The young wife whose death had left such a terrible void in the painter's heart had been of higher rank than himself, and had run away from a luxurious home to inhabit draughty second-floor lodgings in a street running out of the Strand. William Crawford had trusted in the strength of his hand to win a better home for his darling. But the blackest years of his life were those that immediately succeeded his marriage, and the poor loving girl had to suffer deprivations that were unfelt by the Spartan painter, but which fell heavily on the home-bred damsel who had sacrificed so much for him. She would have held the loss of position a very light one; but she found that she had lost all her home-friends as well, for her father shut his door upon her after her marriage, and she had no mother to plead for her at home, or to visit her by stealth in her husband's shabby dwelling. The father was a hard, obstinate man, who plucked his daughter's image out of his heart as coolly as he erased her name from his will. He begged that Mrs. Crawford might never be mentioned in his presence; and he threatened to horsewhip the painter in the rooms of the Royal Academy if ever he met him there. Whether he relented suddenly when the young wife died, or whether his conscience had given him some uneasiness from the beginning, no one ever knew; but he wrote a civil letter to the widower, declaring his willingness to adopt and educate the little girl his daughter had left behind her. There was some hesitation, a little parley as to how often the father should be permitted to see his child; a very manly letter from the painter, setting forth the condition on which he was willing to part with the little girl, that condition being neither more nor less than an understanding that she was _his_ child, and his only, committed as a sacred trust to her mother's family, and to be claimed by him at any hour he pleased. And then he let his little Florence go. A year later he would as soon have plucked the heart out of his breast as he would have parted from her; but at this time he was utterly broken down in body and mind--so crushed, so desolate, that it seemed as if nothing could add to his desolation. He was even glad to get rid of the child. The sound of her young voice saddened him. There were tones in it that were like her mother's.