Fenwick's Career

letters, photographs, and sketches. Throwing them on a table, he looked for and found a photograph of Phoebe with Carrie on her knee, and a little

smiling. Then he spread out Lord Findon's cheque before t

he actual possession of the money seemed to change his whole being. What would his old father say? He gave a laugh

First, the strain of his work (and the final wrestle with the 'Genius Loci,' including the misfortune of the paints, had really been a terrible affair!)-then-he

ffusion that brought the moisture to his eyes. Then he replaced it, with the sketches, i

write later. Meanwhile he would go over to Chelsea, and see Cuningham and Watson-repay Watson his debt!-or promise it at l

a hundred pounds to Mrs. Morrison? He envisaged it, unwillingly. Already his treasure seemed to be melting away. Time enough, surely, for that. He and

liant thing!-and placing it on a small easel, he arranged two lamps with moveable shades, which he often used for drawing in the evening, so as to show it off. There was in him more than a touch of theatricality, and as he stood back from this little arrangement to study its effect, he was charmed with his own fancy. There she queened it, in the centre of t

ilks. An idea rushed into his mind. Only the week before, on his first visit to the new Chelsea quarters whither Cuningham and Watson had betaken themselves, he had stumbled upon an odd little scene in the still bare, ungarnished studio. Cuningham, who had been making money with some rapidity of late, was displaying before the half-sympathetic, half-sarcastic eyes of Watson, some presents that he was just sending off to his mother and sisters in Scotland. A whit

ow-by

lin and lace. Thrusting his hand into his pocket for money, he found only a sovereign-pretty nearly his last!-and some silver. 'That's on account,' he s

and beyond, the railings, the seats under the trees were full of idlers. There was a sparkle of flowers in the windows of the Park Lane houses, together with golden sunset touches on the glass; and pretty faces wrapt in lace or gauze looked out from the ha

oured tolerance. After all, London was pleasant; there was some r

Meanwhile it was true enough what he had said to Madame de Pastourelles. As a painter he had never been properly trained. His values were u

n who went to Paris lost their individuality and became third-rate Frenchmen.

n-Manet, Degas, Monet, and the rest-with the mean view of life of some, and the hideous surface of others. No!-but the Barbizon men-and Mother Nature, first and

aught a word or two, through the traffic, now and then, and turned to look, astonished, at the handsome, gesticulating fellow in the hansom

*

sed by the conductor, alighted from it at the corner of Bernard Street. She was very tall and slender; her dress was dusty and travel-stained, and as she left the omnibus

ned by Mrs. Gibb

Fenwick

nute gone out. Did you

moment in hesitation. Then

der her arm. 'If you'll allow me, I'll go up

ame, Miss-i

ated again-then s

nwick-Mr. Fen

tartled. 'Oh no; there is some

w herself

please! I am Mr. Fenwick's wife-an

woman, for whom the world-so far as it could be studied from a Bernard Street lodging-house-had few sur

she said, hurriedly; 'but, you see, M

he should speak of his private affairs. I have been in the country, w

-thinking, no doubt, of the penny novelettes on which she fed her le

d be careful about admitting anybody to my husband's rooms in his absen

s envelope, Phoebe show

n pointed to the addres

een Nab Cottage,

retreating-'and he never lettin' me post a letter since he came here-n

d towards t

oom on the first fl

wheezily mounted the stairs far enough

n the mantelpiece. Though I dare say he's left his lamp going. He gen

n. Mrs. Gibbs c

nwick," am I, madam-whe

s, one hand behind her, looking her vi

head, and said, in a low, bewildered voice, 'At least

rs again, consumed with

haven't done no harm, letting her into the studio. But that letter and all-it was enough to

*

ment, and shut the door behind her. She stood there, with her back

studio. Beyond the lamps, she saw the large new canvas, showing dimly the first 'laying-in' of its important subject. On the floor, and running round the walls, was a thin line of sketches and canvases. The shallow, semi-circular window at the further end of the room was not yet curtained, and the branches of the still leafless plane-tree outside showed darkly in the gathering dusk. The ro

had been sinking deeper and deeper with each successive hour. She had neither friend nor adviser. Her father, a weak inarticulate man, was dying; her stepmother hated her; and she had long ceased to write to Miss Anna, because it was she who had urged John to go to London! All sane inference and normal reasoning were now indeed, and had been for some time, impossible to her. Fenwick, possessed by the imaginations of his art, had had no imagination-alack!-to spend upon his wife's case, and those mo

it had implied, had been the first. What could this strange illumination mean but that John's thoughts were taken up with his sitter in an unusual and unlawful way? For weeks he could leave his wife without a letter, a wor

s. Not pretty at all!-she said to herself, violently-but selfish, and artful, and full, of course, of all the tricks and wiles of 'society people.' Didn't she know that John was mar

ming herself on a knowledge of the world which enable

thus utterly ignored her in his new surroundings-have never said a word about her to the landlady with whom he had lodged for nearly a year, or to any of his new acquaintances and f

ion: Phoeb

ut Madame de Pastourelles. So the sketch, with which he had finished, really, months ago, was dragged out, and made queen of all it surveyed, because, no doubt, he was miserable at parting with the picture. Ingenuity and self-torment grew with what they fed on. The burning lamps-the solitude-the graceful woman, with her slim, fine-lady h

een perhaps mechanical, half-conscious; she came in truth of a hard stock, capable of violenc

unced upon them; she bent her head, took up some and carried them to the lamp. Five or six large envelopes, bearing a crest and monogram, addressed in a clear hand, and containing

of an idle hour, with the shades of Madame de Sévigné and Madame du Deffand standing by, were messengers of terror and despair to this ignorant and yet sentimental Westmoreland girl. Why should they be written at all to her John, her own husband? No nice woman that she had ever known wrote long letters to married men. What could have been the object of writing these pages and pages about John's pictures and John's prospects?-a

aught a sentence-then fastened g

, I can't help repeating that some day a wife will save you from all this. I have seen so much of artists!-they of all men should marry. It is quite a delusion to suppose that art-whatever art means-is enough for them, or for anybody. Imagination is the most exhausting

hn. She was separated from her husband, John had said, declaring of course that it was not her fault. As if any one could be sure of that! But, at any rate, if she were separated, she might be divorced-some time. And then-then!-she would be so obliging as to make a 'cushion,' a

me, by which the woman before her might possess hers

nly want one word from

g. What was the use of fighting, of protesting? John had forgotten her-John's heart had grown c

I was ill-tempered and cross, John,-I couldn't write letters

crouched there, the letters on her lap, her hands hanging, her beautiful eyes, blurred with tears and sleeplessness, fixed on the picture. What she felt was absurd; but how man

hat. On the table lay a palette, laden with some dark pigment with which Fenwick h

crimson-she daubed it from top to bottom, blotting out the eyes, the mouth, the beautifu

there was an unused half-sheet at the back of one of Madame de Pastourelles' letters, and she roughly tore it off. Making use of a book h

o come back to you, and I know it would be for the misery of both of us. What was I saying?-oh, the money-Well, last night, a cousin of mine, from Keswick, perhaps you remember him-Freddie Tolson-came to see me. Father sent him. You didn't believe what I told you about father-you thought I was making up. You'll be sorry, I think, when you read this, for by now, most likely, father has passed away. Freddie told me the doctor had given him up, and he was very near going. But he sent Freddie to me, with some money he had really left me in his will-only he was afraid Mrs. Gibson would get hold of it, and never let me have it. So he sent it by hand, with his love and bless

, for you will ne

ber that night in the ghyll,

not yet, anyway. She has everything in the world, and I had no

on this paper. You'll know I couldn't

with her, which contained papers and small personal possessions belonging to her husband; in front of the packet she

quietly did she descend the stairs that Mrs. Gibbs, who was listening sharply, with the kitchen door open, for any sound of her departure, heard nothing.

RT

TWELVE

angels are,

dows that wal