Die ?ltre Tochter g?hnet
"Ich will nicht verhungern bei euch,
Ich gehe morgen zum Grafen,
Und der ist verliebt und reich."
Heine.

"Lucy, dear, you must go."

"But, Gerty, you can never manage to get through the work alone."

"I will make Phyllis help me. It will be the best thing for her, and she works better than any of us when she chooses."

The sisters were standing together in the studio, discussing a letter which Lucy held in her hand—an appeal from the heartbroken "old folks" that she, who was to[Pg 237] have been their daughter, should visit them in their sorrow.

"It is simply your duty to go," went on Gertrude, who was consumed with anxiety concerning her sister; then added, involuntarily, "if you think you can bear it."

A light came into Lucy\'s eyes.

"Is there anything that one cannot bear?"

She turned away, and began mechanically fixing a negative into one of the printing frames. She remembered how, on that last day, Frank had planned the visit to Cornwall. Was he not going to show her every nook and corner of the old home, which many a time before he had so minutely described to her? The place had for long been familiar to her imagination, and now she was in fact to make acquaintance with it; that was all. What availed it to dwell on contrasts?

The sisters spoke little of Lucy\'s approaching journey, which was fixed for some days after the receipt of the letter; and one cold and foggy November afternoon found her helping Mrs. Maryon with her little box down the stairs, while Matilda went for a cab.

[Pg 238]

At the same moment Gertrude issued from the studio with her outdoor clothes on.

"No one is likely to come in this Egyptian darkness," she said; "it is four o\'clock already, and I am going to take you to Paddington."

"That will be delightful, if you think you may risk it," answered Lucy, who looked very pale in her black clothes.

"I have left a message with Mrs. Maryon to be delivered in the improbable event of \'three customers coming in,\' as they did in John Gilpin," said Gertrude, with a feeble attempt at sprightliness.

Matilda appeared at this point to announce that the cab was at the door.

"Where is Phyllis?" cried Lucy. "I have not said good-bye to her."

"She went out two hours ago, miss," put in Mrs. Maryon, in her sad voice.

"No doubt," said Gertrude, "she has gone to Conny\'s. I think she goes there a great deal in these days."

Mrs. Maryon looked up quickly, then set about helping Matilda hoist the box on to the cab.

"How bitterly cold it is," cried [Pg 239]Gertrude, with a shudder, as they crossed the threshold.

An orange-coloured fog hung in the air, congealed by the sudden change of temperature into a thick and palpable mass.

"I shouldn\'t be surprised if we had snow," observed Mrs. Maryon, shaking her head.

"Oh, how could Phyllis be so wicked as to go out?" cried Gertrude, as the cab drove off: "and her cough has been so troublesome lately."

"I think she has been looking more like her old self the last week or two," said Lucy; then added, "Do you know that Mr. Darrell is back? I forgot to tell you that I met him in Regent\'s Park the other day."

"I hope he will not wish to renew the sittings; but no doubt he has found some fresh whim by this time. I wish he had let Phyllis alone; he did her no good."

"Poor little soul, I am afraid she finds it dismal," said Lucy.

"I mean to plan a little dissipation for us both when you are away—the theatre, probably," said Gertrude, who felt remorsefully that in her anxiety concerning Lucy she had rather neglected Phyllis.

[Pg 240]

"Yes, do, and take care of yourself, dear old Gerty," said Lucy, as the cab drew up at Paddington station.

The sisters embraced long and silently, and in a few minutes Lucy was steaming westward in a third-class carriage, and Gertrude was making her way through the fog to Praed Street station. At Baker Street she perceived that Mrs. Maryon\'s prophecy was undergoing fulfilment; the fog had lifted a little, and flakes of snow were falling at slow intervals.

Before the door of Number 20B a small brougham was standing—a brougham, as she observed by the light of the street lamp, with a coronet emblazoned on the panels.

"Lord Watergate is in the studio, miss," announced Mrs. Maryon, who opened the door; "he only came a minute ago, and preferred to wait. I have lit the lamp." As Gertrude was going towards the studio the woman ran up to he............