arm and his weakness, had already scattered his
compunctions of the preceding day, and was now aglow with the sheer joy
of holiday and change. He had worked very hard, he had had a great
success, and now he was going to live for three weeks in the lap of
luxury; intellectual luxury first and foremost--good talk, good company,
an abundance of books for rainy days; but with the addition of a supreme
_chef_, Lord Dunstable's champagne, and all the amenities of one of the
best moors in Scotland.

Doris went back into the house, and, Arthur being no longer in the
neighbourhood, allowed herself a few tears. She had never felt so lonely
in her life, nor so humiliated. "My moral character is gone," she said
to herself. "I have no moral character. I thought I was a sensible,
educated woman; and I am just an ''Arriet,' in a temper with her
''Arry.' Well--courage! Three weeks isn't long. Who can say that Arthur
mayn't come back disillusioned? Rachel Dunstable is a born tyrant. If,
instead of flattering him, she begins to bully him, strange things may
happen!"

The first week of solitude she spent in household drudgery. Bills had to
be paid, and there was now mercifully a little money to pay them with.
Though it was August, the house was to be "spring-cleaned," and Doris
had made a compact with her sulky maids that when it began she would do
no more than sleep and breakfast at home. She would spend her days in
the Campden Hill studio, and sup on a tray--anywhere. On these terms,
they grudgingly allowed her to occupy her own house.

The studio in which she worked was on the top of Campden Hill, and
opened into one of the pleasant gardens of that neighbourhood. Her
uncle, Charles Bentley, an elderly Academician, with an ugly, humorous
face, red hair, red eyebrows, a black skull-cap, and a general weakness
for the female sex, was very fond of his niece Doris, and inclined to
think her a neglected and underrated wife. He was too fond of his own
comfort, however, to let Meadows perceive this opinion of his; still
less did he dare express it to Doris. All he could do was to befriend
her and make her welcome at the studio, to advise her about her
illustrations, and correct her drawing when it needed it. He himself was
an old-fashioned artist, quite content to be "mid" or even "early"
Victorian. He still cultivated the art of historical painting, and was
still as anxious as any contemporary of Frith to tell a story. And as
his manner wa