"Very well! Go on," said Dora indifferently.

"I saw him yesterday--for that matter, I have seen him almost every day since he came back to London."

"Where has he been?" asked Dora, with but a mild display of interest.

"To Paris."

"He often goes over--I mean he often used to go."

"The last time he went there, an incident happened which it seems to me ought to interest you. He went to seek out General Sabaroff. He found him, tore up before his eyes the paper that he had signed in your house, and threw the pieces in his face."

"Heavens!" said Dora, startled, "and what happened then?"

"The next morning they fought with pistols--in the Bois de Vincennes--your husband lodged a bullet in the General's right shoulder."

Dora did not attempt to hide the feeling of joy and pride that involuntarily rose within her.

"Philip was always a good shot--he himself was not hurt?"

"No--you will allow me now to p.r.o.nounce your husband's name, since you have used it yourself."

Dora frowned and bit her lips.

"At all events, the contract is torn up!" she cried. "G.o.d be praised! I paid dearly enough for that vile piece of paper--I have a right to rejoice that it no longer exists. Philip did well, he did well. And after that?"

"Why, that is all--ah, no, I was forgetting. Philip begged me to hand you this letter--and this packet."

Dora went pale; she put the packet aside, and was going to tear up the letter when Lorimer interrupted--

"What are you going to do?" said he. "Tear up this letter? You will do nothing of the kind: that letter is from Philip, from your husband."

"My dear Gerald, my husband no longer exists for me."

"Dora," rejoined Lorimer, "you are cruel. Your husband loves you, and is overwhelmed with sorrow."

"My husband never loved me. I thought he loved his art and his wife, he only loved his invention and his money."

"Philip has never ceased to love you. He may have lost his head for a little while, when fortune visited him almost without knocking at the door. The other day the faults were on his side, now they are more on yours. You are unjust, cruel to him, cruel to yourself. Your obstinacy, my dear Dora, bids fair to put an end to the pair of you. Yes, that is the point things have come to; now, do you hear what I say? His despair and repentance ought to touch you; what he did in Paris the other day ought to satisfy you. He lives only in the hope of your forgiveness, in the hope of your return."

"Philip did not hesitate to thrust me into the arms of a libertine. If I had yielded to that man's hateful desires, Philip would probably never have destroyed the contract."

"Hold your tongue, Dora!" cried Lorimer; "you are uttering blasphemies.

You have allowed a silly idea, an absurd suspicion to gain an entrance into your head, and, like a grain of sand in the eye, it has carried on its irritating work till it has blotted out your vision, and you can see nothing except this molecule that seems to have turned into a mountain.

Take care, Dora, or your mountain will crush you as well as blind you.

Do you know that by obstinately refusing to listen to reason, a woman cuts herself off from friendly sympathy? People cease to take an interest in her woes. If you wish to alienate the sympathy of your most devoted friends, you are going the right way to work."

"I do not need anyone's sympathy," replied Dora proudly; "and I do not ask for it."

"Once more, Dora, listen to me. Philip may have neglected you, in order to throw himself body and soul into that invention which absorbed him night and day. But, remember, such a piece of work as that is a very exacting, inexorable mistress. You felt his indifference keenly, and it wounded you--the rest exists in your imagination alone. Now the mistress is discarded, cast out completely. Let the artist return again to his easel at your side."

"Never, oh, never!" cried Dora. "Ah, my dear Gerald, if you only knew how I loved that man!"

"And how you still love him," ventured Lorimer.

Dora rose suddenly, the thrust had not miscarried.

"I am sorry if it hurts you, but it is the truth," added Lorimer, with a significant smile.

"What do you mean?" demanded Dora, who thought Lorimer's remark somewhat out of place, and a little over-familiar.

"Come now, sit down here in front of me, your friend. You know I am a bit of a student of human nature, it is my stock-in-trade. My dear Dora, do not attempt to throw dust in your own eyes--you love Philip still; everything in this room testifies aloud to the feeling that you cannot stifle. Oh, do not start, do not deny it. If I am not right, what is the meaning of all this that I see around us?"

"In these surroundings I can evoke the Philip of the past, and that helps me to forget the Philip of the present."

"He is one and the same. He was changed for a few months; but to-day he is what he used to be, and what he will be always--the artist who loves you and longs for you. Dora, what have you to say in reply?"

"My head burns so, dear friend, spare me now. We will talk again ... but by and by."

A knock was heard at the door. "Oh, would you mind seeing who that is?--I am not expecting anyone," said Dora.

Dora threw an anxious look towards the door.

Lorimer went and opened it.

The visitor was no other than our old friend, Sir Benjamin Pond, City alderman and patron of arts in his spare moments.

He evidently expected to find himself in a hall or anteroom, instead of straightway standing in a studio in the presence of Dora and Lorimer. He was seized with a little fit of timidity, which he had difficulty in mastering, and which made him awkward in the extreme.

He removed his hat and stood turning it in his hands. Regaining his equilibrium, after a moment, he advanced respectfully towards Dora, without venturing, however, to hold out his hand.

"My dear Mrs. Grantham--Mr. Lorimer, how do you do?"

Dora and Lorimer bowed distantly without speaking, and seemed to wait for him to explain the object of his visit. The worthy man wished himself under the floor.

"I came," he said, stammering, "I came--that is to say, it's just this--I only heard yesterday of your removal here, quite by accident, and I also heard that you had with you the picture that I so much wanted to purchase last year. Ah, there it is, I see. You observe I have not lost all hope of possessing it, that picture which" ...

Dora and Lorimer looked at Sir Benjamin without uttering a word, and the poor man grew more and more embarra.s.sed.

"Well," he went on, "I have come to beg you to sell it to me. That is why I came early--to be sure to find you in. I do not, my dear madam, wish to profit by the regrettable circ.u.mstances in which you find yourself placed, to offer you a low price, or to bargain for the picture, believe me. No, no, I have too much respect for you, too much admiration for the painter. I wish to behave honourably over the matter, and deal generously, as a gentleman should."

He would have given hundreds of pounds to be leagues away from this studio that he had pushed his way into.

"I will willingly give you," added he, "five hundred pounds for the picture. What do you say to the offer?"

Dora and Lorimer did not open their lips. Their eyes never quitted those of the alderman. Lorimer moved back a little to a more retired post of observation: the scene began to interest him keenly. To Dora five hundred pounds was a small fortune. Would she sell the canvas? By withdrawing a little, he placed her more at her ease, left her free to decide according to the dictates of her heart, while, as I said before, he himself obtained a better view of the little comedy that was being enacted before him.

"Yes," said Sir Benjamin again, "five hundred pounds down. I am ready to draw you a cheque this minute."

"This picture is not for sale, Sir Benjamin," said Dora frigidly, "neither for five hundred nor for five thousand, nor for any other sum that it may please you to offer."