ing in her tragic face,
like a blown flame. Her body hardly counted except as fuel to the
eager and incessant fire.

"Don't hate it," he said. "It is the most beautiful thing you have to
give him."

"Ah--if I _could_ give it him!"

He smiled. "You have given it him. He isn't old when he can inspire
such devotion. He is to be envied."

He rose and held out his hand. As she took it, Miss Gurney's
flame-like gaze rested on him a moment and grew soft.

"If you want to know, it was Lucia Harden who sent me your poems,"
said she. And he knew that for once Miss Gurney had betrayed a secret.

He wondered what had made her change her mind. He wondered whether
Lucia had really made a secret of it. He wondered what the secret had
to do with Fielding. And wondering he went away, envying him the love
that kept its own divine fire burning for him on his hearth.

CHAPTER LI

There were times when Rickman, harassed by his engagement, reviewed
his literary position with dismay. Of success as men count success, he
had none. He was recognized as a poet by perhaps a score of people; to
a few hundreds he was a mere name in the literary papers; to the great
mass of his fellow-countrymen he was not even a name. He had gone his
own way and remained obscure; while his friends, Jewdwine and Maddox,
had gone theirs and won for themselves solid reputations. As for
Rankin (turned novelist) he had achieved celebrity. They had not been
able to impart to him the secret of success. But the recognition and
something more than recognition of the veteran poet consoled him for
the years of failure, and he felt that he could go through many such
on the strength of it.

The incident was so momentous that he was moved to speak of it to
Jewdwine and to Maddox. As everything that interested him interested
Maddox, he related it to Maddox in full; but with Jewdwine (such was
his exceeding delicacy) he observed a certain modest reticence. Still
there was no diminution in his engaging candour, his innocent
assumption that Jewdwine would be as pleased and excited as Maddox and
himself.

"He really seemed," said he, selecting from among Fielding's
utterances, "to think the things were great."

Jewdwine raised his eyebrows. "My dear Rickman, I congratulate you."
He paused for so long that his next remark, thoughtfully produced,
seemed to have no reference to Rickman's communication. "Fielding is
getting very old." If Rickman had been in a state