hues, the intricate broideries—­green or russet, red or purple—­of this winter world!—­for him the delicacy of the snow, the pale azure of the sky, the cloud-shadows, the white becks, the winding river in the valley floor, the purple crags, the lovely accents of light and shade, the hints of composition that wooed his eager eye.  Who was it that said ‘Composition is the art of preserving the accidental look’?  Clever fellow!—­there was the right thing said, for once!  And so he slipped into a reverie, which was really one of those moments—­plastic and fruitful—­by which the artist makes good his kinship with ’the great of old,’ his right to his own place in the unending chain.

Strange!—­from that poverty of feeling in which he had considered the Morrison tragedy—­from his growing barrenness of heart towards Phoebe—­he had sprung at a bound into this ecstasy, this expansion of the whole man.  It brought with it a vivid memory of the pictures he was engaged upon.  By the time he turned homeward, and the light was failing, he was counting the days till he could return to London—­and to work.

* * * * *

There was still, however, another week of his holiday to run.  He wrote to Mrs. Morrison a letter which cost him much pains, expressing a sympathy that he really felt.  He got on with his illustration work, and extracted a further advance upon it.  And the old cousin in Kendal proved unexpectedly generous.  She wrote him a long Scriptural letter, rating him for disobedience to his father, and warning him against debt; but she lent him twenty pounds, so that, for the present, Phoebe could be left in comparative comfort, and he had something in his pocket.

Yet with this easing of circumstance, the relation between husband and wife did not improve.  During this last week, indeed, Phoebe teased him to make a sketch of himself to leave with her.  He began it unwillingly, then got interested, and finally made a vigorous sketch, as ample as their largest looking-glass would allow, with which he was extremely pleased.  Phoebe delighted in it, hung it up proudly in the parlour, and repaid him with smiles and kisses.

Yet the very next day, under the cloud of his impending departure, she went about pale and woe-begone, on the verge of tears or temper.  He was provoked into various harsh speeches, and Phoebe felt that despair which weak and loving women know, when parting is near, and they foresee the hour beyond parting—­when each unkind word and look, too well remembered, will gnaw and creep about the heart.

But she could not restrain herself.  Nervous tension, doubt of her husband, and condemnation of herself drove her on.  The very last night there was a quarrel—­about the child—­whom Fenwick had punished for some small offence.  Phoebe hotly defended her—­first with tears, then with passion.  For the first time these two people found themselves looking into each other’s eyes with rage, almost with hate.  Then they kissed and made up, terrified at the abyss which had yawned between them; and when the moment came, Phoebe went through the parting bravely.