‘I have an undercurrent of feeling,’ he went on, ‘which makes me almost wish I had never crossed your path, nor linked your lot with mine. The whole future is so dark and troubled. You were so happy and at peace, and your art was all in all to you.’ ‘And you think now, I suppose, that you will dethrone my art. I think not, Jerome,’ she answered, smiling rather proudly. ‘Ah, you challenge me!’ said he, smiling also, rather mournfully. ‘Never forsake your art for me, Sara, for I am not worth it.’ ‘You are worthy my best and deepest love, and I shall give it to you,’ she said, almost passionately. ‘Jerome, do not trouble this night with these dark forebodings, and this self-depreciation. It is something new in you. I never imagined you troubled with doubts or difficulties.’ He made no answer, and they sat on thus in silence for a long time, until at last he rose. ‘I must go to Avice,’ he said. ‘Good-night, my love.’ Long after he had gone, Sara sat in her low chair, unseeing the considerate glances cast towards her by Mrs. Nelson. She sat, trying to analyse her own sensations—trying to discover whether the happiness or the trouble at her heart was greatest. Once or twice lately, she had thought that could she but know certainly that he loved her, or did not love her, she would at least have rest in the knowledge. Now, the knowledge was hers—his love was hers. But with love, not calm, but the very reverse, had come. [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. ‘CONTENT THEE WITH ONE BITTER WORD, ADIEU!’ The morning came, and with it, according to his promise, Jerome came to breakfast, bringing Avice with him. ‘Try to persuade her to be pleased to stay with me,’ Sara had said to him, to which he had naturally replied by an emphatic wonder as to what else than pleasure his sister possibly could feel at the prospect. Sara was restless that morning. She wandered from her studio to her sitting-room, and back to her studio again. She had told Ellen that the gentleman who had called last night would come to breakfast with his sister, and Mrs. Nelson had busied herself in preparing as _recherché_ a repast as possible, placing fresh flowers on the table, and making everything look bright and festive. ‘The gentleman was English, wasn’t he, Miss Sara?’ she asked. ‘Yes, he was—is, I mean.’ ‘Then we’ll show him that we know how to serve an English breakfast, nice, and bright, and choice; rather different from their pots of butter, and baskets of cobs, and a table-cloth, and a coffee-machine—that’s about all they give you for breakfast in these parts,’ said Mrs. Nelson, resentfully, for she had never got over the disgust she had experienced in partaking for the first time, and seeing her young lady partake, of a German breakfast, in the native boarding-house style.