est a little. I'm sick and tired of myself. Let's talk
of old Mallard. And what's become of little Cecily Doran?"

"She is here--with her aunt."

"She here too! By Jove! Well, of course, I shall have nothing to do
with them. Mallard still acting as her guardian, I suppose. Rather a
joke, that. I never could get him to speak on the subject. But I feel
glad you know him. He's a solid fellow, tremendously conscientious;
just the things you would like in a man, no doubt. Have you seen any of
his paintings?"

Miriam shook her head absently, unable to find voice for the topic,
which was remote from her thoughts.

"He's done fine things, great things. I shall look him up, and we'll
drink a bottle of wine together."

He kept stroking Miriam's hand, a white hand with blue veins--a strong
hand, though so delicately fashioned. The touch of the wedding-ring
again gave a new direction to his discursive thoughts.

"After this, shall you go back to that horrible hole in Lancashire?"

"I hope to go back home, certainly."

"Home, home!" he muttered, impatiently. "It has made you ill, poor
girl. Stay in Italy a long time, now you are once here. For you to be
here at all seems a miracle; it gives me hopes."

Miriam did not resent this, in word at all events. She was submitting
again to physical oppression; her head drooped, and her abstracted gaze
was veiled with despondent lassitude. Reuben talked idly, in loose
sentences.

"Do you think of me as old or young, Miriam?" he asked, when both had
kept silence for a while.

"I no longer think of you as older than myself."

"That is natural. I imagined that. In one way I am old enough, but in
another I am only just beginning my life, and have all my energies
fresh. I shall do something yet; can you believe it?"

"Do what?" she asked, wearily.

"Oh, I have plans; all sorts of plans."

He joined his hands together behind his head, and began to stir with a
revival of mental energy.

"But plans of what sort?"

"There is only one direction open to me. My law has of course gone
to--to limbo; it was always an absurdity. Most of my money has gone the
same way, and I'm not sorry for it. If I had never had anything, I
should have set desperately to work long ago. Now I am bound to work,
and you will see the results. Of course, in our days, there's only one
road for a man like me. I shall go in for literature."

Miriam listened, but made no comment.

"My life hitherto has not bee