them in an earthquake!  He could see no future beyond, perhaps, eight months ahead.  No, he could not!  Of course his stepfather was a sure resource.  But he could not conceive himself confessing failure to his stepfather or to anybody on earth.  Yet, if he did not very soon obtain more work, remunerative and on a large scale ... if he did not ...  However, he would obtain more work.  It was impossible that he should not obtain it.  The matter with Sir Isaac was as good as arranged.  And the chances of winning at any rate one of the two competitions were very favourable....  He dismissed every apprehension.  His health was too good to tolerate apprehensions permanently.  And he had a superstitious faith in his wife’s superstitious faith in him, and in his luck.  The dark mood quickly faded.  It had been induced, not by the spectacle of his wife and family and household seen somehow from a new angle, but by the recollection of the past.  Though he often went through dark moods, they were not moods of financial pessimism; they seemed to be causeless, inexplicable, and indescribable—­abysses in which cerebration ceased.

III

She was just closing the side gate leading to the studio when he drove up.  He recognized her face over the top of the gate.  At the first glance it seemed to be absolutely unchanged—­the same really beautiful lips, the same nose, the same look in the eyes.  Had a decade passed by her and left no trace?  He lost his nerve for an instant, and brought the car to a standstill with less than his usual adroitness.  She hesitated.

“I was coming to see you,” he called out hastily, boyishly, not in the least measuring his effects.  He jumped from the car, and said in a lower, more intimate tone:  “I’ve only this minute heard about Mr. Haim.  I’m awfully sorry.  I thought I’d come along at once.”

“How nice of you!” she replied, quite simply and naturally, with a smile.  “Do come in.”

The tension was eased.

She pulled at the gate, which creaked.  He then saw plainly the whole of her figure.  She was dressed in black, and wore what the newspaper advertisement called a ‘matron’s coat.’  The decade had not passed by her and left no trace.  She had been appointed to a share in the mysterious purpose.  Her bust, too, was ampler; only her face, rather pale like the face of Lois, was unaltered in its innocent contours.  He felt that he was blushing.  He had no instinctive jealousy nor resentment; it did not appear strange to him that this woman in the matron’s coat was the girl he had passionately kissed in that very house; and indeed the woman was not the girl—­the connexion between the woman and the girl had snapped.  Nevertheless, he was extremely self-conscious; but not she.  And in his astonishment he wondered at the secretiveness of London.  His house and hers were not more than half a mile apart, and yet in eleven years he had never set eyes on her house.