He advanced then towards Miss Moorsom. Posed on the seat on which they had first spoken to each other, it was her turn to watch him coming on. But many of the windows were not lighted that evening. It was dark over there. She appeared to him luminous in her clear dress, a figure without shape, a face without features, awaiting his approach, till he got quite near to her, sat down, and they had exchanged a few insignificant words. Gradually she came out like a magic painting of charm, fascination, and desire, glowing mysteriously on the dark background. Something imperceptible in the lines of her attitude, in the modulations of her voice, seemed to soften that suggestion of calm unconscious pride which enveloped her always like a mantle. He, sensitive like a bond slave to the moods of the master, was moved by the subtle relenting of her grace to an infinite tenderness. He fought down the impulse to seize her by the hand, lead her down into the garden away under the big trees, and throw himself at her feet uttering words of love. His emotion was so strong that he had to cough slightly, and not knowing what to talk to her about he began to tell her of his mother and sisters. All the family were coming to London to live there, for some little time at least. “I hope you will go and tell them something of me. Something seen,” he said pressingly. By this miserable subterfuge, like a man about to part with his life, he hoped to make her remember him a little longer. “Certainly,” she said. “I’ll be glad to call when I get back. But that ‘when’ may be a long time.” He heard a light sigh. A cruel jealous curiosity made him ask— “Are you growing weary, Miss Moorsom?” A silence fell on his low spoken question. “Do you mean heart-weary?” sounded Miss Moorsom’s voice. “You don’t know me, I see.” “Ah! Never despair,” he muttered. “This, Mr. Renouard, is a work of reparation. I stand for truth here. I can’t think of myself.” He could have taken her by the throat for every word seemed an insult to his passion; but he only said— “I never doubted the—the—nobility of your purpose.” “And to hear the word weariness pronounced in this connection surprises me. And from a man too who, I understand, has never counted the cost.” “You are pleased to tease me,” he said, directly he had recovered his voice and had mastered his anger. It was as if Professor Moorsom had dropped poison in his ear which was spreading now and tainting his passion, his very jealousy. He mistrusted every word that came from those lips on which his life hung. “How can you know anything of men who do not count the cost?” he asked in his gentlest tones. “From hearsay—a little.” “Well, I assure you they are like the others, subject to suffering, victims of spells. . . .” “One of them, at least, speaks very strangely.”