lady to interest herself in an East End crèche; but she is such a many-sided woman."

Arden and his new acquaintance went upstairs together, and strolled through the dazzling suite to the room where Mrs. Lorimer and Mary Selby were sitting.

Lorimer introduced Arden to his wife, with a certain empressement, and presently the conversation turned upon. pictures, and upon the great man's gallery in Carlton House Terrace.

"I have heard great praise of your pictures," said

Arden.

66 You must come and look at them," answered Lorimer. "Very likely you'll be disappointed, and write me down a Philistine. They are all modern. No early Italian masters. Not even a Veronese, or a Titian, or a Rubens. There are four fine Whistlers, six Millais, a Holman Hunt, three of Clara Montalba's Venetian pictures, and some of her London sketches, which I hold no less precious; a lion picture and a dog picture by Briton Riviere, a bit of modern life by Frith, and a 'Return from Egypt' by Frederick Goodall."

'My dear David," remonstrated his wife, "Mr. Arden will find the catalogue in the gallery. You may spare him to-night."

"Come and see my pictures. I should like your opinion of them."

"Indeed, I am no connoisseur."

"Then you are not like most of Lady Mary's friends, who pretend to know more about pictures than the men who paint them."

"Oh, the only infallible judges are the men who don't paint," said Arden.

"I am always at home on Saturday afternoons," said Mrs. Lorimer.

"You are very kind. I shall take an early opportunity."

"Do. Saturday is my half-holiday," said Lorimer. "I'll show you Rachel's den, if she's out of the way, and you'll see what a woman of business she is-only nineteen on her last birthday."

"Only nineteen."

Arden thought of the girl in the little back parlour, the

girl of nineteen, whose life was broken off short like the snapped stem of a flower. The flower remained above ground, but withered and faded, colour and perfume gone for ever.

While they were talking, Arden's eyes had wandered to the octagon room, where the two novelists, Mrs. Kelvin and Rachel Lorimer, were carrying on an animated conversation.

The talk was of books, and the widow had in a manner gone to the top of the class, on its being discovered that she had read all the notorious French novels of the last few years, without any prudish restrictions. Mr. Jordan's delicate stories she declared she knew by heart, and owned without a blush to having "devoured" "Femme Funeste."

"When are you going to horrify us again ?" she asked, and, without waiting for the Frenchman's answer, turned to the American. "And you, Mr. Jordan? I hope your next is ready for Mudie ?"

"It seems ungrateful to complain," murmured Mr. Jordan, smilingly, "but one's readers have an idea that a novelist never has occasion to rest upon his oars and look about him for a subject."

"There are

"He has no occasion," retorted the widow. no subjects in our modern novels; only beautiful words, exquisite phrases, 'jewels five words long,' as Browning says."

"Tennyson," murmured Rachel, involuntarily.

"Ah, then you do read something, Miss Lorimer," said Jordan, who had been gazing at her in quiet ecstasy.

She had confessed to not knowing his novels, or anybody's novels, except Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray; and he had not been offended. How could any man be offended with such divine beauty? She was a type he had dreamt of, pen in hand, in the stillness of a summer morning, far away among his lakes and mountains. "You do read sometimes?" he repeated.

"I read Tennyson and Browning, my twin stars." "And Shakespeare ? "

"Yes, and Wordsworth, and Coleridge."

"And Shelley?"

"I used to worship Shelley; but his dreams are too vague. I cannot grasp them."

The Frenchman had been careful not to inquire if she had read his books.

"In my country young ladies do not read novels," he said deprecatingly. "That deprives us of an exquisite reward, but affords us a wider liberty. There are, indeed, a few who write for la jeunesse; but, alas, when we are chaste we are intolerably dull. I would recommend mademoiselle to stick to Racine, and Lafontaine's Fables, rather than to bore herself with our virtuous romances."

Mrs. Lorimer summoned her daughter, and the little group scattered itself. Rachel shook hands with the widow, and bowed her good night to the three men; but Arden attended her and her mother to their carriage, which was to convey Rachel to Carlton House Terrace before taking Mr. and Mrs. Lorimer to the ball.

"Don't you repent, even at this last moment, of having refused the best party of the season ?" he asked Rachel. "Not in the least. I have ever so many letters to write before midnight."

"Busy person! You fill me with awe. Good night." "Good night."

His hand sought hers across the carriage door, after shaking hands with her mother, and the slender little gloved hand fluttered into his own for a moment, light as a falling leaf.

He walked to Jermyn Street. His step was buoyant. The June air smelt of Paradise.

"Oh, I have been happy! I have been happy!" he said to himself. "My burden has been lifted off. There was no unseen wickedness hovering near me while I was with her."

Life seemed new; his very being had changed. Hope had come back to him, the divine forward-looking spirit which lightens the life that is with the vague sweetness of joys that are to come. Hope had been dead in him since those days in Paris. But now his heart beat high, and he began again to look forward.

He forgot all about the duchess's ball, and spent an hour in the stillness of the Mall, looking up now and then at the

lighted windows of the terrace above him, and wondering in which house and in which room Rachel Lorimer was writing her letters. There were three lighted windows on the third floor, French windows opening on a balcony, and he thought that must be the "den" Lorimer had talked about, the business-like room in which the young philanthropist toiled in the cause of humanity.

IX.

LADY MARY'S little dinner had taken place on Thursday, and Arden called in Carlton House Terrace on the following Saturday. It seemed rather like seizing upon an opportunity offered perhaps in casual politeness. The most hardened heiress-hunter could not have shown himself more eager; but Arden had forgotten that Rachel was an heiress. He only remembered that she had given him his first hour of happiness since the beginning of his trouble. That mysterious trouble was not utterly gone from him. Only in her presence had he been unconscious of the haunted feeling, the impalpable something that suggested the existence of an unknown world where all was evil. But that nameless horror had been lessened even when he thought of her in absence; as if her image in his mind had power to exorcise the demon.

To

Mr. Lorimer's house was the largest in the terrace. make room for his pictures he had joined two houses, and had thus obtained a spacious gallery running all the length of the southern façade, with six long windows, but no top light, a want he was always lamenting. The gallery, however, was charming for a summer drawing-room, and the floor had been made perfect for dancing; but in the spaciousness of the engineer's surroundings there was nothing that suggested the nouveau riche, no lavish display of brand-new splendours, le dernier cri in modern upholstery. Mr. Lorimer had bought the two houses with their contents, from their two noble owners, had retained all that was good in the furniture and had arranged all his decorations in the same minor key. There was, therefore, a sober old-established air in all the rooms, where there were cabinets and bookcases that had been standing in the same place since the