to give him The Abbot’s Wood Cottage.  For six months he had been shut up here, occasionally going to London, or for a week’s walking tour, and during that time he had done his best to banish the image of Agnes from his heart.  Doubtless she was attempting the same conquest, for she never even wrote to him.  And now these two sorely-tried people were within speaking distance of one another, and strange results might be looked for unless honor held them sufficiently true.  Seeing that the cottage was near the family seat, and that Agnes sooner or later would arrive to stay with her brother and sister-in-law, Lambert might have expected that such a situation would come about in the natural course of things.  Perhaps he did, and perhaps—­as some busybodies said—­he took the cottage for that purpose; but so far, he had refrained from seeking the society of Pine’s wife.  He would not even dine at The Manor, nor would he join the shooting-party, although Garvington, with a singular blindness, urged him to do so.  While daylight lasted, the artist painted desperately hard, and after dark wandered round the lanes and roads and across the fields, haunting almost unconsciously the Manor Park, if only to see in moonlight and twilight the casket which held the rich jewel he had lost.  This was foolish, and Lambert acknowledged that it was foolish, but at the same time he added inwardly that he was a man and not an angel, a sinner and not a saint, so that there were limits, etc., etc., etc., using impossible arguments to quieten a lively conscience that did not approve of this dangerous philandering.

The visit of Miss Greeby awoke him positively to a sense of danger, for if she talked—­and talk she did—­other people would talk also.  Lambert asked himself if it would be better to visit The Manor and behave like a man who has got over his passion, or to leave the cottage and betake himself to London.  While turning over this problem in his mind, he painted feverishly, and for three days after Miss Greeby had come to stir up muddy water, he remained as much as possible in his studio.  Chaldea visited him, as usual, to be painted, and brought Kara with his green coat and beloved violin and hairy looks.  The girl chatted, Kara played, and Lambert painted, and all three pretended to be very happy and careless.  This was merely on the surface, however, for the artist was desperately wretched, because the other half of himself was married to another man, while Chaldea, getting neither love-look nor caress, felt savagely discontented.  As for Kara, he had long since loved Chaldea, who treated him like a dog, and he could not help seeing that she adored the Gentile artist—­a knowledge which almost broke his heart.  But it was some satisfaction for him to note that Lambert would have nothing to do with the siren, and that she could not charm him to her feet, sang she ever so tenderly.  It was an unhappy trio at the best.