"Martia, I have done my best. I would make any sacrifice to obey you, but I cannot give up my freedom to love the woman that attracts me as I have never been attracted before. I would sooner live a poor and unsuccessful straggler in the art I have chosen, with her to help me live, than be the mightiest man in England without her--even with Julia, whom I admire as much, and even more! "One can't help these things. They may be fancies, and one may live to repent them; but while they last they are imperious, not to be resisted. It's an instinct, I suppose; perhaps even a form of insanity! But I love Leah's little-finger nail better than Julia's lovely face and splendid body and all her thousands. "Besides, I will not drag Julia down from her high position in the world's eye, even for a day, nor owe anything to either man or woman except love and fidelity! It grieves me deeply to disappoint you, though I cannot understand your motives. If you love me as you say you do, you ought to think of my happiness and honor before my worldly success and prosperity, about which I don't care a button, except for Leah's sake. "Besides, I know myself better than you know me. I'm not one of those hard, strong, stern, purposeful, Napoleonic men, with wills of iron, that clever, ambitious women conceive great passions for! [Illustration: "'MARTIA, I HAVE DONE MY BEST'"] "I'm only a 'funny man'--a _gringalet-jocrisse!_ And now that I'm quite grown up, and all my little funniments are over, I'm only fit to sit and paint, with my one eye, in my little corner, with a contented little wife, who won't want me to do great things and astonish the world. There's no place like home; faire la popotte ensemble au coin du feu--c'est le ciel! "And if I'm half as clever as you say, it'll all come out in my painting, and I shall be rich and famous, and all off my own bat. I'd sooner be Sir Edwin Landseer than Sir Robert Peel, or Pam, or Dizzy! "Even to retain your love and protection and interest in me, which I value almost as much as I value life itself, I can't do as you wish. Don't desert me, Martia. I may be able to make it all up to you some day; after all, you can't foresee and command the future, nor can I. It wouldn't be worth living for if we could! It would all be discounted in advance! "I may yet succeed in leading a useful, happy life; and that should be enough for you if it's enough for me, since I am your beloved, and as you love me as your son.... Anyhow, my mind is made up for good and all, and...." Here the sensation of the north suddenly left him, and he went to his bed with the sense of bereavement that had punished him all the preceding week: desperately sad, all but heart-broken, and feeling almost like a culprit, although his conscience, whatever that was worth, was thoroughly at ease, and his intent inflexible.