Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Sonnets from the Portuguese.

Gertrude was sitting by the window with Constance Devonshire one bleak January afternoon.

Conny\'s face wore a softened look. The fierce, rebellious misery of her heart had given place to a gentler grief, the natural human sorrow for the dead.

This was a farewell visit. The next day she and her family were setting out for the South of France.

"I tried to make Fred come with me to-day," Constance was saying; "but he is dining with some kindred spirits at the Café Royal, and then going on to the[Pg 273] Gaiety. He said there would be no time."

Fred had been once to Baker Street since the unfortunate interview with Lucy; had paid a brief visit of condolence, when he had been very much on his dignity and very afraid of meeting Lucy\'s eye. The re-establishment of the old relations was not more possible than it usually is in such cases.

"How long do you expect to be at Cannes?" Gertrude said, after one of the pauses which kept on stretching themselves baldly across the conversation.

"Till the end of March, probably. Isn\'t Lucy coming up to say \'good-bye\' to a fellow?"

"She will be up soon. She is much distressed about the over-exposure of some plates, and is trying to remedy the misfortune. Do you know, by the by, that we are thinking of taking an apprentice? Mr. Russel has found a girl—a lady—who will pay us a premium, and probably live with us."

"I think that is a good plan," said Conny, staring wistfully out of window.

How strange it seemed, after all that[Pg 274] had happened, to be sitting here quietly, talking about over-exposed negatives, premiums, and apprentices.

Looking out into the familiar street, with its teeming memories of a vivid life now quenched for ever, she said to herself, as Gertrude had often said: "It is not possible."

One day, surely, the door would open to give egress to the well-known figure; one day they would hear his footstep on the stairs, his voice in the little room. Even as the thought struck her, Constance was aware of a sound as of some one ascending, and started with a sudden beating of the heart.

The next moment Matilda flung open the door, and Lord Watergate came, unannounced, into the room.

Gertrude rose gravely to meet him.

Since the accident, which had brought him into such intimate connection with the Lorimers\' affairs, his kindness had been as unremitting as it had been unobtrusive.

Gertrude had several times reproached herself for taking it as a matter of course; for being roused to no keener fervour of gratitude; yet something in his attitude[Pg 275] seemed to preclude all expression of commonplaces.

It was no personal favour that he offered. To stretch out one\'s hand to a drowning creature is no act of gallantry; it is but recognition of a natural human obligation.

Lord Watergate took a seat between the two girls, and, after a few remarks, Constance declared her intention of seeking Lucy in the studio.

"Tell Lucy to come up when she has soaked her plates to her satisfaction," said Gertrude, a little vexed at this desertion.

To have passed through such experiences together as she and Lord Watergate, makes the casual relations of life more difficult. These two people, to all intents and purposes strangers, had been together in those rare moments of life when the elaborate paraphernalia of everyday intercourse is thrown aside; when soul looks straight to soul through no intervening veil; when human voice answers human voice through no medium of an actor\'s mask.

We lose with our youth the blushes, the hesitations, the distressing outward marks of embarrassment; but, perhaps, with most[Pg 276] of us, the shyness, as it recedes from the surface, only sinks deeper into the soul.

As the door closed on Constance, Lord Watergate turned to Gertrude.

"Miss Lorimer," he said, "I am afraid your powers of endurance have to be further tried."

"What is it?" she said, while a listless incredulity that anything could matter to her now stole over her, dispersing the momentary cloud of self-consciousness.

Lord Watergate leaned forward, regarding her earnestly.

"There has been news," he said, slowly, "of poor young Jermyn."

Gertrude started.

"You mean," she said, "that they have found him—that there is no doubt."

"On the contrary; there is every doubt."

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