We bear to think
You\'re gone,—to feel you may not come,—
To hear the door-latch stir and clink,
Yet no more you!....
E. B. Browning.

It was true enough, no doubt, that Phyllis did not care for Darrell in Lucy\'s sense of the word; but at the same time it was sufficiently clear that he had been the means of injecting a subtle poison into her veins.

Since the night of the conversazione at the Berkeley Galleries, when he had bidden her farewell, a change, in every respect for the worse, had crept over her.

The buoyancy, which had been one of her[Pg 226] chief charms, had deserted her. She was languid, restless, bored, and more utterly idle than ever. The flippancy of her lighter moods shocked even her sisters, who had been accustomed to allow her great license in the matter of jokes; the moodiness of her moments of depression distressed them beyond measure.

At Eastbourne she had amused herself with getting up a tremendous flirtation with Fred, to the Devonshires\' annoyance and the satisfaction of the victim himself, whose present mood it suited and who hoped that Lucy would hear of it.

After Phyllis\'s visit to Eastbourne, which had been closely followed by Fanny\'s wedding, the household at Upper Baker Street underwent a period of dulness, which was felt all the more keenly from the cheerful fulness of the previous summer. Every one was out of town. In early September even the country cousins have departed, and people have not yet begun to return to London, where it is perhaps the most desolate period of the whole year.

Work, of course, was slack, and they had no longer the preparations for Fanny\'s wedding to fall back upon.

The air was hot, sunless, misty; like[Pg 227] a vapour bath, Phyllis said. Even Gertrude, inveterate cockney as she was, began to long for the country. Nothing but a strong sense of loyalty to her sister prevented Lucy from accepting a cordial invitation from the "old folks." Phyllis openly proclaimed that she was only awaiting der erste beste to make her escape for ever from Baker Street.

Phyllis, indeed, was in the worst case of them all; for while Lucy had the precious letters from Africa to console her, Gertrude had again taken up her pen, which seemed to move more freely in her hand than it had ever done before.

So the days went on till it was the middle of September, and life was beginning to quicken in the great city.

One sultry afternoon, the Lorimers were gathered in the sitting-room; both windows stood open, admitting the hot, still, autumnal air; every sound in the street could be distinctly heard.

Lucy sat apart, deep in a voluminous letter on foreign paper which had come for her that morning, and which she had been too busy to read before. Phyllis was at the table, yawning over a copy of The Woodcut;[Pg 228] which was opened at a page of engravings headed: "The War in Africa; from sketches by our special artist." Gertrude sewed by the window, too tired to think or talk. Now and then she glanced across mechanically to the opposite house, whence in these days of dreariness, no picturesque, impetuous young man was wont to issue; from whose upper windows no friendly eyes gazed wistfully across.

The rooms above the auctioneer\'s had, in fact, a fresh occupant; an ex-Girtonian without a waist, who taught at the High School for girls hard-by.

The Lorimers chose to regard her as a usurper; and with the justice usually attributed to their sex, indulged in much sarcastic comment on her appearance; on her round shoulders and swinging gait; on the green gown with balloon sleeves, and the sulphur-coloured handkerchief which she habitually wore.

Presently Lucy looked up from her letter, folded it, sighed, and smiled.

"What has your special artist to say for himself?" asked Phyllis, pushing away The Woodcut.

"He writes in good spirits, but holds out no prospect of the war coming to an end.[Pg 229] He was just about to go further into the interior, with General Somerset\'s division. Mr. Steele of The Photogravure, with whom he seems to have chummed, goes too," answered Lucy, putting the letter into her pocket.

"Perhaps his sketches will be a little livelier in consequence. They are very dull this week."

Phyllis rose as she spoke, stretching her arms above her head. "I think I will go and dine with Fan. She is such fun."

Fanny had returned from Switzerland a day or two before, and was now in the full tide of bridal complacency. As mistress of a snug and hideous little house at Notting Hill, and wedded wife of a large and affectionate man, she was beginning to feel that she had a place in the world at last.

"I will come up with you," said Lucy to Phyllis, "and brush your hair before you go."

The two girls went from the room, leaving Gertrude alone. Letting fall her work into her lap, she leaned in dreamy idleness from the window, looking out into the street, where the afternoon was deepening apace into evening. A dun-coloured[Pg 230] haze, thin and transparent, hung in the air, softening the long perspective of the street. School hours were over, and the Girtonian, her arm swinging like a bell-rope, could be discerned on her way home, a devoted cortège of school-girls straggling in her wake. From the corner of the street floated up the cries of the newspaper boys, mingling with the clatter of omnibus wheels.

An empty hansom cab cr............