So I came to London, and went to my rooms, and set myself to work. I had fully made up my mind that this should not change my life; I had a purpose in view, in that I felt it was vitally necessary I should justify myself in her eyes, and justify her love for me. If I had sunk then in my own estimation, or had fallen away from the high ideals I had set up, so I felt must I have sunk before her, and fallen away from her. She was never to be anything to me, but she should feel that I had at least been worthy. It must have been about a week after my return to London when my guardian came to me. My rooms were in a narrow street off Holborn, at the very top of a house; the chief room had a great skylight stretching over nearly half of it, making it a very excellent studio. I was at work there, getting the last of the light of the dying day, when he came in, and stood for a moment watching me, before I laid down my palette and went to greet him. I thought he looked thinner and more haggard even than before, and I thought that that nervous eager intensity in his face had increased. He just touched my hand with his, and then stood for a minute or so looking at the canvas. But when he spoke it was not of the picture. "Have you seen anything of Hockley?" he asked abruptly, without looking at me. "No; what should I see of him?" I asked in reply. "I have seen no one." He gave a grim chuckle, and bent forward to look at the canvas more closely. Yet still he did not speak of the picture. "He's left Hammerstone Market," he went on. "Made it a bit too hot to hold him, I fancy. And he's been saying mad things about me--and about you." He turned his head sharply, and looked at me, and repeated the words--"About you." "It will not trouble me very much, whatever he says," I retorted. "Don't be too sure; he's a dangerous man," said my guardian. "He'll talk about any one, and it's all lies. I shouldn't be surprised"--he turned to the picture again, and examined it--"I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he didn't say something more about me one of these days." "I remember that I heard him threaten to talk," I remarked. "But surely a man in your position can afford to laugh at him and his threats?" "That's where you're wrong," broke in Fanshawe quickly. "It's the men in my position that can have lies told about them, lies which they dare not refute. I tell you he's a dangerous man. More than that, he has been talking about--about somebody else." He walked the length of the room, keeping his back to me, and examined another of my sketches. I felt my throat beginning to swell, and knew that the blood was rising to my face; controlling my voice as well as I could, I asked a question. "Who is--who is the somebody else?" He turned round, and came towards me, keeping his hands locked behind him. "About Barbara--Barbara Patton," he said. "It seems he saw you that day in the woods--the day I was there. And Hockley is not the man to talk nicely about those things."