To-morrow?

an uneasy doze, there came a knocking and a

Qu'il dort! M'sieur! Profondement! Est ce qu'il e

ith my sleep, before it roused me to go and open the door. Finally, ho

I broken any more of your co

issionaire, with a note in his hand. Possibly serenely unconsciou

for disturbing M'sieur! But Madame sai

levated eyebrows. I kn

e is some mis

Eeltone? Numero q

es, that i

of the Grand Hotel; but the writing on it was Lucia's writing. Lucia here in Paris! Close to m

at home all to-day in the hope that you

n the doorway bowed w

was to wait f

emed to say-"We know all about these little no

of a drunken fit only just over in time to make room for the morning's intrigue. A young, beautiful English madame-for the title Miss is barely recognised, never understood in Paris-staying at the hotel and sending notes to a young Engl

g to you now. I will be with you as s

d interfere with it. Then I handed it to him with a two-franc p

nd was driven, through the bright sunshine that filled the Paris boulevards, to the Grand. I sat back in it, with my arms folded, feeling my heart l

manacles on my wrists. I looked through the shining, quivering sunlight that fell on every side with blank, unseeing

st floor, facing the gay Paris boulevard, and with the bright light streaming in through its half-clo

uc

t indefinable, but nevertheless distinctly perceptible, metamorphosis in this woman since I had seen her last. Lucia was a somnambulist no longer. She had awakened. It was a lovely, living woman who crossed the room to me now; a woman awake to her ow

, are you gla

d a mist before my eyes, that I came forward to her. What had been t

some pressure of an arm meaning she did not even comprehend. Perhaps some word, overheard between two men, whose meaning she did not even comprehen

, as from her integral nature she would always, but still awake. As she stood, the sun fell upon her light hair and see

said, softly, "I am sure the

ng sun-rays. I saw in a sort of mechanical manner the way in which she was dressed. It was as a woman only dresses once or twice, perhaps, in her lifet

light curls on her forehead, and the curves of her bosom rising and falling under its lace

if so, it was a glorified cotton of a clear rose tint. Film upon film of lace hung over it in transparent folds, through which the g

ck it paled again, beneath ruffle and ruffle of lace that lay like foam against the soft, snow-white throat. It was a symphony of colour. A perfect harmony of perfect tones in union with the brilliant fairness of her skin. The sleeves, half open to the elbow, revealed a white, rounded, downy arm, and the thousand

as an adorable antagonist to my resolutions. Traditionally speak

reserve. But I did not. My whole heart seemed to rush out to her, my whole being to strain tow

u will and it sh

s finished, isn't

had dragged the fruits of my labour, a

aid, speaking calmly with a great effort; "bu

paler as I spoke, meeting her

, growing white to the

isher here, and I was going to make one or two trifling alterations in it to please him, an

s a dead

the laces on her bosom, and pain stamped

oward with

aris last nigh

oss the sunlight. We looke

d nothin

son for concealing it. As a matter of honourable feeling I wanted to keep the fact from her, but I could not help her guessing it. Curiously

e is

is d

did h

I would rat

surprise came into her face. She raised her delicate eyebrows

n her chair, "was it he that tore up the manus

surprise, that she could suggest

dog's death had occurred in any way through my fault I would tell you. I have no secrets of my

was si

ed, lookin

alone her

course, for

except that the word "alone" has such a

t Mama was not well enough, and I-Victor," she said, with a sudden indrawn breath, "I felt I

alternately, the azure of her eyes deepened slowly as the pupil

all my blood at her words, a dry spasm

shed by now, and I came to sa

ir skin, across the face before me, and the b

d the si

in the silence of an empty studio, and now face to face with me, listening and expectant, they had become

ld have been starting now to come to you and say, 'Lucia I am free now to be your slave.' All this year we have been separated I have thought only of you, waking and sleeping, longed for you, dr

weight of hopeless, despairing passio

pitating bosom was close to me, her w

ow, Vi

in the position where I was when

you mean-what

? I must recommence. I mu

r face paled till it was like white stone. Then suddenly sh

looking away from me, and pacing a short length of the floor backwards and forwards before me, as I r

There is no question of wrong to any one. We are to be married-it cannot matter to any one when we are. Continue to work afterwards. I am willing to be second always, in every thing, to your work. But don't drive me from you altogether. Let me stay with you now I have come. Let us marry no

form quivered with excitement, till I saw the laces of her dress tremble. On the bodice beneath my eyes, the lace fell from the shoulders, and its folds on each side divided

blind excitement was rapidly drawing me into itself-the impulse that counts nothing, knows nothing, reckons nothing but itself; that will buy the present hour at

u are mine." But almost unconsciously to myself my reason rebelled against being thus thrust down and trampled upon by this sudden, brute instinct rushing furiously through

inquish it for the present, to let it go. In all this time you have been away from me I have been slowly learning that one's own life and one's own life's happiness is of more worth than these abstract

breast, her eyes were on mine, and all my mental perceptions were

e sit somewhere beside you all day long while you write, and let me lie all nigh

eper each minute into the quicksand of desire. Nothing seemed clear any longer. All within my brain was merged into one hot, clinging haze, in which still loomed the idea that I must not yield. It would be dishonourable

mpossibl

hy

er we should not marry unti

annot carry it out! Give up all help fro

means to

knowledge you can get some ordinary wor

understanding between us, after all he has don

ht to ask such

re. I can't re-argue it all now. I decided it finally before I

ole into the rose g

! No man could and speak so!" and she threw my hand from her and h

eard her words. I fell on my knees beside her chair, and put both my arms up and clasped

y face as hotly as it burnt in her own. "But we can't do this. We should both despise ourselves afterwards. You should

year's work, and after a misfortune you could not help. If you always wait in life until you have settled and arranged everything just to your satisfaction you will find that you lose your desires. They will slip like sand through your hands while you are arranging your circumstances. Life is never, never quite as we would have it. We m

form swam before my sight. My arms locked themse

muttered, and that was

ate voice. "Why not? I can't believe y

e if you urge me to do what

ropped fro

a mistake

haps

ut "Kiss me, at least; oh, kiss me!" was written on the whole imploring face, on the wildly quivering lips, in the burning, distracted eyes. But what use? Rather such a kiss, here, now, might bring an irremediable loss. In any case, the pain of parting after would be ten times intensified for us both

g I saw stirring all her pained, excited frame. To me it seemed as if she must see me ageing and my face lining before her eyes. I held her hand in mine hard for a moment. Then I dropped it gently, and she looked at me-stunned.

heart there was a self-condemning voice. Pleasure seldom unveils her face and offers herself to us twice, and Venus is a

rion ti

et eudi

ent thought, seemed collapsing, and my bra

"at this rate will certainly

drank it, and, in the middle of the brilliant afternoon sunshine, threw myself on the bed, conscious of nothing but a

uffered. My brain seemed blank, empty, like a quarry of black slate. The power that seemed to dwell there at times

had done nothing; another week, and then

rite went through me. A sudden sense of power filled me. The brain, empty and idle a few minutes before, became charged with

away from me. All that night I wrote, and the next day, and the fresh manuscript was fairly started. For a

nd of the fortnight the impulses to work steadily declined. I forced myself to write at intervals; but, as usual, the forced wo

ier upon me. The loss of the dog seemed to have made a larger gap in my existence than I should have believed; his unused collars still lay upon my mantelpiece, his plate and saucer still stood in the

quare, in the dusk, upon the table. I supposed it was from my father, as Lucia never wrot

t an accident had happened to the MS., and begging him to release me from the arrangement made before I left England, I had received a derisive note f

f of Lucia and myse

ters to him had been short notes, out of which I studiously kept my own feelings. T

een more shut off from that dear communication with h

ng on the side table, noting painfully how far it was from completion, and it was o

e up the letter, to read it, to let my thoughts flow in his direction at all. Resolutely I had tried to banish the memory of him f

e. All these are unpleasant sensations, and I sweep them out of my mind as quickly as I possibly can, not from any exalted moti

cout the idea of him whenever it presented itself, to refuse to dwell upon him and what he had inflicted on me, was the only way to escape additional

ted him still. I took up the letter with a feeling of revolt and d

t cheek my writing to you, and I know it is, but I am reduced to

te of all that has happened. Victor send me what you can, as near 15 Pounds Sterling as possible, to save me from irrevocable disgrace. I have no one but yourself to ap

ght of the familiar hand. And I watched it burn, and I thought of the manuscript which must have curled

at I should send him the help he asked for on the same principle as I had refrained from injuring him, forgiven him, shaken

thanks I glanced through it hastily and then burnt it, and tried to stamp out the re-awakened memory of him from my brain. Weeks followed weeks of the same colo

ather invited me to run over and spend Christmas with him, but I dreaded the interruption and the delay in

ded by the Parisians consuming their brandied cherries under the canopy of fluttering light green leaves of the opening limes. I sat, one of th

publisher's voice in my ears, which repeated over and over the words I had heard that morni

y stick on the flooring at the end of the songs I had barely heard, out of sheer good humour, and swallowed the second-rate brandy and smoked an infamous cigar with

e pigs of Engli

ine. I turned and paused. She was very small, pretty, and Parisian from her black eyebrows

said, in her own tong

that!" she said, thrus

g." It will save you trouble if you take it now," and I offered her two five-franc pieces and withd

n a low tone, so low that I

u what"

mped he

th a little French scream

me. I had hardly lived the life I had in Paris for the last thirty months, to now, in the moment o

the untouched lips of Lucia seemed almost against my own as I looked. Then I loosened her hand, which clung to my sleeve, and turned from her,

ent streets. What a flood of good spirits poured through my frame as I passed on! I hardly seemed to walk. The

unlocked those impulses which, until now, had been so sternly repressed, barred down, sepulchred and sealed. They rose upwards, an

tion swelled in me; and through all the excited, burning frame seemed to run living fire that formed one thought in my brain, one loved word on my lips-Lucia! Like two planets, at the end of e

on, this overflowing, stupendous joy of gratified pride and ambition, this triumphant pleasure in my own powers and their recognition at last, these brilliant vistas that opened in my thoughts, could come from the movements of a little matter

t street as the words flowed from my tongue in the intoxication of pleasure-pure, simple, single, undiluted pleasure of the relief after those weary months of strain. The ground beneath my feet seemed buoya