y drew himself up. 'All right.'

He reached out a hand to the tongs and put the fire together.

'Is that so?' said Watson. The slight incredulity in his voice touched
some raw nerve in Fenwick.

'I don't want anything,' he said, almost angrily. 'I shall get
through.'

Cuningham had been talking, no doubt. His affairs had been discussed.
His morbid pride took offence at once.

'Mine'll just hold out,' said Watson, presently, with a humorous
inflexion--'it'll bury me, I think--with a few shillings over. But I
couldn't have afforded another year.'

There was silence a while--till a nurse came in to make up the fire.
Fenwick began to talk of old friends, and current exhibitions; and
presently tea made its appearance. Watson's strength seemed to revive.
He sat more upright in his chair, his voice grew stronger, and he
dallied with his tea, joking hoarsely with his nurse, and asking
Fenwick all the questions that occurred to him. His face, in its
rugged pallor and emaciation, and his great head, black or iron-grey
on the white pillows, were so fine that Fenwick could not take
his eyes from him; with the double sense of the artist, he saw the
_subject_ in the man; a study in black and white hovered before him.

When the nurse had withdrawn, and they were alone again, in a silence
made more intimate still by the darkness of the panelled walls, which
seemed to isolate them from the rest of the room, enclosing them in a
glowing ring of lamp and firelight, Fenwick was suddenly seized by an
impulse he could not master. He bent towards the sick man.

'Watson!--do you remember advising me to marry when we met in Paris?'

'Perfectly.'

The invalid turned his haggard eyes upon the speaker, in a sudden
sharp attention.

There was a pause; then Fenwick said, with bent head, staring into the
fire:

'Well--I _am_ married.'

Watson gave a hoarse 'Phew!'--and waited.

'My wife left me twelve years ago and took our child with her. I don't
know whether they are alive or dead. I thought I'd like to tell you.
It would have been better if I hadn't concealed it, from you--and--and
other friends.'

'Great Scott!' said Watson, slowly, bringing the points of his long,
emaciated fingers together, like one trying to master a new image. 'So
that's been the secret--'

'Of what?' said Fenwick, testily; but as Watson merely replied by
an interrogative and attentive silence, he threw himself into his
tale--headlong. He told it at far g