“But, Cecily,” said Eleanor, “how can the end be yet?”

“You mean that he will once more wish to return.”

“Once more, or twenty times more.”

“I know; but—­”

She broke off, and Eleanor did not press her to continue.

It was not long before the news reached Miriam.  In a few days Eleanor paid one of her accustomed visits to a little house out at Roehampton, externally cold and bare enough in these days of November, but inwardly rich with whatsoever the heart or brain can desire.  Hither came no payers of formal calls, no leavers of cards, no pests from the humdrum world to open their mouths and utter foolishness.  It was a dwelling sacred to love and art, and none were welcome across its threshold save those to whom the consecration was of vital significance.  To Eleanor the air seemed purer than that of any other house she entered; to breathe it made her heart beat more hopefully, gave her a keener relish of life.

Mallard was absent to-day, held by business in London.  The visitor had, for once, no wish to await his return.  She sat for an hour by the fireside, and told what she had to tell; then took her leave.

When the artist entered, Miriam was waiting for him by the light of the fire; blinds shut out the miserable gloaming, but no lamp had yet been brought into the room.  Mallard came in blowing the fog and rain off his moustache; he kicked off his boots, kicked on his slippers, and then bent down over the chair to the face raised in expectancy.

“A damnable day, Miriam, in the strict and sober sense of the word.”

“Far too sober,” she replied.  “Eleanor came through it, however.”

“Wonderful woman!  Did she come to see if you bore it with the philosophy she approves?”

“She had a more serious purpose, I’m sorry to say, Cecily is in London, He has left her—­written her a good-bye.”

Mallard leaned upon the mantelpiece, and watched his wife’s face, illumined by the firelight.  A healthier and more beautiful face than it had ever been; not quite the second of those two faces that Mallard drew, but with scarcely a record of the other.  They talked in subdued voices.  Miriam repeated all that Eleanor had been able to tell.

“You must go and see her, of course,” Mallard said.

“Yes; I will go to-morrow.”

“Shall you ask her to come here?”

“I don’t think she will wish to,” answered Miriam.

“That brother of yours!” he growled.

“Isn’t it too late even to feel angry with him, dear?  We know what all this means.  It is absolutely impossible for them to live together, and Reuben’s behaviour is nothing but an assertion of that.  Sooner or later, it would be just as impossible, even if he preserved the decencies.”

“Perhaps true; perhaps not.  Would it be possible for him to live for long with any woman?”

Miriam sighed.