rdays off for
you. The Commodore is coming up next week. He owes me a favour or two. I
think I can make it for _you_, old man."

There was a little stir in the next room. Fairfax called "Molly!" and
she came in. She might have been a lady. Long association with Fairfax
and her love had taught her wonders. Her hair was carefully arranged and
brushed until it shone like glass. Her dress was simple and refined; her
face had the beauty on it that a great and unselfish love sheds.

"It means," said Rainsford to himself as he rose and placed a chair for
her, "that Molly will be left entirely alone."

CHAPTER XXIX

What Rainsford procured for him in the Saturday holidays was worth the
weight of its hours in gold. This, with Sundays, gave him two working
days, and no lover went more eagerly to his mistress than Antony to the
barracks where he toiled and dreamed. He began with too mad enthusiasm,
lacking the patience to wait until his conceptions ripened. He roughly
made his studies for an Angel of the Resurrection, inspired by the
figure in the West Albany Cemetery. As he progressed he was conscious
that his hand had been idle, as far as his art was concerned, too long;
his fingers were blunted and awkward, and many an hour he paced his shed
in agony of soul, conscious of his lack of technique. He was too
engrossed to be aware of the passing months, but autumn came again with
its wonderful haze, veiling death, decay and destruction, and Fairfax
found himself but little more advanced than in May, when he had shut
himself in his studio, a happy man.

He grew moody and tried to keep his despair from his wife, for not the
least of his unrest was caused by the knowledge that he was selfish with
her for the sake of his art. By October he had destroyed a hundred
little figures, crushed his abortive efforts to bits, and made a clean
sweep of six months' work and stood among the ruins. He never in these
moments thought of his wife as a comforter, having never opened his
heart to her regarding his art. He shrank from giving her entrance into
his sanctuaries. He was alone in his crisis of artistic infecundity.

On this Sunday morning he left his studio early, turned the key and
walked up Eagle Street toward the church he had not entered since he was
married. Led by discontent and by a hope that beneath the altar in his
old place he might find peace and possibly hear a voice which would tell
him as every creator must be told-