"Read those, dear," she said breathlessly, thrusting a letter and telegram into his hand. "They will account for this morning. I had bad news. But thank God it's all right now. I wired." "And never told _me_?" "You were so happy. How could I?" "Then that was why you bolted?" "Yes. I couldn't have kept it up for long." "Well . . I've no time to scold you now," he said, looking unspeakable things at her. "Wait till I get you to myself, . . that's all!" This short colloquy, carried on in an undertone, did not reach Quita's ears. "What sort of a man is this Paul?" she asked as Honor returned to her chair. "I don't know his other name! Is he the sort that would be likely to understand . . our very incomprehensible position?" Honor took a leather frame from the table beside her, and put it into Quita's hands. "If you are any judge of faces, that's the best answer I can give you." Quita scanned the picture abstractedly for several seconds. "Yes. He'll do," was her verdict. Then she flung the thing from her; and burying her face in the cushions sobbed with the heart-broken abandonment of a child. "Oh, what a blind fool I was to come!" she lamented through her tears. "I don't believe he'll understand my madness. And if he doesn't . . . he'll never forgive me!" [1] Account. [2] Scullery man. [3] As Memsahib pleases. [4] Any one there! Bring tiffin. [5] Not at home. CHAPTER XXI. "Here the lost hours the lost hours renew."--Rossetti. "It progresses, doesn't it?" "It does more than that. It lives. You've transfigured it in these few days; and I like your knack of emphasising essentials without jarring the harmony of the whole. You ought to make your mark as a portrait painter in time." "I've done so already . . more or less," Quita answered modestly, stepping backward, with tilted head, to get a better view of her achievement. It was the study of Lenox, which, for all her perturbation, she had packed as tenderly as if it were a live thing; and which alone had made life endurable for the past three days. Her easel had been set up in the dining-room, where she could work without fear of chance intruders, who gravitated either to the drawing-room or the study: and on this fourth morning after her arrival, she was standing at it with Desmond, who had looked in for a word with her before starting for the Lines. "If you were to go home now," she added, after a pause, "you would find the name Quita Maurice not quite unknown in artistic circles. But they'll never see this, though it's going to be the best thing I've done yet; because . . ." "Yes, naturally, . . because . . ."