Arthur Merlin stole a glance at the face of his companion.

“I was a child and she was a child—­a boy and a girl.  It was not to be.  She married another man and died; but her memory is forever sacred to me, and so is her daughter.”

To this astonishing revelation Arthur Merlin said nothing.  His fingers still played idly on the chair, and his eyes, like the eyes of Lawrence, looked out upon the river.  Every thing in Lawrence Newt’s conduct was at once explained; and the poor artist was ready to curse his absurd folly in making his friend involuntarily sit for Endymion.  Lawrence Newt knew his friend’s thoughts.

“Arthur,” he said, in a low voice, “did I not say that, if Endymion were not dead, it would be impossible not to awake and love her?  Do you not see that I was dead to her?”

“But does she know it?” asked the painter.

“I believe she does now,” was the slow answer.  “But she has not known it long.”

“Does Amy Waring know it?”

“No,” replied Lawrence Newt, quietly, “but she will to-night.”

The two men sat silently together for some time.  The junior partner came in, spoke to Arthur, wrote a little, and went out again.  Thomas Tray glanced up occasionally from his great volume, and the melancholy eyes of Little Malacca scarcely turned from the two figures which he watched from his desk through the office windows.  Venables was promoted to be second to Thomas Tray on the very day that Gabriel was admitted a junior partner.  They were all aware that the head of the house was engaged in some deeply interesting conversation, and they learned from Little Malacca who the stranger was.

The two men sat silently together, Lawrence Newt evidently tranquilly waiting, Arthur Merlin vainly trying to say something further.

“I wonder—­” he began, at length, and stopped.  A painful expression of doubt clouded his face; but Lawrence turned to him cheerfully, and said, in a frank, assuring tone,

“Arthur, speak out.”

“Well,” said the artist, with almost a girl’s shyness in his whole manner, “before you, at least, I can speak, and am not ashamed.  I want to know whether—­you—­think—­”

He spoke very slowly, and stopped again.  Before he resumed he saw Lawrence Newt shake his head negatively.

“Why, what?” asked Arthur, quickly.

“I do not believe she ever will,” replied the other, as if the artist had asked a question with his eyes.  He spoke in a very low, serious tone.

“Will what?” asked Arthur, his face burning with a bright crimson flush.

Lawrence Newt waited a moment to give his friend time to recover, before he said,

“Shall I say what?”

Arthur also waited for a little while; then he said, sadly,

“No, it’s no matter.”

He seemed to have grown older as he sat looking from the window.  His hands idly played no longer, but rested quietly upon the chair.  He shook his head slowly, and repeated, in a tone that touched his friend to the heart,