That passionate yearning to see the adored object once more--for the last, last time--to which all despairing lovers are liable, took complete possession of the young painter. For three consecutive Sundays he fought against the temptation, calling up his pride to assist him in the struggle. But pride is very weak when bidden to do battle with love. On the third occasion Mr. Foley snatched up his hat, hurried to a barber in a poor neighbourhood, in which a barber's business was at its best on a Sunday, and sacrificed the luxuriance of his hair and beard to the man's inartistic scissors. Then, after a walk, in which he fought the tempter for the last time, changing his mind every five minutes, the painter went back to his lodgings and made a careful toilet. There was a feverish kind of pleasure in what he was doing--the desperate sense of delight which a despairing wretch is apt to feel when his woes have come to a climax, and he is about to snatch the one chance of a fleeting joy that remains to him amidst his misery. It was a balmy evening in May, and the stars were shining in a tender blue sky, when Philip descended from the heights of Islington. He had sold no picture for the last six months, and had exhausted the quarterly instalments of his modest income, so he was fain to make his way on foot along the interminable New Road and across the park to Kensington. He brushed the dust from his boots with his cambric handkerchief as he stood before Mr. Crawford's gates, and while doing so, he had the pleasure of beholding the arrival of a pair of high stepping cobs, and the smallest of miniature broughams, furnished with the biggest and most ferociously flaming of lamps, whose demoniac glare might have been easily dispensed with under the silvery spring starlight. A contemptuous groom with a tight waist descended from the box of this vehicle and opened the door with a bang, thereby releasing Mr. Lobyer, who emerged something after the fashion of a badly-fitting jack-in-the-box, and who looked a great deal too big and clumsy for his brougham. The two men looked at each other as they passed through the gateway together, pretending not to know each other, and with an unquenchable hatred visible in the faces which they fondly imagined expressed nothing but a contemptuous indifference. The rich man was free of the place, and contrived to push his way to the drawing-room before Philip; and the young painter, following close upon his heels, had the opportunity of beholding Miss Crawford's coquettishly disdainful welcome of her affianced suitor. Poor Philip saw her face grow pale as she looked across her lover's shoulder and recognised her old admirer; but the colour came back to the delicate cheeks very quickly, and she gave Philip her hand with her airiest manner.