elist
of the day. He had visited London immediately after, and, in spite of
some good folk who thought his poem shockingly immoral, was the lion
of the season, and a favourite at court. But he had soon wearied of
London, and although he had returned several times with increasing
fame, he had always left as abruptly, declaring that he could write
nowhere above the equator; and, notwithstanding revels where he shone
far more brilliantly than when in society, where indeed he was shy and
silent, that he cared for nothing else.

Little gossip had come to Warkworth Manor but Anne had read "The Blue
Sepulchre" when she was seventeen, and after that her allowance went
for his books. When a new volume appeared it was an event in her life
comparable only to marriage or birth in the lives of other women. She
abandoned her soul to this young magician of Nevis; her imagination,
almost as powerful as his own, gave her his living presence more
bountifully than had the real man, cursed with mortal disenchantments,
companioned her. So strong was her power of realisation that there
were hours when she believed that her thoughts girdled the globe and
drew his own into her mental heaven. In more practical hours, when
tramping the moor, or sailing her boat, she dismissed this hope of
intelligent response, inferring, somewhat grimly, that the young,
handsome, and popular poet had excited ardour in many a female breast
besides her own. Nevertheless, she permitted herself to return again
and again to the belief that he loved her and dreamed of her; and
certainly one of his most poignant sonnets had been addressed to the
unknown mate whom he had sought in vain.

Nor had he married. She had heard and read references to his
increasing dissipation, caused by an unhappy love affair, but his
work, instead of degenerating with his morals, showed increasing power
and beauty. The fire burned at times with so intense a radiance that
it would seem to have consumed his early voluptuousness while
decimating neither his human nor his spiritual passion. Each new
volume sold many editions. The critics declared that his lyrics were
the finest of his generation, and vowed the time could not be far off
when he would unite the imaginative energy of his first long poems
with the nightingale quality of his later, and produce one of the
greatest poetical dramas in the language. But the man had been cast
into outer darkness. Society had dropped him, and the young Q