l.
How she had aged and blanched! She stood a moment opposite to him, in
her plain long dress with its white collar and cuffs, her face working a
little.

'We are so glad!' she said, but almost with a sob-'God bless you!'

And, wringing his hand, she passed away from him, hiding her eyes, but
without a sound. When they met again she was quite self-contained and
bright, talking much both with him and Rose about the future.

And one little word of Rose's must be recorded here, for those who have
followed her through these four years. It was at night, when Robert,
with smiles, had driven them out of doors to look at the moon over the
bay, from the terrace just beyond the windows. They had been sitting on
the balustrade talking of Elsmere. In this nearness to death, Rose had
lost her mocking ways; but she was shy and difficult, and Flaxman felt
it all very strange, and did not venture to woo her much.

When, all at once, he felt her hand steal trembling, a little white
suppliant, into his, and her face against his shoulder.

'You won't--you won't ever be angry with me for making you wait like
that? It was impertinent--it was like a child playing tricks!'

Flaxman was deeply shocked by the change in Robert. He was terribly
emaciated. They could only talk at rare intervals in the day; and it was
clear that his nights were often one long struggle for breath. But his
spirits were extraordinarily even, and his days occupied to a point
Flaxman could hardly have believed. He would creep, down stairs at
eleven, read his English letters (among them always some from Elgood
Street) write his answers to them--those difficult scrawls are among the
treasured archives of a society which is fast gathering to itself some
of the best life in England--then often fall asleep with fatigue. After
food there would come a short drive, or, if the day was very warm, an
hour or two of sitting outside, generally his best time for talking.
He had a wheeled chair in which Flaxman would take him across to the
convent garden--a dream of beauty. Overhead an orange canopy--leaf and
blossom and golden fruit all in simultaneous perfection; underneath a
revel of every imaginable flower--narcissus and anemones, geraniums
and clematis; and all about, hedges of monthly roses, dark red and pale
alternately, making a roseleaf carpet under their feet. Through the
tree-trunks shone the white sun-warmed convent and far beyond were
glimpses of downward-trending