o good to her?" she asked an old gossip of
Annemie's, as she went down the stairs.

The old soul stopped to think with difficulty of such a far-off time, and
resting her brass flagon of milk on the steep step.

"Eh, no; not that I ever saw," she answered at length. "He was fond of
her--very fond; but he was a wilful one, and he beat her sometimes when
he got tired of being on land. But women must not mind that, you know, my
dear, if only a man's heart is right. Things fret them, and then they
belabor what they love best; it is a way they have."

"But she speaks of him as of an angel nearly!" said Bebee, bewildered.

The old woman took up her flagon, with a smile flitting across her wintry
face.

"Ay, dear; when the frost kills your brave rose-bush, root and bud,
do you think of the thorns that pricked you, or only of the fair,
sweet-smelling things that flowered all your summer?"

Bebee went away thoughtfully out of the old crazy water-washed house by
the quay; life seemed growing very strange and intricate and knotted
about her, like the threads of lace that a bad fairy has entangled in the
night.

CHAPTER X.

Her stranger from Rubes' land was a great man in a certain world. He had
become great when young, which is perhaps a misfortune. It indisposes men
to be great at their maturity. He was famous at twenty, by a picture
hectic in color, perfect in drawing, that made Paris at his feet. He
became more famous by verses, by plays, by political follies, and by
social successes. He was faithful, however, to his first love in art. He
was a great painter, and year by year proved afresh the cunning of his
hand. Purists said his pictures had no soul in them. It was not wonderful
if they had none. He always painted soulless vice; indeed, he saw very
little else.

One year he had some political trouble. He wrote a witty pamphlet that
hurt where it was perilous to aim. He laughed and crossed the border,
riding into the green Ardennes one sunny evening. He had a name of some
power and sufficient wealth; he did not feel long exile. Meanwhile he
told himself he would go and look at Scheffer's Gretchen.

The King of Thule is better; but people talk most of the Gretchen. He had
never seen either.

He went in leisurely, travelling up the bright Meuse River, and across
the monotony of the plains, then green with wheat a foot high, and
musical with the many bells of the Easter kermesses in the quaint
old-world villa