found himself, at the table d'hôte of his inn, opposite to the living type of that face of which the mere clumsy copy had made him dream and desire. He had been tossed by it to a height so vertiginous as to involve a retreat from the table; but the next day he had dropped with a resounding thud at the very feet of his apparition. On the following, with an equal incoherence, a sacrifice even of his bewildered sisters, whom he left behind, he made an heroic effort to escape by flight from a fate of which he already felt the cold breath. That fate, in London, very little later, drove him straight before it, drove him, one Sunday afternoon, in the rain, to the door of the Hammond-Synges. He marched, in other words, close up to the cannon that was to blow him to pieces. But three weeks, when he reappeared to me, had elapsed since then, yet (to vary my metaphor) the burden he was to carry for the rest of his days was firmly lashed to his back. I don't mean by this that Flora had been persuaded to contract her scope; I mean that he had been treated to the unconditional snub which, as the event was to show, could n't have been bettered as a means of securing him.

She had n't calculated, but she had said "Never!" and that word had made a bed big enough for his longlegged patience. He became, from this moment, to my mind, the interesting figure in the piece.

Now that he had acted without my aid I was free to show him this, and having, on his own side, something to show me, he repeatedly knocked at my door. What he brought with him on these occasions was a simplicity so huge that, as I turn my ear to the past, I seem even now to hear it bumping up and down my stairs. That was really what I saw of him, in the light of his behavior. He had fallen in love as he might have broken his leg, and the fracture was of a sort that would make him permanently lame. It was the whole man

who limped and lurched, with nothing of him left in the same position as before. The tremendous cleverness, the literary society, the political ambition, the Bournemouth sisters, all seemed to flop with his every movement a little nearer to the floor. I had n't had an Oxford training, and I had never encountered the great man at whose feet poor Dawling had most preeminently sat and who had addressed to him his most destructive sniffs; but I remember asking myself if such privileges had been an indispensable preparation to the career on which my friend appeared now to have embarked. I remember, too, making up my mind about the cleverness, which had its uses, and I suppose, in impenetrable shades, even its critics, but from which the friction of mere personal intercourse was not the sort of process to extract a revealing spark. He accepted without a question both his fever and his chill, and the only thing he showed any subtlety about was this convenience of my friendship. He told me, doubtless, his simple story, but the matter comes back to me in a kind of sense of my being rather the mouthpiece, of my having had to thresh it out for him. He took it from me without a groan, and I gave it to him, as we used to say, pretty hot; he took it again and again, spending his odd half-hours with me as if for the very purpose of learning how idiotically he was in love. He told me I made him see things; to begin, I had first made him see Flora Saunt herself. I wanted him to give her up, and luminously informed him why, and he never protested nor contradicted, never was even so alembicated as to declare, just for the sake of the drama, that he would n't. He simply and undramatically did n't, and when, at the end of three months, I asked him what was the use of talking with such a fellow, his nearest approach to a justification was to say that what made him want to help her was just the deficiencies

to which I called his attention. I could only reply, "Oh, if you're as sorry for her as that! without pointing the moral. I was after all very nearly as sorry for her as that myself; but it only led me to be sorrier still for other victims of this compassion. With him, as with me, the compassion was at first in excess of any visible motive; so that when eventually the motive was supplied, each could to a certain extent compliment the other on the fineness of his foresight.

After Dawling had begun to haunt my studio, Miss Saunt quite gave it up. I learned later on that she accused me of conspiring with him to put pressure on her to marry him. She did n't know I would take it that way, else she would n't have brought him to see me. It was a part of the conspiracy, in her view, that, to show him a kindness, I asked him at last to sit to me. I dare say, moreover, she was disgusted to hear that I had ended by attempting almost as many sketches of his beauty as I had attempted of hers. What then was the value of tributes to beauty by a hand that luxuriated in ugliness? My relation to poor Dawling's want of modeling was simple enough. I was really digging in that sandy desert for the buried treasure of his soul.

VI.

It befell at this period, just before Christmas, that, on my having gone, under pressure of the season, into a great shop to buy a toy or two, my eye, fleeing from superfluity, lighted, at a distance, on the bright concretion of Flora Saunt, an exhibitability that held its own even against the most plausible pinkness of the most developed dolls. A huge quarter of the place, the biggest bazaar "on earth," was peopled with these and other effigies and fantasies, as well as with purchasers and venders, haggard alike, in the blaze of the gas, with hesitations. I was

just about to appeal to Flora to avert that stage of my errand, when I saw that she was accompanied by a gentleman whose identity, though more than a year had elapsed, came back to me from the Folkestone cliff. It had been associated in that place with showy knickerbockers; at present it overflowed more splendidly into a fur-trimmed overcoat. Lord Iffield's presence made me waver an instant before crossing over; and during that instant, Flora, blank and undistinguishing, as if she too were, after all, weary of alternatives, looked straight across at me. I was on the point of raising my hat to her when I observed that her face gave no sign. I was exactly in the line of her vision, but she either did n't see me or did n't recognize me, or else had a reason to pretend she did n't. Was her reason that I had displeased her and that she wished to punish me? I had always thought it one of her merits that she was n't a punishing person. ishing person. She simply, at any rate, looked away; and at this moment one of the shop-girls, who had apparently gone off in search of it, bustled up to her with a small mechanical toy. It so happened that I followed closely what then took place, afterwards recognizing that I had been led to do so, led even through the crowd to press nearer for the purpose, by an impression of which, in the act, I was not fully conscious.

Flora, with the toy in her hand, looked round at her companion; then, seeing his attention had been solicited in another quarter, she moved away with the shop-girl, who had evidently offered to conduct her into the presence of more objects of the same sort. When she reached the indicated spot, I was in a position still to observe her. She had asked some question about the working of the toy, and the girl, taking it herself, began to explain the little secret. Flora bent her head over it, but she clearly did n't understand. I saw her, in a manner that quickened my curiosity, give a

glance back at the place from which she had come. Lord Iffield was talking with another shop-girl. She satisfied herself of this by the aid of a question addressed to the young person waiting on her. She then drew closer to the table near which she stood, and, turning her back to me, bent her head lower over the collection of toys, and more particularly over the small object the attendant had attempted to explain. She took it back from the girl, and, after a moment, with her face well averted, made an odd motion of her arms and a significant little duck of her head. These slight signs, singular as it may appear, produced in my bosom an agitation so great that I failed to notice Lord Iffield's whereabouts. He had rejoined her; he was close upon her before I knew it or be fore she knew it herself. I felt at that instant the strangest of all impulses; if it could have operated more rapidly, it would have caused me to dash between them in some such manner as to give Flora a warning. In fact, as it was, I think I could have done this in time, had I not been checked by a curiosity stronger still than my impulse. There were three seconds during which I saw the young man and yet let him come on. Had n't I a quick sense that if he did n't catch what Flora had done, I too might perhaps not catch it? She, at any rate, herself took the alarm. On perceiving her companion's nearness, she made, still averted, another duck of her head and a shuffle of her hands so precipitate that a little tin steamboat she had been holding escaped from them and rattled down to the floor with a sharpness that I hear at this hour. Lord Iffield had already seized her arm; with a violent jerk he brought her round toward him. Then it was that there met my eyes a quite distressing sight: this exquisite creature, blushing, glaring, exposed, with a pair of big black-rimmed eye-glasses, disfiguring her by their position, crookedly astride of her beautiful nose. She made a grab

at them with her free hand, and I turned confusedly away.

VII.

I don't remember how soon it was I spoke to Geoffrey Dawling; his sittings were irregular, but it was certainly the very next time he gave me one.

"Has any rumor ever reached you of Miss Saunt's having anything the matter with her eyes?" He stared with a candor that was a sufficient answer to my question, backing it up with a shocked and mystified "Never!" Then I asked him if he had observed in her any symptom, however disguised, of sight seriously defective; on which, after a moment's thought, he exclaimed, "Disguised?" as if my use of that word had vaguely awakened a train. "She's not a bit near-sighted," he said; "she does n't blink or contract her lids." I fully recognized this, and I mentioned that she altogether denied the impeachment; owing it to him, moreover, to explain the ground of my inquiry, I gave him a sketch of the incident that had taken place before me at the shop. He knew all about Lord Iffield. That nobleman had figured freely in our conversation as his preferred, his injurious rival. Poor Dawling's contention was that, if there had been a definite engagement between his lordship and the young lady, the sort of thing that was announced in The Morning Post, renunciation and retirement would be comparatively easy to him; but that, having waited in vain for any such assurance, he was entitled to act as if the door were not really closed, or were, at any rate, not cruelly locked. He was naturally much struck with my anecdote, and still more with my interpretation of it.

won't admit it publicly, because, with her idolatry of her beauty, the feeling she is all made up of, she sees in such aids nothing but the humiliation and the disfigurement. She has used them in secret, but that is evidently not enough, for the affection she suffers from, apparently some definite ailment, has lately grown much worse. She looked straight at me in the shop, which was violently lighted, without seeing it was I. At the same distance, at Folkestone, where, as you know, I first met her, where I heard this mystery hinted at, and where she indignantly denied the thing, she appeared easily enough to recognize people. Now she could n't really make out anything the shop-girl showed her. She has successfully concealed from the man I saw her with that she resorts, in private, to a pince-nez, and that she does so not only under the strictest orders from an oculist, but because literally the poor thing can't accomplish without such help half the business of life. Iffield, however, has suspected something, and his suspicions, whether expressed or kept to himself, have put him on the watch. I happened to have a glimpse of the movement at which he pounced on her and caught her in the act."

I had thought it all out; my idea explained many things; and Dawling turned pale as he listened to me.

"Was he rough with her?" he anxiously asked.

"How can I tell what passed between them? I fled from the place."

My companion stared at me in silence a moment. "Do you mean to say her eyesight 's going?"

"Heaven forbid! In that case, how could she take life as she does?

"How does she take life? That's the question!" Dawling sat there bewilderedly brooding; the tears had come into his eyes; they reminded me of those I had seen in Flora's the day I risked my inquiry. The question he had asked was one that, to my own sat

isfaction, I was ready to answer, but I hesitated to let him hear as yet all that my reflections had suggested. I was, indeed, privately astonished at their ingenuity. For the present I only rejoined that it struck me she was playing a particular game; at which he went on as if he had n't heard me, suddenly haunted with a fear, lost in the dark possibility I had opened up: "Do you mean there's a danger of anything very bad?" "My dear fellow, you must ask her oculist."

“Who in the world is her oculist?”

"I haven't a conception. But we must n't get too excited. My impression would be that she has only to observe a few ordinary rules, to exercise a little common sense."

Dawling jumped at this. "I see, to stick to the pince-nez."

"To follow to the letter her oculist's prescription, whatever it is and at whatever cost to her prettiness. It's not a thing to be trifled with."

"Upon my honor, it shan't be trifled with!" he roundly declared; and he adjusted himself to his position again as if we had quite settled the business. After a considerable interval, while I botched away, he suddenly said, "Did they make a great difference?"

"A great difference?"

"Those things she had put on."

"It was horrible. But it's still more horrible to defy all warnings; it's still more horrible to be landed in". Without completing my phrase I disgustedly shrugged my shoulders.

After a glance at me, Dawling jerked round. "Then you do believe that she may be?"

I hesitated. "The thing would be to make her believe it. She only needs a good scare."

"But if that fellow is shocked at the precautions she does take?"

"Oh, who knows?" I rejoined, with small sincerity. "I don't suppose Iffield is absolutely a brute."

"I would take her with leather blinders, like a shying mare!" cried Geoffrey Dawling.

I had an impression that Iffield would n't, but I didn't communicate it, for I wanted to pacify my companion, whom I had discomposed too much for the purposes of my sitting. I recollect that I did some good work that morning, but it also comes back to me that, before we separated, Dawling had practically revealed to me that my anecdote, connecting itself in his mind with a series of observations at the time unconscious and unregistered, had covered with light the subject of our colloquy. He had had a formless perception of some secret that drove Miss Saunt to subterfuges, and the more he thought of it, the more he guessed this secret to be the practice of making believe she saw when she did n't, and of cleverly keeping people from finding out how little she saw. When one patched together things, it was astonishing what ground they covered. Just as he was going away, he asked me from what source, at Folkestone, the report I had mentioned to him had proceeded. When I had given him, as I saw no reason not to do, the name of Mrs. Meldrum, he exclaimed, "Oh, I know all about her; she's a friend of some friends of mine!" At this I remembered willful Betty, and said to myself

that I knew some one who would probably prove more willful still.

VIII.

A few days later I again heard Dawling on my stairs, and even before he passed my threshold I knew he had something to tell me.

"I've been down to Folkestone; it was necessary I should see her!" I forget whether he had come straight from the station; he was, at any rate, out of breath with his news, which it took me, however, a minute to interpret.

66 You mean that you 've been with Mrs. Meldrum?"

"Yes; to ask her what she knows and how she comes to know it. It worked upon me awfully, I mean what you told me." He made a visible effort to seem quieter than he was, and it showed me sufficiently that he had not been reassured. I laid, to comfort him, and smiling at a venture, a friendly hand on his arm, and he dropped into my eyes, fixing them an instant, a strange, distended look which might have expressed the cold clearness of all that was to come. "I know now!" he said, with an emphasis he rarely used.

"What then did Mrs. Meldrum tell you?"

"Only one thing that signified, for she has no real knowledge. But that one thing was everything."

"What is it, then?"

"Why, that she can't bear the sight of her." His pronouns required some arranging, but after I had successfully dealt with them I replied that I knew perfectly Miss Saunt had a trick of turning her back on the good lady of Folkestone. But what did that prove? "Have you never guessed? I guessed as soon as she spoke!" Dawling towered over me in dismal triumph. It was the first time in our acquaintance that, intellectually speaking, this had occurred; but