“I ask nothing better,” Mr. Treffry replied.

Harz looked again at Christian; but she made no sign, sitting with her chin resting on her hands.

“I have come for her,” he said; “I can make my living—­enough for both of us.  But I can’t wait.”

“Why?”

Harz made no answer.

Mr. Treffry boomed out again:  “Why?  Isn’t she worth waiting for?  Isn’t she worth serving for?”

“I can’t expect you to understand me,” the painter said.  “My art is my life to me.  Do you suppose that if it wasn’t I should ever have left my village; or gone through all that I’ve gone through, to get as far even as I am?  You tell me to wait.  If my thoughts and my will aren’t free, how can I work?  I shan’t be worth my salt.  You tell me to go back to England—­knowing she is here, amongst you who hate me, a thousand miles away.  I shall know that there’s a death fight going on in her and outside her against me—­you think that I can go on working under these conditions.  Others may be able, I am not.  That’s the plain truth.  If I loved her less—­”

There was a silence, then Mr. Treffry said: 

“It isn’t fair to come here and ask what you’re asking.  You don’t know what’s in the future for you, you don’t know that you can keep a wife.  It isn’t pleasant, either, to think you can’t hold up your head in your own country.”

Harz turned white.

“Ah! you bring that up again!” he broke out.  “Seven years ago I was a boy and starving; if you had been in my place you would have done what I did.  My country is as much to me as your country is to you.  I’ve been an exile seven years, I suppose I shall always be I’ve had punishment enough; but if you think I am a rascal, I’ll go and give myself up.”  He turned on his heel.

“Stop!  I beg your pardon!  I never meant to hurt you.  It isn’t easy for me to eat my words,” Mr. Treffry said wistfully, “let that count for something.”  He held out his hand.

Harz came quickly back and took it.  Christian’s gaze was never for a moment withdrawn; she seemed trying to store up the sight of him within her.  The light darting through the half-closed shutters gave her eyes a strange, bright intensity, and shone in the folds of her white dress like the sheen of birds’ wings.

Mr. Treffry glanced uneasily about him.  “God knows I don’t want anything but her happiness,” he said.  “What is it to me if you’d murdered your mother?  It’s her I’m thinking of.”

“How can you tell what is happiness to her?  You have your own ideas of happiness—­not hers, not mine.  You can’t dare to stop us, sir!”

“Dare?” said Mr. Treffry.  “Her father gave her over to me when she was a mite of a little thing; I’ve known her all her life.  I’ve—­I’ve loved her—­and you come here with your ’dare’!” His hand dragged at his beard, and shook as though palsied.

A look of terror came into Christian’s face.