“What name, please?”

And the answer was, “John Kenyon.”

Then Mr. Browning and Mr. Kenyon had a nice little visit, talking about books and art.  And Mr. Kenyon told Mr. Browning that Miss Elizabeth Barrett, the poetess, was a cousin of his—­he was a bit boastful of the fact.

And Mr. Browning nodded and said he had often heard of her, and admired her work.

Then Mr. Kenyon suggested that Mr. Browning write and tell her so—­“You see she has just gotten out a new book, and we are all a little nervous about how it is going to take.  Miss Barrett lives in a darkened room, you know—­sees no one—­and a letter from a man like you would encourage her greatly.”

Mr. Kenyon wrote the address of Miss Barrett on a card and pushed it across the table.

Mr. Browning took the card, put it in his pocketbook and promised to write Miss Barrett, as Mr. Kenyon requested.

And he did.

Miss Barrett replied.

Mr. Browning answered, and soon several letters a week were going in each direction.

Not quite so many missives were being received by Fanny Haworth; and as for Lizzie Flower, I fear she was quite forgotten.  She fell into a decline, drooped and died in a year.

Mr. Browning asked for permission to call on Miss Barrett.

Miss Barrett explained that her father would not allow it, neither would the doctor or nurse, and added:  “There is nothing to see in me.  I am a weed fit for the ground and darkness.”

But this repulse only made Mr. Browning want to see her the more.  He appealed to Mr. Kenyon, who was the only person allowed to call, besides Miss Mitford—­Mr. Kenyon was her cousin.

Mr. Kenyon arranged it—­he was an expert at arranging anything of a delicate nature.  He timed the hour when Mr. Barrett was down town, and the nurse and doctor safely out of the way, and they called on the invalid prisoner in the darkened room.

They did not stay long, but when they went away Robert Browning trod on air.  The beautiful girl-like face, in its frame of dark curls, lying back among the pillows, haunted him like a shadow.  He was thirty-three, she was thirty-five.  She looked like a child, but the mind—­the subtle, appreciative, receptive mind!  The mind that caught every allusion, that knew his thought before he voiced it, that found nothing obscure in his work, and that put a high and holy construction on his every sentence—­it was divine! divinity incarnated in a woman.

Robert Browning tramped the streets forgetful of meat, drink or rest.

He would give this woman freedom.  He would devote himself to restoring her to the air and sunshine.  What nobler ambition!  He was an idler, he had never done anything for anybody.  He was only a killer of time, a vagrant, but now was his opportunity—­he would do for this beautiful soul what no one else on earth could do.  She was slipping away as it was—­the world would soon lose her.  Was there none to save?