vas in glowing brushstrokes. As with all genius, the impulse of
creative work had seized him suddenly and was driving him on regardless
of everything exterior to his art.

Time had ceased to matter to him, and Magda, with little nervous pains
shooting first through one limb, then another, was wondering how much
longer she could maintain the pose. She was determined not to give in,
not to check him while that fervour of creation was upon him.

The pain was increasing. She felt as though she were being stabbed with
red-hot knives. Tiny beads of sweat broke out on her forehead, and her
breath came gaspingly between her lips.

All at once the big easel at which Michael was standing receded out of
sight, and when it reappeared again it was quite close to her, swaying
and nodding like a mandarin. Instinctively she put out her hand to
steady it, but it leaned nearer and nearer and finally gave a huge lurch
and swooped down on top of her, and the studio and everything in it
faded out of sight. . . .

The metallic tinkle of the gold goblet as it fell from her hand and
rolled along the floor startled Michael out of his absorption. With
a sharp exclamation he flung down his brush and palette and strode
hurriedly to the divan. Magda was lying half across it in a little
crumpled heap, unconscious.

His first impulse to lift her up was arrested by something in her
attitude, and he stood quite still, looking down at her, his face
suddenly drawn and very weary.

In the limp figure with its upturned face and the purple shadows which
fatigue had painted below the closed eyelids, there was an irresistible
appeal. She looked so young, so helpless, and the knowledge that she had
done this for him--forced her limbs into agonised subjection until at
last conscious endurance had failed her--moved him indescribably.

Surely this was a new Magda! Or else he had never known her. Had he
been too hard--hard to her and pitilessly hard to himself--when he had
allowed the ugly facts of her flirtation with Kit Raynham to drive him
from her?

Eighteen months ago! And in all those eighteen months no word of gossip,
no lightest breath of scandal against her, had reached his ears. Had
he been merely a self-righteous Pharisee, enforcing the penalty of old
sins, bygone failings? A grim smile twisted his lips. If so, and he had
made her suffer, he had at least suffered equally himself!

He stooped over the prone figure on the divan. Lower, lower