But there was no knowing what religion might not have done for this southern nature if, indeed, religion was the motive of the rupture with Robert Grimshaw; and she was known to have refused to receive from her cousin any of her father’s money, so that that, too, had some of the aspect of her having become a nun, or, at any rate, of her having adopted a cloisteral frame of mind, devoting herself, as her sister Ellida said, “to good works.” But whatever the cause of the quarrel, there had been no doubt that Robert Grimshaw had felt the blow very severely--as severely as it was possible for such things to be felt in the restrained atmosphere of the more southerly and western portions of London. He had disappeared, indeed, for a time, though it was understood that he had been spending several months in Athens arranging his uncle’s affairs and attending to those of the firm of Peter Lascarides and Company, of which firm he had become a director. And even when he returned to London it was to be observed that he was still very “hipped.” What was at all times most noticeable about him, to those who observed these things, was the pallor of his complexion. When he was in health, this extreme and delicate whiteness had a subcutaneous flush like the intangible colouring of a China rose. But upon his return from Athens it had, and it retained for some time, the peculiar and chalky opacity. Shortly after his return he engrossed himself in the affairs of his friend Dudley Leicester, who had lately come into very large but very involved estates. Dudley Leicester, who, whatever he had, had no head for business, had been Robert Grimshaw’s fag at school, and had been his almost daily companion at Oxford and ever since. But little by little the normal flush had returned to Robert Grimshaw’s face; only whilst lounging through life he appeared to become more occupied in his mind, more reserved, more benevolent and more gentle. It was on observing a return of the excessive and chalk-like opacity in Robert Grimshaw’s cheeks that Ellida, when that afternoon he called upon her, exclaimed: “What’s the matter? You know you aren’t looking well. One would think Peter was dead.” “You’ve got,” he said, “to put on your things and come and see them off at the station.” “I?” she protested. “What are they to me?” He passed his hand over his forehead. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “I don’t want to, but I’ve got to. I’ve got to see the last of Pauline.” Ellida said: “_Oh_!” “It’s not,” he answered, “a question of what you are to them, but of what I am to you. You’re the only sister I’ve got in the world.” Ellida was walking up to him to put her hands upon his shoulders. “Yes, dear,” she was beginning, with the note of tenderness in her voice. “And,” he interrupted her, “you’re the only sister that Katya’s got in the world. If I’ve arranged this marriage it’s for your sake, to keep myself for Katya.” She gave a little indrawing of the breath: