d
preposterous charm. There was something about him--something that he
had no right to have about him, being born a dweller in cities, which
none the less he undeniably and inevitably had, something that made
him one with this moorland setting, untamed and beautiful and shy. The
great natural features of the landscape did him no wrong; for he was
natural too.

Well, she had found his sonnet for him; but could she help him to
recover what he had lost now?

"I hope you won't mind my asking, but don't you know any one who can
help you?"

"Not any one who can help me out of this."

"I believe it must have been you Sir Joseph Harden used to talk about.
I think he saw you once when you were a boy. I know if he were alive
he would have been glad to help you."

"He did help me. I owe my education to the advice he gave my father."

"Is that the case? I am very glad."

She paused, exultant; she felt that she was now upon the right track.
"You said you had written other things. What have you written?"

"A lyrical drama for one thing. That sonnet was meant for a sort of
motto to it."

A lyrical drama? She was right, then; he was Horace Jewdwine's great
"find." If so, the subject was fenced around with difficulty. She must
on no account give Horace away. Mr. Rickman had seemed annoyed because
she had read his sonnet (which was printed); he would be still more
annoyed if he knew that she had read his lyrical drama in manuscript.
He was inclined to be reticent about his writings.

Lucia was wrong. Mr. Rickman had never been less inclined to
reticence in his life. He wished she had read his drama instead of his
sonnet. His spring-time was there; the swift unreturning spring-time
of his youth. If she had read his drama she would have believed in his
pursuit of the intangible perfection. As it was, she never would
believe.

"I wonder," she said, feeling her ground carefully, "if my cousin
Horace Jewdwine would be any good to you?"

"Mr. Jewdwine?"

"Do you know him?"

"Yes, slightly. That is--he knows--he knows what I can do. I mean what
I've done."

"Really?" The chain of evidence was now complete. "Well, what does he
say?"

Rickman laughed as he recalled his last conversation with the critic.
"He says I'm one-seventh part a poet.

"Does he? Then you may be very sure you are a great deal more. My
cousin is most terribly exacting. I should be glad if I succeeded in
satisfying him; but I don't think I should be se