liating evidences here before his eyes? This charming house and
studio, the successful pictures hung in the galleries, the money at his
bankers, the promise of unlimited treasure yet to flow into his coffers,
the acclamation of the world and his social lionising--how much of all
this would have been achieved without the timely co-operation of the
Robinsons? He staggered in moral agony under the burden of good they had
heaped on him so lavishly.

Nothing of course could be undone. Wisest to acquiesce silently, and
start forward afresh from the point at which he stood. But since it was
now only the end of May, and the best of the season was yet to follow,
he felt that to stay in London would be intolerable.

The world seemed to swarm with people, all intent on chattering about
his affairs, on discussing and misunderstanding this sensation in the
life of the lion of the season. A lovely titbit for the social gossips
to relish! He could not possibly meet people, shake their hands, answer
their stupid questions, listen to the hateful sympathy of the more
intimate. He must shut up the house and fly from London. But where could
he hide himself for the time?

He resumed his pacing to and fro, sometimes perambulating the studio to
vary his movement. So far he was under the influence of the first
excitement attendant on the rupture. Whatever his astonishment at having
been ousted in the affections of a woman by a man whom he had more or
less despised, whose rivalry he had brushed aside as easily as a cobweb;
the bare idea that a broken engagement should figure in his life was so
distasteful that it made the wound to his mere vanity a secondary
matter. He could not at once extricate his mind from the contemplation
of these immediate bearings of the event. His relation to Lady Betty,
indeed, was present to him, but he had not yet turned the flood of his
thought in that direction.

In the reaction of feeling, however, when the first sting and shock had
somewhat lightened, it was natural for his whole soul to turn to Lady
Betty longingly; not with the joyous impulse of one unexpectedly free to
claim his true comrade, but like a bruised child to find relief for his
hurt. But how to reach her again he did not know. So thorough had been
their sacrifice that he had even promised never to write to her.
Besides, letters would only follow her if sent through a certain banker,
whose name she had withheld from him. And though now he felt t