"And mine too," replied the artist, with an inexpressible sadness.

Lawrence Newt was silent. After a few moments Arthur Merlin rose and shook his hand.

"Good-by!" he said. "We shall meet to-night."

CHAPTER LXXVIII.

FINISHING PICTURES.

Arthur Merlin returned to his studio and carefully locked the door. Then he opened a huge port-folio, which was full of sketches--and they were all of the same subject, treated in a hundred ways--they were all Hope Wayne.

Sometimes it was a lady leaning from an oriel window in a medieval tower, listening in the moonlight, with love in her eyes and attitude, to the music of a guitar, touched by a gallant knight below, who looked as Arthur Merlin would have looked had Arthur Merlin been a gallant medieval knight.

Then it was Juliet, pale and unconscious in the tomb; superb in snow-white drapery; pure as an angel, lovely as a woman; but it was Hope Wayne still--and Romeo stole frightened in, but Romeo was Arthur.

Or it was Beatrice moving in a radiant heaven; while far below, kneeling, and with clasped hands, gazing upward, the melancholy Dante watched the vision.

Or the fair phantom of Goethe's ballad looked out with humid, passionate glances between the clustering reeds she pushed aside, and lured the fisherman with love.

There were scores of such sketches, from romance, and history, and fancy, and in each the beauty was Hope Wayne's; and it was strange to see that in each, however different from all the others, there was still a charm characteristic of the woman he loved; so that it seemed a vivid record of all the impressions she had made upon him, and as if all heroines of poetry or history were only ladies in waiting upon her. In all of them, too, there was a separation between them. She was remote in sphere or in space; there was the feeling of inaccessibility between them in all.

As he turned them slowly over, and gazed at them as earnestly as if his glance could make that beauty live, he suddenly perceived, what he had never before felt, that the instinct which had unconsciously given the same character of hopelessness to the incident of the sketches was the same that had made him so readily acquiesce in what Lawrence Newt had hinted. He paused at a drawing of Pygmalion and his statue. The same instinct had selected the moment before the sculptor's prayer was granted; when he looks at the immovable beauty of his statue with the yearning love that made the marble live. But the statue of Arthur's Pygmalion would never live. It was a statue only, and forever. He asked himself why he had not selected the moment when she falls breathing and blushing into the sculptor's arms.

Alone in his studio the artist blushed, as if the very thought were wrong; and he felt that he had never really dared to hope, however he had longed, and wished, and flattered his fancy.

He looked at each one of the drawings carefully and long, then kissed it and turned it upon its face. When he had seen them all he sat for a moment; then quietly tore them into long strips, then into small pieces; and, lifting the window, scattered them upon the air. The wind whirled them over the street.

"Oh, what a pretty snow-storm!" said the little street children, looking up.

Then Arthur Merlin turned to his great easel, upon which stood the canvas of the picture of Diana and Endymion. Through the parted clouds the face of the Queen and huntress--the face of Hope Wayne--looked tenderly upon the sleeping figure of the shepherd on the bare top of the grassy hill--the face and figure of Lawrence Newt.

The painter took his brushes and his pallet, and his maulstick. He paused for some time again, as he stood before the easel, then he went quietly to work. He touched it here and there. He stepped back to mark the effect--rubbed with his finger--sighed--stepped back--and still worked on. The hours glided away, and daylight began to fade, but not until he had finished his work.

Then he scraped his pallet and washed his brushes, and seated himself upon the sofa opposite the easel. There was no picture, of Diana or of Endymion any longer. In the place of Diana there was a full summer moon shining calmly in a cloudless heaven. Its benignant light fell upon a solitary grave upon a hill-top, which filled the spot where Endymion had lain.

Arthur Merlin sat in the corner of the sofa with folded arms, looking at the picture, until the darkness entirely hid it from view.

CHAPTER LXXIX.

THE LAST THROW.

While Arthur and Lawrence were conversing in the office of the latter, Abel Newt, hat in hand, stood in Hope Wayne's parlor. His hair was thinner and grizzled; his face bloated, and his eyes dull. His hands had that dead, chalky color in which appetite openly paints its excesses. The hand trembled as it held the hat; and as the man stood before the mirror, he was straining his eyes at his own reflection, and by some secret magic he saw, as if dimly traced beside it, the figure of the boy that stood in the parlor of Pinewood--how many thousand years ago?

He heard a step, and turned.

Hope Wayne stopped, leaving the door open, bowed, and looked inquiringly at him. She was dressed simply in a morning dress, and her golden hair clustered and curled around the fresh beauty of her face--the rose of health.

"Did you wish to say something to me?" she asked, observing that Abel merely stared at her stupidly.

He bowed his head in assent.

"What do you wish to say?"

Her voice was as cold and remote as if she were a spirit.

Abel Newt was evidently abashed by the reception. But he moved toward her, and began in a tone of doubtful familiarity.

"Miss Hope, I--"

"Mr. Newt, you have no right to address me in that way."

"Miss Wayne, I have come to--to--"

He stopped, embarrassed, rubbing his fingers upon the palms of his hands.

She looked at him steadily. He waited a few moments, then began again in a hurried tone:

"Miss Wayne, we are both older than we once were; and once, I think, we were not altogether indifferent to each other. Time has taught us many things. I find that my heart, after foolish wanderings, is still true to its first devotion. We can both view things more calmly, not less truly, however, than we once did. I am upon the eve of a public career. I have outgrown morbid emotions, and I come to ask you if you would take time to reflect whether I might not renew my addresses; for indeed I love, and can love, no other woman."

Hope Wayne stood pale, incredulous, and confounded while Abel Newt, with some of the old fire in the eye and the old sweetness in the voice, poured out these rapid words, and advanced toward her.

"Stop, Sir," she said, as soon as she could command herself. "Is this all you have to say?"

"Don't drive me to despair," he said, suddenly, in reply, and so fiercely that Hope Wayne started. "Listen." He spoke with stern command.

"I am utterly ruined. I have no friends. I have bad habits. You can save me--will you do it?"

Hope stood before him silent. His hard black eye was fixed upon her with a kind of defying appeal for help. Her state of mind for some days, since she had heard Mrs. Simcoe's story, had been one of curious mental tension. She was inspired by a sense of renunciation--of self-sacrifice.

It seemed to her that some great work to do, something which should occupy every moment, and all her powers and thoughts, was her only hope of contentment. What it might be, what it ought to be, she had not conceived. Was it not offered now? Horrible, repulsive, degrading--yes, but was it not so much the worthier? Here stood the man she had loved in all the prime and power of his youth, full of hope, and beauty, and vigor--the hero that satisfied the girl's longing--and he was bent, gray, wan, shaking, utterly lost, except for her. Should she restore him to that lost manhood? Could she forgive herself if she suffered her own feelings, tastes, pride, to prevent?

While the thought whirled through her excited brain:

"Remember," he said, solemnly--"remember it is the salvation of a human soul upon which you are deciding."

There was perfect silence for some minutes. The low, quick ticking of the clock upon the mantle was all they heard.

"I have decided," she said, at last.

"What is it?" he asked, under his breath.

"What you knew it would be," she answered.