"I have given my youth, my strength, my soul--and what have I gained in return? Emptiness and suffering!" she cried fiercely. Then added, with a sombre triumph, "But she can never help him as I have helped! He can never need her as he has needed me!" The end of the four years found the three embarked for India to try the effect of "suggestion" under a famous professor of the East. It was a forlorn chance, as it was doubtful if Flora retained enough brain power to respond to the treatment; but something was hoped from the change of scene and the healthful effects of the voyage. Meriel welcomed the change with relief. Flora's increasing disability had of late thrown her husband and friend into what was practically a prolonged _tete-a-tete_, and the strain of constant self-repression had grown beyond endurance. In the turmoil of travelling such close intimacy would be impossible, and her own tired nerves would be refreshed. For the first fortnight all went well. The Bay was smooth, the Mediterranean blue and smiling; even Flora herself was roused to a feeble admiration. She was so quiet and amenable that Meriel was able to leave her for hours together in the charge of her maid, while she herself lay on a deck chair, luxuriating in the peace and beauty of the scene. Sometimes Sterne would sit by her side, and they would talk together,--brief, disconnected fragments of talk, interrupted by intervals of silence. They spoke of happier days; of their youth, their dreams and ambitions, the glowing optimism of early hopes. Sterne had started his career with the finest ambition which a writer can know: a passing popularity would not satisfy him, money was regarded merely as a means to live; his aim was to write words which should endure after he himself was laid to rest, and to that aim he had held fast, despite all the trials and discouragements of his life. To him, as to every writer, came the realisation that his power to help and uplift was measured by his own suffering. His readers were enriched by his poverty. There were times when the knowledge soothed, times again when the natural man rose in revolt, and demanded bread for his own soul. "You tell me that I have succeeded," he said bitterly to Meriel; "but I have never tasted the savour of success. I have no child to inherit my name, and my wife does not care--even in the early days she cared nothing for my work. Never in her life has she read an article of mine from beginning to end. When I told her of a fresh commission she asked always--`How much will it be?' After the first year I never mentioned my work. The poorest clerk hurrying home to tell his wife of a ten-pound rise, feeling sure of her sympathy and understanding, is richer than I. He _has_ his reward!" Meriel found courage to ask a question which had long hovered on her lips. "You were so very different. At school Flora never pretended to be intellectual. Why did you ever--"