But this time Arthur felt it. There was suffering, sorrow, wrong in the world; he was doing nothing but vegetate on its surface, keeping his comforts, his gladness, his fresh young life for his own selfish gratification. And the worst of it all was that he did not see a way out of it. In the days of chivalry young knights went out armed to fight for defenceless women and redress human wrongs. Arthur felt sure that his mysterious lady had been in some way cruelly wronged, and he longed to constitute himself her protector and knight; but in the first place she had persistently denied herself to him; in the second place her wrongs might prove to be such as he would find himself utterly unable to redress. He was bound to Adèle, and if it had not been so he felt instinctively that he was scarcely a suitable husband for the beautiful widow. (Arthur had made up his mind that Margaret _was_ a widow.) Under such circumstances, even if so minor an evil as poverty were her trouble, there would be a certain incongruity in offering her half his fortune, and she would probably resent such a step. He could offer it anonymously, but even in such case it would be quite possible that she might think it right to decline acceptance, and Mrs. Churchill would reasonably consider Adèle and any children she might have wronged by the proceeding. Arthur, in fact, had wandered into a maze whence there really seemed to be no exit. His only hope was to see Margaret again. One more glimpse of her fair face might do more toward unravelling the mystery than hours of lonely pondering. This, then, it was, rather more than love of art, that led him to haunt the picture-galleries, and especially the one where he had first seen her. But if it were this that led him, something else kept him. Wandering hither and thither by these trophies of mind, with this new earnestness in his spirit, he began to feel in them a power unsuspected in his former languid visits. They represented work, conflict, triumph. Each picture had its history, into each were wrought the mingled threads of human experience. In the dim glory that shone from one or two of these transcripts of Nature Arthur read the struggle of soul to express itself worthily, and his young spirit was stirred within him. In the loving detail, all beautiful of its kind, with which the artist surrounded the fair queen of his homage, he saw the earnestness of genius, and bowing his head he worshipped in the great temple of Humanity. The young man's thoughts began to run, not on his own elegance and superiority, but on the great problems of Nature and Art. Self was removed from its lofty pedestal. What the fair woman's face had begun human genius carried on. Arthur Forrest was changed. CHAPTER VII. _A CUNNING TEMPTER._ Thou art woman; And that is saying the best and worst of thee.