mple thing, was it not? Even against my own will, I am
glad and even proud to do thy dear will. But for another, out upon it!"

"Forgive me, my Gillette," said the painter, falling upon his knees;
"I would rather be beloved than famous. You are fairer than success and
honors. There, fling the pencils away, and burn these sketches! I have
made a mistake. I was meant to love and not to paint. Perish art and all
its secrets!"

Gillette looked admiringly at him, in an ecstasy of happiness! She was
triumphant; she felt instinctively that art was laid aside for her sake,
and flung like a grain of incense at her feet.

"Yet he is only an old man," Poussin continued; "for him you would be a
woman, and nothing more. You--so perfect!"

"I must love you indeed!" she cried, ready to sacrifice even love's
scruples to the lover who had given up so much for her sake; "but I
should bring about my own ruin. Ah! to ruin myself, to lose everything
for you!... It is a very glorious thought! Ah! but you will forget me.
Oh I what evil thought is this that has come to you?"

"I love you, and yet I thought of it," he said, with something like
remorse, "Am I so base a wretch?"

"Let us consult Pere Hardouin," she said.

"No, no! Let it be a secret between us."

"Very well; I will do it. But you must not be there," she said. "Stay at
the door with your dagger in your hand; and if I call, rush in and kill
the painter."

Poussin forgot everything but art. He held Gillette tightly in his arms.

"He loves me no longer!" thought Gillette when she was alone. She
repented of her resolution already.

But to these misgivings there soon succeeded a sharper pain, and she
strove to banish a hideous thought that arose in her own heart. It
seemed to her that her own love had grown less already, with a vague
suspicion that the painter had fallen somewhat in her eyes.

II--CATHERINE LESCAULT

Three months after Poussin and Porbus met, the latter went to see Master
Frenhofer. The old man had fallen a victim to one of those profound and
spontaneous fits of discouragement that are caused, according to medical
logicians, by indigestion, flatulence, fever, or enlargement of the
spleen; or, if you take the opinion of the Spiritualists, by the
imperfections of our mortal nature. The good man had simply overworked
himself in putting the finishing touches to his mysterious picture. He
was lounging in a huge carved oak chair, covered with black leath