They left the bridge, and passed through the wooden gate at the Battersea end of it, and across the corner where the stone columns lie, like an imitation of Tadmor in the Desert, and so to the broad terrace overlooking the river.

There is not, anywhere, a more beautiful terrace than this of Battersea Park, especially when the tide is high.  Before it lies the splendid river, with the barges which Arnold had seen from the bridge.  They are broad, and flat, and sometimes squat, and sometimes black with coal, and sometimes they go up and down sideways, in lubberly Dutch fashion, but they are always picturesque; and beyond the river is the Embankment, with its young trees, which will before many years be tall and stately trees; and behind the trees are the new red palaces; and above the houses, at this time of the year and day, are the flying clouds, already colored with the light of the sinking sun.  Behind the terrace are the trees, and lawns of the best-kept park in London.

In the afternoon of a late September day, there are not many who walk in these gardens.  Arnold and Iris had the terrace almost to themselves, save for half-a-dozen girls with children, and two or three old men making the most of the last summer they were ever likely to see, though it would have been cruel to tell them so.

“This is your favorite walk, Iris,” said Arnold at last, breaking the silence.

“Yes; I come here very often.  It is my garden.  Sometimes in the winter, and when the east wind blows up the river, I have it all to myself.”

“A quiet life, Iris,” he said, “and a happy life.”

“Yes; a happy life.”

“Iris, will you change it for a life which will not be so quiet?” He took her hand, but she made no reply.  “I must tell you, Iris, because I cannot keep it from you any longer.  I love you—­oh, my dear, I cannot tell you how I love you.”

“Oh, Arnold!” she whispered.  It had come, the thing she feared to hear!

“May I go on?  I have told you now the most important thing, and the rest matters little.  Oh, Iris, may I go on and tell you all?”

“Go on,” she said; “tell me all.”

“As for telling you everything,” He said with a little laugh, “that is no new thing.  I have told you all that is in my mind for a year and more.  It seems natural that I should tell you this too, even if it did not concern you at all, but some other girl; though that would be impossible.  I love you, Iris; I love you—­I should like to say nothing more.  But I must tell you as well that I am quite a poor man; I am an absolute pauper; I have nothing at all—­no money, no work, nothing.  My studio and all must go back to her; and yet, Iris, in spite of this, I am so selfish as to tell you that I love you.  I would give you, if I could, the most delightful palace in the world, and I offer you a share in the uncertain life of an artist, who does not know whether he has any genius, or whether he is fit even to be called an artist.”