_Baron Verdigris_ was the transition from the _Morte d’Arthur_ phase to the _Yellow Book_ or Greek Vase phase; the Mrs. Whistler as _The Fat Woman_ was the transition from his Greek vase stage; _Black Coffee_ the end of the Greek Vase stage. Rid of the cramping limitations of _The Yellow Book_ page and its consequent disheartening reduction, Beardsley was now to develop a freer use of his line and reveal a greater love of detail employed with a realistic decorative beauty all his own. He was still living in his house in Pimlico at 114 Cambridge Street, with his sister, when expelled from _The Yellow Book_. It was about this time that he met the poet John Gray who had been in the decadent movement and became a Roman Catholic priest--the friendship soon became more close and ripened into a warm brotherly affection. It was to have a most important effect on Beardsley’s life. Gray published Beardsley’s letters, which begin with their early acquaintance, and were soon very frequent and regular; these letters give us a clear intimate insight into Beardsley’s spiritual life and development from this time. Beardsley begins by calling him affectionately “My dear Mentor,” from which and from the letters we soon realise that Gray was from the first bent on turning the young fellow’s thoughts and tastes and artistic temperament towards entering the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, soon we find Gray priming the young fellow with arguments to refute his “Anglican” friends. * * * * * The bout of renewed health that had come to cheer Beardsley with _The Yellow Book_, lasted only to the fall of the yellow leaf. Ill health began again to dog his footsteps; and it was an astonishing tribute to his innate vitality that he could keep so smiling a face upon it. Whether the little house in Pimlico were sold over his head, or whether from disheartenment of ill-health, or his expulsion from _The Yellow Book_ and all that it implied, in the July of 1895 the house at 114 Cambridge Street was sold, and Beardsley removed to 10 and 11 St. James’s Place, S. W. It was all rather suddenly decided upon. He was by this time not only drifting back to bad health; but was so ill that those who saw him took him for a dying man. And _The Yellow Book_ went on without him, to die a long lingering ignoble death. * * * * *