Well, she had found his sonnet for him; but could she help him to recover what he had lost now?

“I hope you won’t mind my asking, but don’t you know any one who can help you?”

“Not any one who can help me out of this.”

“I believe it must have been you Sir Joseph Harden used to talk about.  I think he saw you once when you were a boy.  I know if he were alive he would have been glad to help you.”

“He did help me.  I owe my education to the advice he gave my father.”

“Is that the case?  I am very glad.”

She paused, exultant; she felt that she was now upon the right track.  “You said you had written other things.  What have you written?”

“A lyrical drama for one thing.  That sonnet was meant for a sort of motto to it.”

A lyrical drama?  She was right, then; he was Horace Jewdwine’s great “find.”  If so, the subject was fenced around with difficulty.  She must on no account give Horace away.  Mr. Rickman had seemed annoyed because she had read his sonnet (which was printed); he would be still more annoyed if he knew that she had read his lyrical drama in manuscript.  He was inclined to be reticent about his writings.

Lucia was wrong.  Mr. Rickman had never been less inclined to reticence in his life.  He wished she had read his drama instead of his sonnet.  His spring-time was there; the swift unreturning spring-time of his youth.  If she had read his drama she would have believed in his pursuit of the intangible perfection.  As it was, she never would believe.

“I wonder,” she said, feeling her ground carefully, “if my cousin Horace Jewdwine would be any good to you?”

“Mr. Jewdwine?”

“Do you know him?”

“Yes, slightly.  That is—­he knows—­he knows what I can do.  I mean what I’ve done.”

“Really?” The chain of evidence was now complete.  “Well, what does he say?”

Rickman laughed as he recalled his last conversation with the critic.  “He says I’m one-seventh part a poet.

“Does he?  Then you may be very sure you are a great deal more.  My cousin is most terribly exacting.  I should be glad if I succeeded in satisfying him; but I don’t think I should be seriously unhappy if—­if I failed.  Did he say anything to discourage, to depress you?”

“Not he.  I don’t think I should have minded if he had.  I felt strong enough for anything then.  It was this morning.  I was sitting out here, looking at all this beautiful inspiring scenery, when it came to me, that notion that I should never do anything again.”

“Is it—­” her hesitations were delightful to him—­“is it the want of recognition that disheartens you?”

He laughed again, a healthy honest laugh.  “Oh, dear me, no!  I don’t worry about recognition.  That would be all right if I could go on.  But I can’t go on.”

“Have you ever felt like this before?”

“N—­no.  No, never.  And for the life of me I can’t think why I should now.”