"If you won't think me boorish," he said at last abruptly, "I'd rather keep to my intention. I'm not a boy--I need all the time at my disposal to succeed in." She gave a forced laugh. "How much younger do you want to be? If the money doesn't attract you, it won't be in your way, I suppose; and--you can do it to oblige me! Come, I'm quite frank! I own that you're very useful to me. You don't mean that you're going to strike and leave me in the lurch?" The face upturned to him was more earnest than her words. Her brown eyes widened, and fastened on him, and for an instant his resolution broke down. But it was his work, and his ambition, his fidelity to his art, that she was asking him to waive--he would not! "Nobody so sorry as the 'striker,'" he said, in a tone to match her own. "Let me be your banker when I'm going into a dozen editions, Mrs. Deane-Pitt, and I'll serve you all you want. The service you ask me to-day is just the one I can't do." "Bien," she murmured; "I suppose you know your own business best." But she was plainly disappointed, and, though she speedily spoke of another subject, her voice lacked spontaneity. Kent's courage knew no approving glow, and if, during the minutes he remained, she had begged him to assist her by returning the cheque, he would most certainly have done it. He thought that she must hate him--though in truth he had never appealed to her so strongly--and it was the only occasion on which he had ever taken leave of her without regret. To Cynthia he wrote immediately, telling her he had been paid two hundred pounds, and enclosing twenty-five, that she might have a surplus to draw upon without applying to him. He also remitted to Paris the amount necessary to redeem her ring, and his watch and chain, and the rest. He had now an opportunity of going down to see her, and he told her that she might expect him on Monday or Tuesday in the following week. The picture he had once seen of surprising her in the garden had long since ceased to present itself to him, and he was not impatient to find himself in his wife's company in the circumstances. He questioned if Mrs. Deane-Pitt would be disposed to go with him to Richmond after what had passed. To refuse a woman's petition to augment her income, but to invite her to dinner at Richmond, was rather suggestive of the bread and the stone. Yet, now that propinquity was not her ally, he was fervently glad that he had had strength to refuse. It was a partnership that every month would have made more difficult to sever, and she had, apparently, looked for it to extend over years. As to Richmond, he hoped the engagement would be fulfilled; it would pain him intensely otherwise. He owed her too much to be reconciled to their separating with coldness, and he determined to send a note, reminding her of her promise.