he stooped to
+take her hand.
+
+"Pah! don't touch me!" she cried hoarsely; and she raised the hand she
+had snatched away, and pointed to the bag he held.  "Take them to your
+mistresses whose smiles you have always bought.  Let me die in peace."
+
+"No, no; live!" he cried.
+
+"To save you from the punishment you merit?" she whispered scornfully.
+
+"No, no! to be my dearest love and wife again.  Let us go back to sunny
+Italy, away from all this miserable city."
+
+"Too late!" she said sadly.  "You should have said that years ago."
+
+"For pity's sake don't speak," whispered Cornel.
+
+"Why not, little doctor?" said Valentina softly.  "Better so.  Ah, I was
+not all bad, dear.  I loved him before I knew of you.  How could I help
+looking on you with jealous hate?  Let me kiss you once--before I go.
+Be loving to him and forgive him--it was all my fault--tell me you will
+forgive him--when I am gone."
+
+"With all my heart," said Cornel softly; and she bent down to press her
+lips to those of the suffering woman, while the tears over-ran her
+brimming eyelids, and her heart swelled with pity for one so deeply
+punished for her sin.
+
+But as if the Contessa recollected the scene of a short time before, she
+thrust the gentle face away before lips touched lips, and with a loud
+cry--
+
+"No, no!  I had forgotten.  I remember now.  How could you be so base?
+No! don't touch me.  I will see him once again.  Armstrong!--my love--my
+own."
+
+She dragged herself over, and began to crawl to the door, when the
+Conte's face became convulsed with passion once more, his hand sought
+his breast, the bag fell to the ground, and with an oath he cried--
+
+"Then he is in there!--in hiding."
+
+Springing over the crawling figure, he dashed through to the inner room,
+and, as Valentina uttered a piteous moan, the Conte flung open the
+bedroom door.
+
+"Dog!--Coward!" he yelled, and then stopped, petrified at the sight of
+the motionless figure upon the bed.  Then the door swung to between
+them, and he thrust back the little blade, and came stealthily out,
+muttering softly to himself as he bent over his wife, insensible to all
+that passed.
+
+He was trembling violently now.
+
+"I did not know," he muttered to Cornel.  "I struck him when I found
+them together, but I did not know.  I--I must go--away.  Your laws are
+bad.  An affair of honour.  Will--will she die too?"
+
+"I cannot say," replied Cornel coldly.  "She must have better surgical
+help.  I am only a nurse."
+
+"Yes," he said hastily.  "Better help.  A great surgeon.  She must not
+die.  I will get a carriage and take her away."
+
+"It would be dangerous to move her."
+
+"More dangerous far to leave her here," he muttered.  Then aloud, "It
+must be risked, madam.  But listen.  You are his friend?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This is a terrible misfortune, but a private matter--not for the
+police.  You will not tell them how--by accident--I struck my wife?"
+
+"No," said Cornel, after a pause; and a shudder ran through her.
+
+"Hah!  Then the law need not meddle with what was a private quarrel--a
+mistake.  My wife, here, shall live, and you who are so good and
+beautiful and kind, you shall be silent, and--one moment."
+
+He fumbled with the clasp of the bag he had picked up, opened it, and,
+as Cornel's brows contracted with horror, he searched within and drew
+out a magnificent diamond and sapphire bracelet.
+
+"Hah!" he cried.  "You will wear that for both our sakes, and be silent,
+and blind to the past."
+
+"I will be silent and blind, for the sake of the man I loved," she said
+to herself, as she thrust back the jewel and shook her head.
+
+"But you will not tell?" he said.
+
+"No, sir; your secret is safe."
+
+The Conte uttered a sigh of satisfaction, threw back the bracelet, and
+closed the bag with a snap, while Cornel eyed him with disgust.
+
+"Do you intend to risk removing this lady?"
+
+"Certainly," he said firmly; "it must be done.  Lock the door after me,"
+he whispered, as he crossed the studio.
+
+Cornel followed and obeyed, listening to his descending steps.  Then,
+returning to where Valentina lay insensible, she satisfied herself of
+the security of the bandages, and once more felt her pulse.
+
+"If there is no internal bleeding she will live.  Yes, I will forgive
+you.  Some day you may know the truth.  And then?  Ah, who can tell?"
+
+She bent down and kissed the broad forehead, and then knelt there for a
+few moments before rising and going quickly into Armstrong's bedroom to
+gaze at him for a minute, and return, carefully closing after her both
+the doors.
+
+She kept her vigil there for a few minutes before there were steps
+again, and a soft tap at the door.
+
+She admitted the Conte.
+
+"I have a carriage waiting, and a man here to help," he said.
+
+"I am not clever and experienced," said Cornel anxiously.  "Let a doctor
+see her first."
+
+For answer the Conte gave her a quick nod.
+
+"It is secrecy, is it not?"
+
+"Oh yes, but--"
+
+"The best London can give," he whispered.  "When I have her back at
+home.  And you understand that was nonsense which I said about striking
+him?"
+
+The bag was on his arm, with his hand pushed far through, as he went
+back to the door, and signalled to a man to come in.  Then seeing that
+this removal was inevitable, Cornel rapidly replaced the cloak well
+round the insensible figure, and rearranged the head.
+
+"Don't--don't waste time," said the Conte impatiently, and signing to
+the man, the latter bent down and lifted the motionless figure as easily
+as if it had been a child.
+
+"Be careful, my friend.  A sad accident.  Be careful.  Mind."
+
+He opened the door for the man to pass through, and Cornel followed
+them, to listen to the heavy descending steps, till all was silent.
+Then came the rattle of wheels, and she knew that they were gone.
+
+Closing the door of the studio, she walked across it, dropped upon her
+knees, and clasped her hands.
+
+"Have I done rightly?" she murmured.  "I don't know.  It seems like
+madness now."  Then a weary sigh, as she laid her head against the door
+leading to the chamber.  "Armstrong! what I have suffered for your
+sake!"
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY.
+
+THE LAST.
+
+"And you gave him enough to keep him in that insensible state?" said Dr.
+Thorpe next night, after seeing and treating Armstrong, who lay in a
+weak, half-delirious state.
+
+Cornel nodded and gazed wildly at her brother, who continued--
+
+"To keep him from going abroad to fight this duel?"
+
+"Yes, I felt sure that the Conte would kill him."
+
+"And serve him right.  Well," he went on, as his sister winced at his
+harsh words, "this proves the truth of the saying--`A little knowledge
+is a dangerous thing,' You know a bit about narcotics and anaesthetics,
+and you may congratulate yourself upon not having killed him.  But
+there, perhaps, it was right; and anyhow, you have saved him."
+
+"You think he will recover now?" she cried eagerly.
+
+"Think so?  Oh yes! of course.  Nothing to prevent him.  Only wants
+time.  But it's nothing to you."
+
+"How is the Contessa?"
+
+"Getting better, I hear.  Fact is, I met the surgeon who is attending
+her at the society.  But never mind them.  I shall have done all I want
+here in less than a fortnight.  That is when the _Spartania_ sails, so
+be ready, and let's get back."
+
+"Yes, dear," said Cornel quietly, "I shall have finished my task, too."
+
+Two years later Armstrong Dale went back home, but only for a visit, for
+his fame was increasing rapidly, and he had more commissions than he
+could undertake.  He wanted help and counsel, and he brought them back
+with him, for he did not return to London alone.
+
+Four more years had elapsed, and that season there was a great deal of
+talk about Armstrong Dale's big picture at the Academy.  The press had
+praised it unanimously; society had endorsed the critics' words; and it
+was sold for a heavy sum.  But though he was importuned to take
+portraits, Armstrong sternly refused.
+
+The picture that year was a fanciful subject of a beautiful woman
+reclining upon a tiger skin, with a huge cluster of orange maculated
+lilies thrust, as if by careless hands, into a magnificent repousse
+copper vase.  And as he painted it, he had turned to his wife one day,
+and said, "I can't help it, Little Heart; it will come so like her.  I
+shall paint it out and give up."
+
+Then he seized a cloth to pass across the fresh paint, but Cornel caught
+his wrist.
+
+"Absurd!" she cried.  "That magnificent piece of work--and because of a
+fancied resemblance?"
+
+"Then you do not mind?" he said sadly.
+
+Palette, brushes, and mahlstick were slowly and softly taken from his
+hands, which were drawn round Cornel's neck, and she nestled closely in
+his breast.
+
+"Mind?  No," she said gently; "let the dead past bury its dead."
+
+The picture went to the Academy then, and was the most discussed work of
+the year.
+
+One sunny morning early, so as to be before the crush, Armstrong and his
+wife walked through the principal room, joined together by a little
+fairy-like golden-haired link, whose bright eyes flashed with delight as
+she clung to the hand on either side, for she was at her urgent request
+being taken "to see papa's picture--`The Tiger Lily.'"
+
+The trio had been standing in front of it for some minutes, when, after
+playfully responding to the happy child's many questions, Cornel and
+Armstrong turned to take her round the room, but both stopped short as
+if petrified.
+
+For within a couple of yards stood Valentina, pale as death, her eyes
+abnormally large, and her whole countenance telling of bodily suffering
+and mental pain.
+
+Beside her was an invalid-chair, occupied by a wasted, prematurely old
+man, wrapped in furs--in May--and attended by a servant, who stood
+motionless behind.
+
+The meeting was a surprise, and all present save one remained fascinated
+by some spell.
+
+The silence was broken by Valentina, who took a step forward, and held
+out her hand, while Armstrong saw at a glance that the Conte was gazing
+vacantly at the pictures, his eyes dull and glazed, the light of
+recognition being absent.
+
+"It is six years since we met, Mrs. Dale," said the Contessa softly, but
+the tones of her voice were changed, and she turned her head slightly to
+let her eyes rest upon Armstrong.  "As in all human probability we shall
+never meet again, I cannot resist referring once to the past--to thank
+your sweet wife for the life she saved."
+
+"Oh, pray," whispered Cornel in a tremulous voice, "no more."
+
+"No," said Valentina, holding Cornel's hand tightly, and gazing wildly
+in her eyes, though her voice was very calm.  "We go back to Italy at
+once.  My husband, who is a great invalid, seems better there."
+
+She paused for a moment, as if to gain strength to continue; and then,
+in a low, passionate whisper, full of the maternal longing of an
+unsatisfied heart--
+
+"Your child?  May I kiss her once?"
+
+Cornel bowed her head--she could not speak, but held the child a little
+forward, and Valentina bent down.
+
+"Will you kiss me?" she asked.
+
+The bright, innocent eyes looked smilingly up, and the silvery voice
+said, as the soft little arms clasped her neck--
+
+"Yes, I'll give you two."  Then, as she was held tightly for a few
+moments, "Do you like dear papa's picture?  I saw him make it.  Is it
+you?"
+
+The eager, wondering question sent a pang through three breasts, but not
+another word was uttered, till the invalid-chair and its attendants had
+passed through the door close by.
+
+It was the child who broke the silence just as Cornel had stolen her
+hand to her husband's side to press his with a long, firm, trusting
+grasp.
+
+"Why did that lady cry when she kissed me, mamma?  I know:" the child
+added quickly.  "It was because that poor gentleman is so ill."
+
+It was the winter of the same year when Armstrong was seated by his
+studio fire with his child upon his knee, and Cornel upon the rug, with
+the warm light of the fire upon her cheek--not in the old studio, but
+the great, artistically furnished salon in Kensington.  The door opened,
+and a gruff voice exclaimed--
+
+"May I come in?"
+
+The child uttered a cry of delight, sprang from her father's knee, and
+dashed across the studio, to begin dragging forward the rough grey-beard
+in a shabby velvet coat, and soft black hat.
+
+He raised her in his arms, and bore her forward caressingly, to sit
+chatting for some time.  Then Cornel rose and took the child's hand.
+
+"Come, dear," she said.  "Your tea-time."
+
+"No, no.  I want to stop with Uncle Joe."
+
+"Uncle Joe wants to talk to papa about business," said Cornel, with a
+nod and a smile, as she drew the little one away.  "You shall come in to
+dessert if you are good."
+
+She nodded, smiling at the rough-looking old friend, and then tripped
+out playfully with the child.
+
+"Light your pipe, old man," said Armstrong.  "Is it business?"
+
+"Yes.  Your wife reads my face like a book.  Have you seen to-day's
+paper?"
+
+"No.  Been growling all day at the bad light and playing with Tiny."
+
+"Read that, then."
+
+Pacey passed a crumpled newspaper, folded small, and under the Paris
+news Armstrong read--
+
+"Mú Leronde has been appointed French Consul at Constantinople, and
+leaves Marseilles by the Messageries Maritimes steamer _Corne d'Or_ on
+Friday."
+
+"Well, I am glad.  Hang it, Joe, I could find it in my heart to run over
+to Paris to have one dinner with him, and say `Good-bye.'"
+
+"No time," said Pacey gruffly.  "Now read that."  He took back the paper
+and doubled it again, so that the front page was outward, and pointed to
+the column of deaths.
+
+Armstrong started, and for some moments held the paper with his eyes
+fixed upon his friend, in whose countenance he seemed to divine what was
+to come.
+
+He was in no wise surprised, when he looked down, to find the name
+Dellatoria, and he began to read the announcement with the remembrance
+that the Conte's face, when they last met, bore the stamp of impending
+death; but he was not prepared for what he did read.  The type was
+blurred, and the paper quivered a little as he saw as through a mist the
+name Valentina, the age thirty, Rome, and then the last words stood out
+clearly--"Only surviving the Conte Dellatoria four days."
+
+"Chapter the last, boy," said Pacey, taking back the paper, and folding
+it tightly before replacing it in his breast pocket.
+
+"Yes," said Armstrong slowly, as he mentally looked backward through the
+golden mists of six years, "chapter the last."
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tiger Lily, by George Manville Fenn
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40673 ***