remes--either in the depths of
depression or else unaccountably excited. Olivia would sometimes find
him crouching over the fire with his head between his hands in a state
of morose misery. And at other times she would hear him whistling a
few bars from some opera in quite a light-hearted way.

"If you do not mind, Olive, I think that Barton had better come down
to-morrow afternoon," Marcus observed one evening. "He will get on all
the faster." And as Olivia made no objection to this the matter was
settled.

Marcus secretly wondered how Robert Barton could take things quite so
coolly. Perhaps it might be partly owing to his enfeebled state, but
he certainly did not seem to trouble himself much about the future. "I
feel as if I should pull through now," he said, once. "I only wanted a
helping hand to lift me out of the slough of despond. When I am a bit
stronger, doctor, I must paint a pot-boiler or two," and Marcus had
quietly assented to this.

"I have made up my mind what I must do, Livy," continued Dr. Luttrell
later on that same evening, when he had arranged that his patient
should come downstairs. "You know that nice Mrs. Randall in the
Models; well, she has a lodger, but she expects that he will leave her
in a week or so, as he has work at a distance. I might take the room
for Barton, it is a clean, tidy little place. And Mrs. Randall is a
motherly sort of woman, and will look after him."

"Oh, what a good idea, Marcus."

"Yes, it came into my head when I was leaving the Models yesterday.
And I had half a mind to go back and ask the price of the room, but I
was in such a hurry. I would pay her a month in advance, and we would
use some of Mr. Gaythorne's money in buying him what he wants for his
painting. I have no idea what sort of an artist he is, but it seems
the only thing he can do."

"Oh, how pleased he will be, poor fellow," exclaimed Olivia, "but
surely he is not well enough to leave us just now, and in this
weather?" for a hard frost had set in.

"Not for another week, perhaps, but we must not let him think himself a
fixture here. We have had him ten days already."

Marcus had not repented of his philanthropy, he was too highly
principled for that, but though he would not have confessed it to his
wife for worlds, he was a little alarmed at the responsibility so
suddenly thrown on him.

Barton seemed such a happy-go-lucky, casual sort of person. The
gentlemanly tramp was not a bad