"Oh, but there's much to be thought over first," he went on. "You cannot make an impetuous onslaught like a bull on a red rag. Often art leads us astray because it strove to reproduce something entirely different from the emotional life of its time. Whether it succeeded or not is another question. And often it was wanting in the necessary means of expression. Oh, you and I will speak of this many more times. Don't look so frightened. I need you. After this evening I could not get along without you. Nobody before you ever listened with such faith and understanding. Besides, I've grown to be an utter stranger here. The people I know are full of their own interests, and scarcely listen to me. Then, too, there's a bit of madness in my undertaking, of which I really ought to be ashamed. But one thing comforts me: a bit of madness has underlain every great work until that work was completed and had compassed its end. Of course everybody has the same idea of his own work. So some time I'll rise above that feeling. But now, while I'm wrestling, and every day I think I have discovered a new vein of gold and then am compelled to throw a good deal away because it's pinchbeck, if I have nobody on whom I can pour out what oppresses and torments me, why the jumble fairly chokes me. So fate sent me to you. It was like an inner voice, which would not let me rest at my desk, but sent me out to watch your light. Now I have you, and I won't let you go. God knows, I shouldn't be so bold in my own behalf, but it's for my work. It is clamouring for you. For heaven's sake, why are you crying?" "I'm not crying," said Lilly, and smiled at him. But the tears kept rising, and veiled his lovely picture. "I know what it is," he said sadly. "I wasn't considerate. You are regretting your lost art, because I spoke so happily of my own work." Lilly started back as if she had seen a ghost, and made vehement denial. "No, no, it isn't that! Really not!" But he persisted in his belief; which drove the thorn of her own unworthiness all the deeper into her soul. "Let us go," she requested. "There is so much assailing me--happiness and unhappiness and all sorts of things--outside I'll be calmer." It was long after midnight. A cold wind swept across the water and soughed in the bare branches. He offered her his arm, and Lilly nestled in it as if she had been at home there from times immemorial. For a while they were both silent "In five minutes he'll leave me," she thought. She could not bear the grief of impending loss.