At first Guy wished for no more. He did not try to draw Florella more closely into his inner life, she made the outer one so fair. It was delightful to see her cut cake and pour out tea, to hear her chat to her aunt, or play with Rawdie, and when, at Mr Clifton's suggestion, she undertook some little kindnesses to a few old women, a little notice of some rough girls, when she put her hand to the help of Waynflete, it seemed to Guy in truth like the descent of an angel. A sweet and natural magic drowned the dark hues of his soul in rainbow tints. From the moment when he knew himself to love her, his inward appeal to her paused. So far as he knew, he had been to her but a soul in distress, and now he had a foolish, pathetic impulse to come to her in sunshine and flowers, to please her fancy, not to move her pity. So surely, he might touch her heart, just touch it--one day he might perhaps win it outright. And she? She never "saw" his thoughts now; how could she, when the sight of his face blotted them out? She did not even get on very fast with painting his periwinkles. One little word about his trouble would have been sweeter to her than the bluest of blue flowers; the very word he was so careful not to speak. For his blissful content did not last very long. Surface intercourse, however sweet, could not long be sufficient for him. He could not come to her as any other wooer might have done, and, if he could, he would not. He never swerved from his conviction, that until he was free from every trace of his strange bondage, he must never seek to take her to himself. "Why, Godfrey had not been able to stand the knowledge of his secret, should he inflict it upon her?" So he was distant and reserved, and gave her pain far worse than any that his confidence could have cost her. But he himself was full of eager hope; and hope, doubtful of fulfilment, though a very good thing in its way, is something of a foe to patience. PART THREE, CHAPTER SIX. HOPES AND FEARS. But Art is impersonal. Downy palms and snown blackthorn may be offered to an artist as subjects for a sketch, just as well as if they would not also serve as tokens of love and hope. As Guy, one sunny morning, followed the path that all through Flete Dale led along by the riverside, he suffered no bud or blossom that indicated the coming of his tardy northern spring to escape him. As he gathered and combined them, it struck him that the glory of them was in the relief of their delicate tints and airy forms in the cold spring sunshine, against the pale spring sky, and that the thing would be to show them to Florella where they grew.