The steep lane to the cottage was still deep in snow.  The cart could not attempt it.  Fenwick made his way up, fighting the eddying sleet.  As he let fall the latch of the outer gate, the cottage door opened, and Phoebe, with the child in her arms, stood on the threshold.

‘John!’

‘Yes!  God bless my soul, what a night!’ He reached the door, put down his umbrella with difficulty, and dragged his bag into the passage.  Then, in a moment, his coat was off and he had thrown his arm round her and the child.  It seemed to him that she was curiously quiet and restrained.  But she kissed him in return, drew him further within the little passage, and shut the outer door, shivering.

‘The kitchen’s warm,’ she said, at last.

She led him in, and he found the low-ceiled room bright with fire and lamp, the table spread, and his chair beside the blaze.  Kneeling down, she tried to unlace his wet boots.

‘No, no!’ he said, holding her away—­’I’ll do that, Phoebe.  What’s wrong with you?—­you look so—­so queer!’

She straightened herself, and with a laugh put back her fair hair.  Her face was very pale—­a greyish pallor—­and her wonderful eyes stared from it in an odd, strained way.

‘Oh, I’m all right,’ she said; and she turned away from him to the fire, opening the oven-door to see whether the meat-pie was done.

‘How have you kept in this weather?’ he said, watching her.  ’I’d no notion you’d had it so bad.’

’Oh, I don’t know.  I suppose I’ve had a chill or something.  It’s been rather weariful.’

‘You didn’t tell me anything about your chill.’

’Didn’t I?  It seems hardly worth while telling such things, from such a distance.  Will you have supper at once?’

He drew up to the table, and she fed him and hovered round him, asking the while about his work, in a rather perfunctory way, about his rooms and the price of them, inquiring after the state of his clothes.  But her tone and manner were unlike herself, and there was in his mind a protesting consciousness that she had not welcomed him as a young wife should after a long separation.  Her manner too was extraordinarily nervous; her hand shook as she touched a plate; her movements were full of starts, and checks, as though, often, she intended a thing and then forgot it.

They avoided talking about money, and he did not mention the name of Madame de Pastourelles; though of course his letters had reported the external history of the portrait.  But Phoebe presently inquired after it.

’Have you nearly done painting that lady, John?—­I don’t know how to say her name.’

As she spoke, she lifted a bit of bread-and-butter to her mouth and put it down untasted.  In the same way she had tried to drink some tea, and had not apparently succeeded.  Fenwick rose and went over to her.

‘Look here, Phoebe,’ he said, putting his hand on her beautiful hair and turning her face to him—­’what’s the matter?’