“Through her you will widen the circle of your acquaintances and form newer and better friendships You will meet men and women of your own age and your own tastes which is what ought to happen.

“And it is right and just and fair that you enter into the beginning of your future with a mind unvexed and a heart untroubled by conflicts which can never solve for you and me any future life together.

“I do not believe you will ever forget me, or wish to, wholly.  Time heals—­otherwise the world had gone mad some centuries ago.

“But whatever destiny is reserved for you, I know you will meet it with the tranquillity and the sweet courage which you have always shown.

“What kind of future I wish for you, I need not write here.  You know.  And it is for the sake of that future—­for the sake of the girl whose unselfish life has at last taught me and shamed me, that I give you up forever.

“Dear, perhaps you had better not answer this for a long, long time.  Then, when that clever surgeon, Time, has effaced all scars—­and when not only tranquillity is yours but, perhaps, a deeper happiness is in sight, write and tell me so.  And the great god Kelly, nodding before his easel, will rouse up from his Olympian revery and totter away to find a sheaf of blessings to bestow upon the finest, truest, and loveliest girl in all the world.

“Halcyonii dies!  Fortem posce animum!  Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.  Vale!

“LOUIS NEVILLE.”

CHAPTER XVII

The fifteenth day of her absence had come and gone and there had been no word from her.

Whether or not he had permitted himself to expect any, the suspense had been none the less almost unendurable.  He walked the floor of the studio all day long, scarcely knowing what he was about, insensible to fatigue or to anything except the dull, ceaseless beating of his heart.  He seemed older, thinner:—­a man whose sands were running very swiftly.

With the dawn of the fifteenth day of her absence a gray pallor had come into his face; and it remained there.  Ogilvy and Annan sauntered into the studio to visit him, twice, and the second time they arrived bearing gifts—­favourite tonics, prescriptions, and pills.

“You look like hell, Kelly,” observed Sam with tactful and characteristic frankness.  “Try a few of this assorted dope.  Harry and I dote on dope: 

  "’After the bat is over,
       After the last cent’s spent,
    And the pigs have gone from the clover
      And the very last gent has went;
    After the cards are scattered,
      After I’ve paid the bill,
    Weary and rocky and battered
      I swallow my liver pill!’”

—­he sang, waltzing slowly around the room with Annan until, inadvertently, they stepped upon the tail of Gladys who went off like a pack of wet fire-crackers; whereupon they retired in confusion to their respective abodes above.