The two men would sit together, sometimes talking, but far more often not, until a very late hour; and when the doors were closed upon them they often wandered aimlessly in the empty streets, dismissing their cares in contemplation of great moonlit buildings, or the strong, silent river, sliding under the solemn bridges; united from day to day more closely by the rare sympathy which asks no questions and finds its chief expression in silence.  One thing they both hated—­to be alone; but loneliness for them was not what most mortals understand by the name.  There was company for them in inanimate things—­in books, in pictures, and even in objects less expressive; they were men who did not fear their thoughts, who looked to the past for their greatest pleasures.  And now for Rainham the whole of life was a thing so essentially weary and flavourless that the ennui of little things seemed hardly worth consideration.  He was dumbly content to let destiny lead him whither it would, without apprehension, without expectation.  Oswyn had asked him, one evening, just before they parted on the doorstep of the club, with a certain abruptness which the other had long since learnt to understand, why he was in London instead of being at Bordighera.  Rainham sighed, echoing the question as if the idea suggested was entirely novel.

“Why, because——­ Well, for one thing, because you are in London and the Dollonds are at Bordighera.  You don’t know Mrs. Dollond?” he added, seeing that the other looked at him with a certain air of wistful distrust, a momentarily visible desire to see behind so obvious a veil.

“No, thank God!” said Oswyn devoutly, shrugging his bent shoulders, and turning away with a relapse into his unwonted impassiveness.

“But you have apparently heard of her,” continued Rainham, with an effort toward humour.  “And I am afraid people have been slandering her.  She is a very excellent person, the soul of good-nature, and as amusing as—­as an American comic paper!  But in my present state of health I’m afraid she would be a little too much for me.  I can stand her in homeopathic doses, but the Riviera isn’t nearly big enough for the two of us as permanencies.  No, I think I shall wait until next winter now.”

Oswyn shot a quick glance at him, and then looked away as suddenly, and after a brief silence they parted.

Rainham was already beginning to consider himself secure from the inconvenient allusions to Lightmark and their altered relations, which he had at first nervously anticipated.  Oswyn rarely mentioned the other painter’s name, and accepted, without surprise or the faintest appearance of a desire for explanation, the self-evident fact of the breach between the two quondam allies; regarding it as in the natural course of events, and as an additional link in the chain of their intimacy.  Indeed, Lightmark had long ceased to be a component element of the atmosphere of Brodonowski’s:  he no longer brought