He received two letters one morning. Logan wrote telling him he ought not to waste his time over portraits, and that he must come back to London soon, because the autumn was to see their triumph: nothing about himself, nothing about Oliver. Mendel was disappointed: nobody ever really answered his letters, into which he flung all his feeling. His other letter was from Morrison. His first letter from her. He knew her hand, though he had never seen it before--round, big, simple. He kept her letter until his day's work was done, and then he went into the garden to read it. There was an arbour at the end of a mossy walk which led to a crag above a little waterfall. Out of the crag grew a mountain ash, brilliant in berry. This was the most beautiful spot in the garden, and so he chose it for reading the letter. "I want you to forgive me for being so foolish. I want to try again. I hate being beaten, and I think it was only my stupidity that beat me. I have been thinking of you all the time, and I have been troubled about you. What people said had nothing at all to do with it. I admire you more than I can say, and I have been very foolish. "It has been a lovely summer. I have been working hard and feel hopeless about it. Please don't ask to see my work. While I am at it I am wondering all the time what you are doing. "I am to be allowed to come back to London in October. There is no reason why you should not write to me." She was there with him, by his side, under the glowing rowan-tree, gazing down at the little white waterfall dashing so merrily down into the pebbled beck. She was there with him, and his blood sang in his veins and his mind began to work, pounding along as it had not done these many weeks. . . . Weeks? Years--more than a lifetime. He went back to his picture and thought it very, very bad. Edward and his wife came in and looked at it dubiously. "Of course," said Edward, "it is a very jolly picture, but I don't think you have caught all her charm." "But the painting of the hat is wonderful," said Mary. "What do I care?" thought Mendel. "It is you--you as you are, smiling, eternally smiling over your little clean, comfortable happiness, three parts of which you have bought, with your servants and your flowers and your bathroom." In a day or two he was being whirled back to London, shouting every now and then from sheer exuberance--thirty pounds in his pocket, October to look forward to: October, when London shook off its summer listlessness; October, when She would return; and until October he would run with his eyes on the trail of the burning, creeping passion that bound him to Logan and Oliver. II THE CAMPAIGN OPENS