quivered with her uneven breathing; and now and again a little feverish shiver passed up as from her heart.  All soft and fragile!  Not much life, not much strength; youth and beauty slipping!  To know that he who should be her champion against age and time would day by day be placing one more mark upon her face, one more sorrow in her heart!  That he should do this—­ they both going down the years together!

As he stood there holding his breath, bending to look at her, that slurring swish of the plane-tree branch, flung against and against the window by the autumn wind, seemed filling the whole world.  Then her lips moved in one of those little, soft hurrying whispers that unhappy dreamers utter, the words all blurred with their wistful rushing.

And he thought:  I, who believe in bravery and kindness; I, who hate cruelty—­if I do this cruel thing, what shall I have to live for; how shall I work; how bear myself?  If I do it, I am lost—­an outcast from my own faith—­a renegade from all that I believe in.

And, kneeling there close to that face so sad and lonely, that heart so beaten even in its sleep, he knew that he could not do it—­ knew it with sudden certainty, and a curious sense of peace.  Over!—­the long struggle—­over at last!  Youth with youth, summer to summer, falling leaf with falling leaf!  And behind him the fire flickered, and the plane-tree leaves tap-tapped.

He rose, and crept away stealthily downstairs into the drawing-room, and through the window at the far end out into the courtyard, where he had sat that day by the hydrangea, listening to the piano-organ.  Very dark and cold and eerie it was there, and he hurried across to his studio.  There, too, it was cold, and dark, and eerie, with its ghostly plaster presences, stale scent of cigarettes, and just one glowing ember of the fire he had left when he rushed out after Nell—­those seven hours ago.

He went first to the bureau, turned up its lamp, and taking out some sheets of paper, marked on them directions for his various works; for the statuette of Nell, he noted that it should be taken with his compliments to Mr. Dromore.  He wrote a letter to his banker directing money to be sent to Rome, and to his solicitor telling him to let the house.  He wrote quickly.  If Sylvia woke, and found him still away, what might she not think?  He took a last sheet.  Did it matter what he wrote, what deliberate lie, if it helped Nell over the first shock?

“Dear Nell,

“I write this hastily in the early hours, to say that we are called out to Italy to my only sister, who is very ill.  We leave by the first morning boat, and may be away some time.  I will write again.  Don’t fret, and God bless you.

“M.  L.”

He could not see very well as he wrote.  Poor, loving, desperate child!  Well, she had youth and strength, and would soon have—­ Oliver!  And he took yet another sheet.