Once a day, however, she took out a writing-block, and traced upon it the words, “My dear Jack, I think I ought to tell you--” or a similar exordium. She got no further. How could she tell him that without telling him more? And how tell him more when, of her own accord, she had sent him about his business, and set her approval upon his marriage, or what must be considered his marriage? An instinct forbade her. She didn't reason with it: her reason was paralysed. “It's part of the price. It's what he would have praised me for”--and she flew to her text. “_A great power is in your thin sweet hands, my sweet; you are in the way of being a great artist._” She looked at her hands, and loved them for his sake who had loved them so well. Her “thin sweet hands!” Could one write so of her hands and not love them well? But the power, the power that she had! Hear her rhapsodist. _“If you can so work upon your delicate surface as to mould it close to your noble soul; if in the gallery of the world you can unveil yourself for a thousand pair of eyes to see, and praise God for the right to see--why, what an artist you are, and what an audience you have! ... Like a whiff of thyme on a grassy down, like the breath of violets from a bank, or of bean-flower blown across a dusty hedge, some gentle exhalation of your soul sighed through your body will hint to the passion-driven wretch things innocent and quiet. The blue beam of your steadfast eyes may turn his own to heaven; a chance-caught, low, sweet tone of your voice may check clamour; an answer may turn his wrath.... You can be picture, form, poem, symphony in one.... Think of it, Sanchia, before you turn away. Think well whether upon that exquisite medium you cannot express your best.”_ She found herself trembling--in these days she easily trembled--as she re-read these words. That such a power should indeed be hers--and how could she fail to believe it?--was inspiration enough to send her to the fire. She read no more, but used to sit shivering, thrilling through every fibre of her body, with the strength of such splendid praise. For whatever might be her fate, splendid it was to have been so loved, so seen, and so praised. It was well for Ingram that she read her old love-letters--and extremely unfortunate for the writer of them, who anguished for her now in his desert place. Odd situation! that the love-letters of one man should reconcile her to the arms of another. From Torquay, where she spent the Easter holidays with her father, the two alone and happily together, she wrote two or three times to Nevile. He was at Wanless, professedly getting some order into things there, and protesting to her by every word he sent her upon the need there was of her hand upon affairs. There was not a word of love used between the pair. All the love-making, indeed, was done by Senhouse, whose master-stroke was called for by and by.