He could not permit himself to go to church again, but during the next few days he half expected to hear a knock at the door which should announce Bella. But she did not come, and he was glad that she did not, and more than once, in the evening, he walked around the school building, up ---- Street, looking at the lighted windows of the house where the doves were safely coted, and thought of the schoolgirl, with her books and her companions. "... Not any more perfectly straight lines, Cousin Antony ..." And the leaves fell, piles of them, red and yellow, and were swept and burned in fires whose incense was sweet to him, and the trees in the school garden grew bare. In the first days of his Albany life, his Visions had used to meet him in those streets; now there seemed to be no inspiration for him anywhere, and he wondered if it were his marriage that had levelled all pinnacles for him or his daily mechanical work? His associations with Tito Falutini? Or if it were only that he was no sculptor at all, not equal to his dreams! In the leaf-strewn street, near the Canon's School, he called on the Images to return, and, half halting in his walk, he looked up at one lighted window as if he expected to see a girlish figure there and catch sight of a friendly little hand that waved to him; but there was no such greeting. * * * * * That afternoon, as he went into his studio, some one rose from the sofa, and his wife's voice called to him-- "Don't be startled, Tony. I just came for awhile to sit with you." He was amazed. Molly had never crossed the threshold of the workroom before, not having been invited. She had brought her sewing. It was so lonely in the little rooms, she wondered if it wasn't lonesome in the studio as well? Smoking and walking to and fro, his hands in his pockets, Fairfax glanced at his wife as she took up the little garments on which she was at work. Her skin was stainless as a lily save here and there where the golden fleck of a freckle marred its whiteness. Her reddish hair, braided in strands, was wound flatly around her head. There was a purity in her face, a Mystery that was holy to him. He crossed over to her side and lit the lamp for her. "Who suggested your coming? Rainsford?" "Nobody. I wanted to come, just." He threw himself down on the sofa near her. "I can't work!" he exclaimed. "I've not been able to do anything for weeks. I reckon I'm no good. I'm going to let the whole thing go." Molly folded her sewing and laid it on the table. "Would you show me what you've been workin' at, Tony?" The softness of her brogue had not gone, but she had been a rapid pupil unconsciously taught, and her speech had improved. "I've destroyed most of my work," he said, hopelessly; "but this is something of the new scheme I've planned."