“See whom?” he asked loudly and filling another glass. “See our father,” said Phœbe in a whisper. The son paused, with the sherry partly raised to his lips, and replaced the full glass upon the table. “Come,” said Phœbe; “come, I will go with you.” “No,” he said at length with a great effort, and withdrawing his arm from her gentle touch, “No; by-and-by.” He dare not look upon that cold white face; for whilst Phœbe was talking, conscience gripped him savagely and made him a coward. He could look at nothing but the floor, and there the very boards seemed to twit him with his infamy and ingratitude. His only relief was to rush to the bell and ring for Chester, and when he came, Phœbe glided out of the room to her chamber. It had been a particularly sad and anxious time for Phœbe, and she appeared to stand alone in her sorrow. Arthur Phillips, from whom she had been wont occasionally to ask advice upon minor things, and in whose talk about art she had been so often engrossed, had not been near the house for months; the change which had recently come over Amy, Richard Tallant’s estrangement from her father, that father’s sorrow and death, all seemed to come upon her, blow after blow, and to leave her without one sympathising soul to whom she could look for a ray of hope and comfort. What had become of Arthur Phillips? She had wondered a hundred times. His absence had been like something gone out of her life--like some domestic affliction. Her palette and canvas had lost all interest for her now. They had reminded her too much of her deep and secret sympathy in all that concerned him. She did not confess to herself that she loved him, and, truth to tell, she hardly knew that she did love him; but his absence was a hardship. His quiet homage was something that satisfied her; his warm enthusiasm about the beautiful and the true; his stories of painters who had won their way to fame and fortune by dint of their inborn genius and industry; his judgment about books; his criticisms on poetry; his compliments when she had been more than ordinarily successful in some touch of colour: all this had been part of her existence, and with Arthur’s absence had come all the manifold troubles which had afflicted her young life, clouded her hopes, and covered her with a sorrow too deep for words. And what _had_ Arthur Phillips been doing all this time? Painting that grand picture which he said he would paint when last we heard him speak some months ago.