’There is very little.  The poor girl is in calm water at last, I hope.  She was to have been married on Midsummer Day, and, the night before, Mrs. Grail died; so they put it off.  And what of Mr. Grail?’

’He behaved admirably to me; he did not let me feel for a moment that I excited any trouble in his memory.’

‘But does his life seem bitter to him—­his employment, I mean?’

’I can’t think he finds it so.  He spoke very frankly, and assured me that he has all the leisure time he cared to use.  He says he is not so eager after knowledge as formerly; it is enough for him to read the books he likes.  I went with the intention of asking him to let me be of some use, if I could.  But it was a delicate matter, in any case, and I found that he understood me without plain speech:  he conveyed his answer distinctly enough.  No, I sincerely think that he has reached that point of resignation at which a man dreads to be disturbed.  He spoke with emotion of Mrs. Ackroyd; she is invaluable to him, I saw.’

‘She is a true-hearted woman.’

Egremont let a minute pass, then said: 

‘You will show me the portrait?’

‘Certainly.  It hangs in my bedroom; I will fetch it.’

She went and returned quickly, carrying a red crayon drawing framed in plain oak.  In the corner was a well-known signature, that of one of the few living artists to whom one would appeal with confidence for the execution of a task such as this, a man whom success has not vulgarised, and who is still of opinion that the true artist will oftener find his inspiration in a London garret than amid the banality of the plutocrat’s drawing-room.  The work was of course masterly in execution; it was no less admirable as a portrait.  In those few lines of chalk, Thyrza lived.  He had divined the secret of the girl’s soul, that gift of passionate imagination which in her early years sunk her in hour-long reverie, and later burned her life away.  The mood embodied was one so characteristic of Thyrza that one marvelled at the insight which had evoked it from a dead face; she was not happy, she was net downcast; her eyes saw something, something which stirred her being, something for which she yearned, passionately, yet with knowledge that it was for ever forbidden to her.  A face of infinite pathos, which drew tears to the eyes, yet was unutterably sweet to gaze upon.

Holding the picture, Egremont turned to his companion, and said in a subdued voice

‘This was Thyrza?’

‘Her very self.’

‘He knew her story?’

’The bare facts, of course without names, without details.  He would take nothing for the original drawing—­Lydia has it—­and nothing for this copy which he made me.  He said I had done him a great kindness.’

‘Oh, if one could be a man like that!’

The words answered to his thoughts, yet implied something more than their plain meaning.  They uttered more than one regret, more than one aspiration.