hat changed from puzzled interest to
wondering confusion.

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed when the speaker ceased. "Is it possible
to get into such entanglements of reasoning about what one thinks and
feels? It's beyond me. Oh they're bringing the tea. Perhaps a cup of
tea will clear my wits."

Rosamund at once began to speak of the landscape by Leader, which hung
near them, and continued to do so even after the servant had withdrawn.
Her companion was silent, smiling now and then in an absent way. They
sipped tea.

"The tea is doing me so much good," Bertha said, "I begin to feel equal
to the most complicated reflections. And so you really believe that Mr.
Franks is on the way to perdition, and that you are the cause of it?"

Rosamund did not reply. She had half averted her look; her brows were
knit in an expression of trouble; she bit her lower lip. A moment
passed, and--

"Suppose we go into the garden," she said, rising. "Don't you feel it a
little close here?"

They strolled about the paths. Her companion, seeming to have dismissed
from mind their subject of conversation, began to talk of Egypt, and
the delight she promised herself there.

Presently Bertha reverted to the unfinished story.

"Oh, it doesn't interest you."

"Doesn't it indeed! Please go on. You had just explained all about
'Sanctuary'--which isn't really a bad picture at all."

"Oh, Bertha!" cried the other in pained protest. "That's your good
nature. You never can speak severely of anybody's work. The picture is
shameful, shameful! And its successor, I am too sure, will be worse
still, from what I have heard of it. Oh, I can't bear to think of what
it all means--Now that it's too late, I see what I ought to have done.
In spite of everything and everybody I ought to have married him in the
first year, when I had courage and hope enough to face any hardships.
We spoke of it, but he was too generous. What a splendid thing to have
starved with him--to have worked for him whilst he was working for art
and fame, to have gone through and that together, and have come out
triumphant! That was a life worth living. But to begin marriage at
one's ease on the profits of pictures such as 'Sanctuary'--oh, the
shame of it! Do you think I could face the friends who would come to
see me?"

"How many friends," asked Bertha, "would be aware of your infamy? I
credit myself with a little imagination. But I should never have
suspected the black baseness whi