The drawing lessons went bravely and wearily on day after day. Because his aunt wished it, Fairfax guided Gardiner's inert fingers across the page and almost tied Bella to her chair. On drawing days he lunched with the household, and honestly earned his food. Half fed, keen with a healthy appetite, he ate gratefully. They had been pausing at the end of a half-hour's torture when Bella took up her monologue on her father's character. "When the bills come in he shuts himself in the library. I hear him walk up and down; then he comes out with his face white, and once, long past dinner-time, when mother didn't come in, he said to me, 'Where in heaven's name is your mother? What can she find left in the shops to buy?' just that, he asked me that, Cousin Antony. I felt awfully sorry. I was just going to ask him for five cents, but I hadn't the heart." That she had heart for her father, this child of twelve, and at so tender an age could see and comprehend, could pity, struck Fairfax, and on his part he began to see many things, but being a man and chivalrous, he pitied the woman as well. "My aunt is out of her element," he decided; "she cannot be in love with her husband; no woman who loved anything on earth could gad about as she does," and he wondered, and the deer in the park gazing at an artificial wilderness became more and more of a symbol of her. Regarding the man they called "his honour" Fairfax had not made up his mind. * * * * * Gardiner developed scarlet fever and lay, so Mrs. Carew assured Antony, "at the door of death," and Bella had been sent away to the country. Mr. Carew lived at the Club, and Antony made daily visits and did countless errands for his aunt. One day, toward the end of the little boy's convalescence, Fairfax came in late and heard the sound of a sweet voice singing. He entered the drawing-room quietly and the song went on. Mrs. Carew had a lovely voice, one of those natural born voices, heart-touching, appealing; one of those voices that cause an ache and go to the very marrow, that make the eyes fill. As though she knew Antony was there, and liked the entertainment, she sang him song after song, closing with "Oh, wert thou in the cold blast," then let her hands rest on the keys. Fairfax went over to the piano. "Why didn't you tell me you sang like this, Aunt Caroline?" The emotion her songs had kindled remained in his voice. "Oh, I never sing, my dear boy, your uncle doesn't like music." "Damn," said the young man sharply; "I beg your pardon. You've got the family talent; your voice is divine." She was touched but shook her head. "I might have sung possibly, if your uncle had ever cared for it. He'll be back to-morrow and I thought I'd just run these things over."