gear she had begun to rig upon it, was just what had let him in.  He had in the judgment of his family done everything that could be expected of him; he had made—­Mrs. Meldrum had herself seen the letter—­a “handsome” offer of pecuniary compensation.  Oh if Flora, with her incredible buoyancy, was in a manner on her feet again now it was not that she had not for weeks and weeks been prone in the dust.  Strange were the humiliations, the forms of anguish, it was given some natures to survive.  That Flora had survived was perhaps after all a proof she was reserved for some final mercy.  “But she has been in the abysses at any rate,” said Mrs. Meldrum, “and I really don’t think I can tell you what pulled her through.”

“I think I can tell you,” I returned.  “What in the world but Mrs. Meldrum?”

At the end of an hour Flora had not come in, and I was obliged to announce that I should have but time to reach the station, where I was to find my luggage in charge of my mother’s servant.  Mrs. Meldrum put before me the question of waiting till a later train, so as not to lose our young lady, but I confess I gave this alternative a consideration less acute than I pretended.  Somehow I didn’t care if I did lose our young lady.  Now that I knew the worst that had befallen her it struck me still less as possible to meet her on the ground of condolence; and with the sad appearance she wore to me what other ground was left?  I lost her, but I caught my train.  In truth she was so changed that one hated to see it; and now that she was in charitable hands one didn’t feel compelled to make great efforts.  I had studied her face for a particular beauty; I had lived with that beauty and reproduced it; but I knew what belonged to my trade well enough to be sure it was gone for ever.

CHAPTER XII

I was soon called back to Folkestone; but Mrs. Meldrum and her young friend had already left England, finding to that end every convenience on the spot and not having had to come up to town.  My thoughts however were so painfully engaged there that I should in any case have had little attention for them:  the event occurred that was to bring my series of visits to a close.  When this high tide had ebbed I returned to America and to my interrupted work, which had opened out on such a scale that, with a deep plunge into a great chance, I was three good years in rising again to the surface.  There are nymphs and naiads moreover in the American depths:  they may have had something to do with the duration of my dive.  I mention them to account for a grave misdemeanor—­the fact that after the first year I rudely neglected Mrs. Meldrum.  She had written to me from Florence after my mother’s death and had mentioned in a postscript that in our young lady’s calculations the lowest figures were now Italian counts.  This was a good omen, and if in subsequent letters there was no news of a sequel I was content to accept