‘I would never have done it—­never!’ she said to herself in a mad recoil.  ‘He had chosen—­he should have paid!’

She sat closer and closer at her work, in a feverish eagerness to finish it, sleeping little and eating little.  When she wrote to her husband it was in a bitter, reproachful tone she had never yet employed to him.  ’I have had one nice letter from you this winter, and only one.  As you can’t take the trouble to write any more, you’ll hardly wonder if I think you sent that one to keep me quiet.’  She wrote too often in this style.  But, whether in this style or another, John made no answer—­had apparently ceased to write.

One afternoon towards the end of April she was sitting at her work in the parlour, with the window open to the lengthening day, when she heard the gate open and shut.  A woman in black came up the pathway, and, seeing Phoebe at the window, stopped short.  Phoebe rose, and, as the visitor threw back her veil, recognised the face of Mr. Morrison’s daughter, Bella.

She gave a slight cry; then, full of pity and emotion, she hastened to open the door.

‘Oh, Miss Morrison!’ She held out her hand; her attitude, her beautiful eyes, breathed compassion, and also embarrassment.  The thought of the debt rushed into her mind.  Had Miss Morrison come to press for it?  It was within a fortnight of twelve months since the loan was granted.  She felt a vague terror.

The visitor just touched her hand, then looked at her with an expression which stirred increasing alarm in the woman before her.  It was so hard and cold; it threatened, without speech.

‘I came to return you something I don’t want any more,’ said the girl, with a defiant air; and Phoebe noticed, as she spoke, that she carried in her left hand a large, paper-covered roll.  In her deep black she was more startling than ever, with spots of flame-colour on either cheek, the eyes fixed and staring, the lips wine-red.  It might have been a face taken from one of those groups of crudely painted wood or terra-cotta, in which northern Italy—­as at Orta or Varallo—­has expressed the scenes of the Passion.  The Magdalen in one of the ruder groups might have looked so.

‘Will you please to come in?’ said Phoebe, leading the way to the parlour, which smelled musty and damp for lack of fire, and was still littered with old canvases, studies, casts, and other gear of the painter who had once used it as his studio.

Bella Morrison came in, but she refused a chair.

‘There’s no call for me to stay,’ she said, sharply.  ’You won’t like what I came to do—­I know that.’

Phoebe looked at her, bewildered.

‘I’ve brought back that picture of me your husband painted,’ said the girl, putting down her parcel on the table.  ‘It’s in there.’

‘What have you done that for?’ said Phoebe, wondering.

‘Because I loathe it—­and all my friends loathe it, too.  Papa—­’