have much fear. I don't fancy he has; he is quiet enough; but I can't quite make him out. Well! what is it to me? Nothing; but I want the boy to do what lies in him."

He was interrupted by Roland's dashing in, in faultless evening array, in search of something or another.

"Here's a sight for gods and men!" quoth Max; "Antinous outdone!"

"Don't be a fool, Max," was the only reply.

Max shrugged his shoulders. "What's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh," he remarked oracularly.

CHAPTER V.

"The hour which might have been, yet might not be, Which man's and woman's heart conceived and bore, Yet whereof life was barren."

ROSSETTI.

MARCH and April drifted on, and Evelyn sometimes wondered if the years of Roland's absence had been a dream, so easily had he slidden back into his old habits, of dropping in whenever he chose at Fainton Cottage, in spite of the distance between it and Breynton's studio.

Nevertheless he worked eagerly and earnestly. The Gorings never saw him till the afternoon, when the light had gone, and he could enjoy his leisure without the

feeling that he was wronging his work. Just now, he was at one of those times when a sudden advancement seemed to seize him, when it appeared as though—

"Das Unzulängliche
Hier wird's Ereignisz

Das Unbeschriebliche
Hier ist es gethan.”

Things he had been trying to grasp for years seemed at last to be within his power. He felt his work was good, pursued it passionately and intensely, and then was rather apt to end in a reaction of disgust and disappointment with himself and his works, and the knowledge of how many years of labour lay between him and the achievement of his desires.

In every mood, however, he realized that Evelyn was a fair influence in his life, and the feeling grew stronger and stronger of his need of her, if she would have him.

VOL. I.

5

Yet he paused, unwilling to believe this was the very crown of emotion life could hold for him. In his inmost heart he knew it was not; knew it even by the remembrance of his younger feeling for Evelyn herself; knew that love held a keener rapture, a more exquisite pain than was his.

Still he came yet more often to Fainton Cottage, and found more and more of his pleasure there.

"Like the old days," Evelyn said to herself, knowing secretly it was not like the old days, but with "an air of glory" they had not owned. She had never in the old days felt her heart beat quickly and faintly at the sound of Roland's step; had never known before the silent, intense pleasure it was simply to watch his face, to be in the same room with him; had never waited, as she did now, with a yearn

ing watchfulness for his visits, staying at home on the chance of his coming. All this was new, and yet so old, so old.

Her life was altered; she had always been happy; but now she "began to move about the house with joy," a subtle pleasure lying sweetly at her heart; the promise of some vague and lovely hope seeming to fill the hours with gladness.

Max," said Roland one day, at about four in the afternoon, when he had cleaned his own palette and glanced at his friend, who was engaged in etching, "do leave that confounded scritch-scratching alone this afternoon, and come with me to the Gorings."

"Why the deuce should I?" said Max, rather irritably; "they don't want me."

"They do," said Roland, leaning over the table at which his friend sat. "It's bad taste, I'll allow; but you see, you shouldn't