ed
the words, "You should never have married me."

She couldn't see the struggle in him, but she could observe how pale he
was. She never caressed him. She had long since learned that it was not
what he wanted; but she laid her hand on his head, for he was sitting on
the bed, and it might have been his mother who spoke--

"You're clear tired out," she said gently. "Will I fix up a bed for you
in the kitchen to-night? You'll lie better."

He accepted gratefully. To-morrow, being Monday, was the longest day in
the week for him.

He could not permit himself to go to church again, but during the next
few days he half expected to hear a knock at the door which should
announce Bella. But she did not come, and he was glad that she did not,
and more than once, in the evening, he walked around the school
building, up ---- Street, looking at the lighted windows of the house
where the doves were safely coted, and thought of the schoolgirl, with
her books and her companions.

"... Not any more perfectly straight lines, Cousin Antony ..."

And the leaves fell, piles of them, red and yellow, and were swept and
burned in fires whose incense was sweet to him, and the trees in the
school garden grew bare.

In the first days of his Albany life, his Visions had used to meet him
in those streets; now there seemed to be no inspiration for him
anywhere, and he wondered if it were his marriage that had levelled all
pinnacles for him or his daily mechanical work? His associations with
Tito Falutini? Or if it were only that he was no sculptor at all, not
equal to his dreams!

In the leaf-strewn street, near the Canon's School, he called on the
Images to return, and, half halting in his walk, he looked up at one
lighted window as if he expected to see a girlish figure there and catch
sight of a friendly little hand that waved to him; but there was no such
greeting.

* * * * *

That afternoon, as he went into his studio, some one rose from the sofa,
and his wife's voice called to him--

"Don't be startled, Tony. I just came for awhile to sit with you."

He was amazed. Molly had never crossed the threshold of the workroom
before, not having been invited. She had brought her sewing. It was so
lonely in the little rooms, she wondered if it wasn't lonesome in the
studio as well?

Smoking and walking to and fro, his hands in his pockets, Fairfax
glanced at his wife as she took up the little garments on w