He tried to picture her living as poor ladies live; he had seen them sometimes at Mrs. Downey’s.  He could not see her there, or rather, seeing her he could see nothing else; he perceived that surroundings and material accessories contributed nothing to his idea of her.  Still, he knew nothing; and he had to accept his ignorance as part, and the worst part, of the separation that was his punishment.  Many mixed feelings, shame and passion, delicacy and pride restrained him from asking Jewdwine any question.  Even if Jewdwine had not told him as much, he would have known that his acquaintance with Jewdwine’s affairs would not involve acquaintance with Jewdwine’s family.  He had absolutely nothing to hope for from that connection.

And yet he hoped.  The probabilities were that if Lucia did not make her home with her cousins, she would at any rate stay with them the greater part of the year.  He was always walking up to Hampstead Heath on the chance of some day seeing her there.  Sometimes he would pass by the front of Jewdwine’s beautiful old brown house, and glance quickly through the delicate iron gate and up at the windows.  But she was never there.  Sometimes he would sit for hours on one of the seats under the elm tree at the back.  There was a high walk there overlooking the West Heath and shaded by the elms and by Jewdwine’s garden wall.  The wall had a door in it that might some day open and let out the thing he longed for.  Only it never did.  There was nothing to hope for from Jewdwine’s house.

At last his longing became intolerable, and one day, in the office, he made up his mind to approach Jewdwine himself.  He had been telling him about the apparent check in the career of the Harden library, when he saw his opportunity and took it.

“By the way, can you tell me where your cousin is now?”

“Miss Harden,” said Jewdwine coldly, “is in Germany with Miss Palliser.”  He added, as if he evidently felt that some explanation was necessary (not on Rickman’s account, but on his own), “She was to have come to us, but we were obliged to give her up to Miss Palliser, who is living alone.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.  Mrs. Palliser is dead.”

Rickman turned abruptly away to the window and stared into the street below.  Jewdwine from his seat by the table looked after him thoughtfully.  He would have given a good deal to know what was implied in the sudden turning of Rickman’s back.  What on earth did it matter to Rickman if old Mrs. Palliser was dead or alive?  What could he be thinking of?

He was thinking of Kitty who had shown him kindness, of Kitty and the pleasant jests with which she used to cover his embarrassment; of Kitty who had understood him at the last.  It was impossible not to feel some grief for the grief of Lucia’s friend; but he had no business to show it.  Therefore he had turned away.

And then he thought of Lucia; and in his heart he cursed that other business which was his and yet not his; he cursed the making of the catalogue; he cursed the great Harden Library which had brought them together and divided them.  But for that, his genius, a thing apart, might have claimed her friendship for itself.  As it was, his genius, being after all bound up with his person which suffered and was ashamed, had (as far as Lucia was concerned) to accept its humiliation and dismissal.