eed! Suddenly he found himself on his knees beside his
picture, praying that he might finish it prosperously, that it might
be given a good place in the Academy, and bring him fame and fortune.

Then he got up sheepishly, looking furtively round the room to be sure
that the door was shut, and no one had seen him. He was a good deal
ashamed of himself, for he was not in truth of a religious mind,
and he had, by now, few or no orthodox beliefs. But in all matters
connected with his pictures the Evangelical tradition of his youth
still held him. He was the descendant of generations of men and women
who had prayed on all possible occasions--that customers might be
plentiful and business good--that the young cattle might do well, and
the hay be got in dry--that their children might prosper--and they
themselves be delivered from rheumatism, or toothache, or indigestion.
Fenwick's prayer to some 'magnified non-natural man' afar off, to come
and help him with his picture, was of the same kind. Only he was no
longer whole-hearted and simple about it, as he had been when Phoebe
married him, as she was still.

He put on his studio coat and sat down to his work again, in a very
tender, repentant mood. What on earth had possessed him to make that
answer to Lord Findon--to let him and those other fellows take him
for unmarried? He protested, in excuse, that Westmoreland folk are
'close,' and don't like talking about their own affairs. He came of a
secretive, suspicious stock; and had no mind at any time to part with
unnecessary facts about himself. As talkative as you please about art
and opinion; of his own concerns not a word! London had made him all
the more cautious and reticent. No one knew anything about him except
as an artist. He always posted his letters himself; and he believed
that neither his landlady nor anybody else suspected him of a wife.

But to-day he had carried things too far--and a guilty discomfort
weighed upon him. What was to be done? Should he on the first
opportunity set himself right with Lord Findon--speak easily and
unexpectedly of Phoebe and the child? Clearly what would have been
simplicity itself at first was now an awkwardness. Lord Findon would
be puzzled--chilled. He would suppose there was something to be
ashamed of--some skeleton in the cupboard. And especially would he
take it ill that Fenwick had allowed him to run on with his diatribes
against matrimony as though he were talking to a bachelor