F.E. Mills Young (continued 3)

“How did you like Markham?” he enquired. “Not a bad sort, is he?”

Jill looked dubious, and puckered her brows thoughtfully.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I am not sure whether if I knew him better I should like him a little, or dislike him a great deal. Why did you ask him to come and spoil our lunch?”

“I didn’t, I asked him to come and drink our health.”

“But why?” she protested. “We didn’t want any horrid third person. What would you have thought if I had asked a girl?”

“I should have thought it inconsiderate of you from a monetary point of view, otherwise a charming arrangement.”

“You are a brute,” cried Mrs St. John pettishly. “I’m not enjoying my honeymoon a bit.”

“People never do,” he rejoined; “It isn’t fashionable, besides its bad taste. I am afraid that I’m going to prove an exception to the rule though; for I don’t know when I have enjoyed anything so much as to-day. Beastly form on my part to admit it, I know. But to return to Markham, I asked him to join us for several reasons, not the least important being a natural desire to introduce my wife—”

“Yes, dear, I’ll excuse the preliminaries,” interposed Jill. “I want to know the real reason.”

“You aggravating monkey, I’ve a good mind not to satisfy you. And I daresay you will be aggrieved when you hear it because it concerns Evie.”

“Oh! Was he in love with her?”

St. John laughed at the disparaging tone and teasingly pinched her ear.

“Incredible as it may sound he was,” he replied. “I believe she refused him a little while ago but he has been out of England since then and I never heard the rights of the case. He’s an old college chum of mine, and an awfully good sort; I don’t know why Evie doesn’t have him.”

“Oh, yes, you do,” rejoined Jill sagely. “And so you thought you would let Mr Markham see that you were married and out of the runnings, you conceited old humbug; and that’s why he laughed so much, and was so very polite to me. He’ll send us a wedding present, Jack, I feel convinced of that.”

“You’ve always got your eye open for the main chance,” observed St. John, “and ought to make a good business woman. You’ll be pondering the intrinsic value of that present within half-an-hour. Personally, I shall be thoroughly satisfied if I hear that he wins Evie.”

Jill looked up at him swiftly, and slipped her hand into his with a smile.

“I don’t mind who wins Evie now,” she said, “but I was horribly anxious once. I don’t believe that I really felt quite safe until this little gold band was placed on my finger, and then I knew that not even Miss Bolton could take you away from me.”

“Possession is only nine-tenths of the law,” interposed St. John; but he squeezed the small hand lovingly, lying so confidingly in his, so that, feeling the pressure, and meeting his earnest gaze, Jill was too thoroughly happy even to retort.

Chapter Thirteen.

Mr St. John, Senior’s, wrath knew no bounds when he received his son’s note and learnt that he had taken the irrevocable step and actually married the art mistress. He passed the letter on to his niece with Thompkins and Co.’s card, and turned away from the lunch-table too disgusted to eat his food. Evie Bolton took things more quietly. She had realised her defeat from the first, and accepted it as she did the announcement of her cousin’s marriage with a composure that did more credit to her head than to her heart. She read the letter through without comment, and studied the card. Then she looked up with a little laugh.

“How funny,” she said. “I will go and have my photograph taken there.”

Mr St. John said nothing. He just wheeled about shortly and left the room, but when he got outside his language was more forcible than polite, and he kicked Miss Bolton’s pet pug right across the hall. For the first time he saw the heiress with his son’s eyes.

“Jack is a fool,” mused Miss Bolton complacently, tapping the pasteboard in a meditative fashion. “He will hate it all three months hence, and then they will quarrel horribly. A photographer indeed! What possessed him, I wonder?”

When Miss Bolton flippantly observed that she intended having her photograph taken at Thompkins and Co.’s, she did not mean it seriously; for she had not considered the matter, and only spoke upon impulse. Some months later, however, the idea returning to her mind, she determined, after thinking it over for a little while, to act upon it, and judge for herself how Jack adapted himself to his changed circumstances.

It was characteristic of her that she should don her richest attire for the occasion, and drive there in style instead of going in the quietest and most unobtrusive manner; and it was also characteristic that on arriving and entering the shop she should haughtily demand to see Mr St. John, entirely ignoring Jill, who, on her entry, had risen from her seat at the desk, and now in her usual philosophic manner walked quietly out of the shop to call her husband St. John was in the studio endeavouring to snap an infant in its vest, and only succeeding in making it howl. He was looking worried and annoyed, and welcomed Jill’s advent with relief.

“You are better at this kind of thing than I am,” he said in an aside to her; “just see if you can pacify the little beast.”

“All right,” answered Jill shortly. “You can go and do the agreeable to Evie Bolton; she’s in the shop waiting to see you.”

St. John whistled, and the infant stopped yelling to listen; it was noted for its love of music.

“How jolly nice of her,” he cried. “Perhaps she’ll stay and have tea with us.”

“Perhaps she won’t,” Jill answered rather bitterly; but St. John was not paying any attention; he was busy adjusting the collar of his coat, and failed to detect the chagrin in his wife’s tone and manner. Jill turned her back on him quickly to hide her annoyance, and walked over to make friends with the baby, while St. John, unconscious that anything was amiss, strode through the studio into the shop where Evie Bolton awaited him. She turned at his entry and advanced to greet him, recognising with a little pang of envy as she did so, what a fine, manly, handsome fellow this cousin of hers was. St. John, too, realised for the first time how very pretty and stylish Evie was. When he had lived with stylish women he had not noticed these things, now that his lot was cast among the working-classes, he perceived and appreciated the difference. His glance rested on Miss Bolton’s well groomed prettiness with a kind of tired relief, and the sordidness of his own surroundings became more apparent.

“It is good of you to look us up,” he cried. “I half feared that I was going to get the cold shoulder altogether.”

He had taken the girl’s outstretched hand in both of his, and now looked into her eyes with a smile of pleased gratitude. Evie smiled back.

“You should never have thought that of me,” she said. “You might have known I would come eventually. If uncle hadn’t been so furious about it I should have come sooner, but I had to use my discretion and wait. The first time I suggested a visit he flung out of the room in a temper. I fear you have done for yourself, dear, so far as your father is concerned.”

St. John looked moody, and seeing his change of countenance, she hastened to turn the subject.

“Jack,” she said, “I am awfully low-spirited—I suppose I have missed you rather. I want you to take me out to tea somewhere and cheer me up if you can.”

St. John swallowed the bait. The idea of a diversion was pleasing to him, and the knowledge that he had been missed gratified his vanity.

“Dear little girl, of course I will,” he answered. “I’ll just go and put it all right with Thompkins, and then I’ll be at your service. Jill’s in the studio. You saw her though, didn’t you?”

Miss Bolton flushed.

“Ye-es,” she answered hesitatingly, “for a minute. Make haste, Jack dear; I am so impatient to be off. While you are gone I will look at these abominable photographs. I meant to let you take mine to-day, but I object to being caricatured.”

“You must let Jill paint you,” he said, “She’s first class at portrait painting and would like to get some customers.”

“One day,” the girl answered vaguely, “perhaps I will.”

St. John hurried out, and Miss Bolton turned with languid interest to inspect the portraits round the walls. When her cousin returned he discovered her intently scrutinising a cabinet photograph of Mr Markham.

“What a libel,” she cried holding it up. “This is your handiwork, I should imagine. When did you take it?”

“Oh! I don’t know,” he answered carelessly, “Jill took it one day. She has taken him lots of times; he often calls in.”

Evie’s eyebrows went up with a show of surprise.

“Is he a friend of—Mrs St. John?” she asked.

“I suppose so; Jill likes him. He and I were always rather chummy, and he drops in in to talk about—oh! well, about old times and—friends, you know.”

“He never told me,” she rejoined slowly. “I saw him yesterday and he mentioned very casually that he met you recently; he did not say that he was intimate here.”

“Perhaps he didn’t think that it would interest you,” he suggested. “Or he might have thought the subject tabooed.”

“With me?” she cried. “Impossible! I am always talking about you.”

“Very flattering of you, my dear Evie,” he laughingly rejoined, “but you’ll never persuade me that you are so one idead.”

Miss Bolton put the photograph back in its place, and turned towards the entrance with an evident desire to get away.

“I am,” she said. “I’ve only got one idea at present and that’s tea. Don’t let us waste more time, Jack, but come along at once.”

“It’s an awful pity Jill can’t come with us,” he remarked as he followed her out, “but we couldn’t both leave together.”

“Yes,” acquiesced Evie, none too heartily, “it is a pity. Never mind she sees plenty of you now and I don’t. She can’t begrudge me a few hours now and then. I am seriously thinking of getting married myself, Jack; it is so deadly dull since you went.”

Thinking of Markham, St. John looked pleased.

“Why don’t you?” he asked.

“I am going to,” she answered settling herself in a corner of the carriage with an airy laugh. “I am looking about for a title.”

“Oh!” observed St. John disapprovingly, “I shouldn’t bother about that. Why not look about for someone you can give your heart to?”

“Because I haven’t got one to bestow,” she retorted. “If I ever possessed such an uncomfortable organ it must have been stolen from me long ago, but I don’t feel the want of it so don’t miss it at all. I suppose you flatter yourself that Jill has given her heart to you?”

“Yes,” he answered smiling, and patting his left side, “I have it here safe enough in place of the one I gave to her.”

“Ah!” returned Miss Bolton coolly, “a pretty fancy no doubt, but a fancy all the same, my dear Jack, and absolutely ridiculous.”

“Don’t be cynical,” he said; “it’s a sign of the times, and unbecoming.”

“And cynical women are generally old maids,” laughed Evie. “That won’t do for I must have my title. I won’t die an old maid if I have to advertise in a matrimonial journal.”

Chapter Fourteen.

When St. John returned after seeing his cousin safely home it was late in the afternoon, and though the place still remained open business was apparently over for the day. Thompkins and Co. were not over-burdened with customers at any time, and their number since the advent of the new Co. had been steadily on the decrease. Business was slack, the returns were very small, and St. John felt by no means sanguine as to the success of his venture. He had been married a little over four months, and it was only by exercising the greatest care that they managed to pay their way even. Jill was a thrifty housewife—she always had been,—but St. John forgot his straightened circumstances at times, and launched out a little recklessly. He had not been altogether careful that afternoon, and the consciousness of the fact gave him an unpleasant twinge of remorse as he mounted the steep stairs to their little sitting-room.

Jill was alone standing looking out of the window with her back towards the door, nor did she turn round at his entry. She was displeased.

“You have been a long time,” she said.

“I’m afraid I have,” he admitted. “You weren’t lonely I hope?”

“No; I was too busy for that. And afterwards Mr Markham came in. He has just left.”

“Why, he was here yesterday. He surely didn’t want his photo taken again?”

“No, I think he wanted a chat, and when he found I was alone he stayed on for company. Have you had a pleasant time? Where did you go?”

“We went and had tea,” he answered. He didn’t say where; he was ashamed to; it was one of the places where you pay for locality and Miss Bolton had not once offered to share expenses. “And then we spent a little time at the Academy—Evie’s fond of pictures you know.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” agreed Jill drily. “I have a vivid recollection of her passion for art; it was so upsetting. I suppose she shut her eyes occasionally? Some people take art like they do physic—shut their eyes and hold their noses except when nobody’s looking.”

“Jill dear, don’t be nasty,” he said.

Jill laughed.

“I can’t help it,” she answered. “I’m afraid my nature must be warped I have such a knack of being disagreeable. I could have pinched that horrid little baby this afternoon, it irritated me so; and yet I am fond of children. And I could have been exceedingly rude to Miss Bolton if she hadn’t been rude to me first;—of course I wouldn’t follow her example in anything.”

“Rude to you?—Evie? How?”

“Oh! in an entirely lady-like manner. She merely gave me to understand that she didn’t intend to recognise me, and treated me as she would any other shop assistant. Miss Bolton means taking you up and cutting your wife. I suppose she is perfectly justified.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Jill,” St. John cried sharply. “Evie means nothing of the sort. She spoke of you most kindly, and said it was a pity you couldn’t go with us.”

“Ah!” rejoined Jill queerly. “My mistake again. Evie has a mystifying way of showing her kindness, but doubtless she means well. You, I suppose, understand her better than I do, but I shouldn’t advise you to try arranging an excursion for three.”

“Very well,” he returned, “I won’t go with her again. I wouldn’t have to-day if I had thought it would annoy you. We were like brother and sister always and it was pleasant for me to see her again.”

Jill heaved a deep sigh, and leaned her forehead against the window pane. She knew that he had no intention of wounding her feelings yet these unconscious allusions to the sacrifice that he had made in marrying her hurt her more than they need have done. And St. John never guessed. Not for a moment had he regretted the step he had taken, and it did not occur to him that Jill should imagine he might.

“I am not annoyed,” she said after a brief pause. “I am irritable this evening, that’s all. Mr Markham said that I wasn’t looking well; perhaps I am a little out of sorts. Are the pictures good this year, Jack?”

“Good enough. But none of them to come up to yours in my eyes as I told Evie. It’s scandalous to think that real talent should get overlooked, yet it’s often enough the case.”

“Mr Markham,” jerked out Jill suddenly, “wishes me to paint his portrait.”

St. John laughed.

“Markham is getting vain,” he said. “No doubt he purposes presenting it to Evie. When is the first sitting to be?”

“I don’t know, nothing is definitely settled, I thought I would speak to you about it first.”

St. John looked at her in astonishment.

“Why?” he asked.

Jill hesitated. She had no real reason to offer, but when Mr Markham made the proposal she felt that she would like to consult Jack before deciding. She had consulted him, and now regretted having done so.

“I wasn’t sure whether the arrangement would be agreeable to Mr Thompkins,” she answered. “He expects me to be available for the studio at all times and seasons you know, and, of course, undertaking this would mean giving a good deal of my time—”

“To hear you one would think,” interposed her husband, “that you contemplated painting a multitude. You know as well as I do that Thompkins will be quite agreeable. I should have thought you would have settled the matter out of hand.”

“I am not at all sure that I will undertake it,” retorted Jill pettishly. “I hate painting men; they make such horribly uninteresting subjects; and I’m sick to death of the sound of Evie Bolton’s name. Fancy listening for a solid hour to the extolling of her virtues! I don’t think I could stand it.”

“Oh! that’s it, is it?” laughed St. John. “Well, of course, you must please yourself, old girl, but I shouldn’t let Evie do me out of a fiver if I were you. Besides I have thought lately that Markham avoids the subject I suppose he twigs that you’re not so fond of it as he is.”

Jill said nothing. She had noticed the same thing; and could not help wondering why their visitor came so frequently when he no longer cared to discuss the once all sufficing topic. Jack had formerly declared that he only came to talk Evie, but that could hardly be said of him now. Sometimes Mrs Jack fancied that his suit did not progress altogether as he could have wished, and in her womanly, whole-hearted way felt sorry for him. She had been so happy in her own love that she would have pitied anyone less fortunate than herself. Besides she liked Markham and admired his perseverance, though she wondered occasionally whether he would have been quite so devoted had Miss Bolton been penniless like herself.

“I saw the Governor on my way home,” observed St. John at length, breaking the silence with a short laugh. Mrs St. John’s heart gave a sudden jump.

“He didn’t—cut you?” she queried.

“Oh, dear no! bowed to me almost as though he considered me on an equality. Feels jolly rum being treated by one’s father like that.”

“I call it abominable of him,” Jill cried hotly. “He seems absolutely heartless.”

St. John looked amused.

“Well, I don’t quite see what else he could have done under the circumstances,” said he. “I don’t blame him for giving me the kick out and all that as I disappointed him, but I do for not bringing me up to some profession; it’s beastly rough luck for me.”

Jill laid one small hand upon his shoulder, ever so light a touch but it carried great comfort with it.

“You don’t make a good poor man, dear,” she said gently. “You should have known my father; he was always cheerful even in his poorest moments; yet no one would have called him careless nor improvident. He was simply brave and self-reliant.”

“Little mentor,” answered her husband gravely, drawing her face down to his. “I accept the rebuke; there shall be no more complaints. I will be ‘up and doing—learn to labour and to wait.’”

Chapter Fifteen.

Notwithstanding her former reluctance Jill eventually undertook the commission for Mr Markham’s portrait, though some time elapsed before she started on the work, Markham, himself, being out of town staying as a guest at a house where Evie Bolton was also visiting, a circumstance that filled St. John with pleasurable anticipation, though Jill, less sanguine as to the result, was more inclined to foresee troubles ahead, and looked forward with no great joy to their friend’s return. Yet his manner, when he did put in an appearance, conveyed absolutely no impression; as St. John afterwards informed his wife he believed that Markham had funked it.

“When shall we have the first sitting, Mrs St. John?” he exclaimed after the usual greetings were over. “I am quite anxious to begin.”

“Why not fix Monday?” suggested St. John amicably.

“Monday!” cried Jill. “It’s washing day. How can you be so inconsiderate?”

“Oh, ah! washing day! I forgot. The atmosphere is composed of soap-suds, and we have cold meat. Not Monday, my dear boy; it is the most ungodly day of the week.”

“Tuesday would do,” said Jill, “if that suits, and I think three o’clock would be the most convenient hour for me. The light, of course, is best in the mornings, but I am always busy then.”

“Any time will suit me,” Markham answered promptly, “and any day.”

“Ah,” said Jill with a little smile, “Jack was like that once. Why don’t you get something to do?”

“Because it isn’t necessary.”

“But independence is such a grand thing,” she persisted.

“Exactly. I inherited it, and I like it best that way.”

Jill laughed.

“We can’t all be workers, I suppose,” she said, “yet I fancy if I had been given my choice I should have chosen that kind of independence. Work is necessary to me.”

“From a selfish point of view I am glad that it is; otherwise you wouldn’t paint portraits.”

“What makes you fancy that?” she asked.

“No one who paints as you do would undertake portraits if they could avoid it. I know a man who has always one canvas at least in the academy, but he can’t afford to paint pictures now; they don’t sell; so he does portraits.”

Jill sighed.

“I am sorry for that man,” she said, “his life must be a disappointment. The people who want to be painted are generally so impossible.”

“My dear girl,” remonstrated St. John, “considering the circumstances that is one of the things better left unsaid.”

“I am speaking from the artistic sense,” she replied; “besides I said ‘generally.’”

“I quite understand,” interposed Markham laughing, “and entirely agree with you. But that won’t interfere with the sitting on Tuesday, eh?”

“I hope not,” she answered gravely; “I should be doubly sorry now if you didn’t come.”

“There is no fear of that,” he said. “I enjoy seeing myself reproduced. It is so often an improvement, you know, yet one invariably flatters oneself that it is as one habitually looks.”

“We haven’t done much to foster your conceit so far,” she observed.

“Oh! I don’t know,” he answered. “I really thought that that last portrait was a bit like me. Somebody told me I did look like that sometimes when I had a liver attack.”

“Evie said it was a libel,” St. John remarked tentatively.

“Ah! Well, I should be sorry to contradict her,” he replied, and Jill fancied, though she could not be quite sure, that he looked slightly displeased at the mention of Miss Bolton’s name. Why should a name that had once been his sole subject of conversation excite his annoyance now? It was not consistent. Had it been a case of unrequited affection she could have understood his being hurt, but displeasure was something she could not account for; it irritated her, why she could not have explained. She was not accustomed to analyse her sensations even to herself; it would have been wiser if she had; for her instinct was wonderfully true, and her nature peculiarly observant.

“You put me on my mettle,” she said, smiling. “It shan’t be a libel this time I promise you if infinite pains can prevent.”

“I am not afraid to trust myself in your hands,” he said.

Jill laughed.

“That’s very fulsome flattery,” she answered. “I was responsible for the libel, remember. Mr Thompkins declares that I shall ruin the firm yet. It is so humiliating because I was so positive at first that I was going to become one of those celebrated lady photographers who have all the best people sitting to them, and can charge any price they like.”

“It’s just as well as it is, perhaps,” St. John rejoined with conviction. “Success would make you a horrid little prig, Jill; very few people can stand it.”

“If Mr Markham were not here,” Jill returned, “I would tell you what I think of you.”

Chapter Sixteen.

Jill had got her canvas and everything in readiness, and was waiting for her model. She had been waiting for about ten minutes, and was growing slightly impatient; she hated wasting her time. St. John was busy in the studio, unusually busy, so that he could not possibly get away even for a few minutes. He wanted her badly, she knew; he always wanted a mate, and she felt rather as if she were shirking. She looked at the canvas in a dissatisfied kind of way, and then out of the window at the people in the street.

“I believe,” she mused, thinking of the absent Markham, “that I could draw his face from memory.”

Fetching a piece of paper she seated herself at the table and made a rough sketch in pencil as she had once done of St. John, only in St. John’s case she had not trusted to memory. Markham arrived while she was thus employed, and he stood by the table watching her, as she put in the finishing strokes. He smiled while he watched as though he were amused. Jill was grave and very much absorbed.

“What a wonderful little head it is,” he said.

“Do you think so?” she asked, lifting the head he alluded to the better to regard the one on paper which he was not even looking at. “I don’t call it wonderful, but I had an idea that I could catch the likeness; some faces are quite easily remembered.”

“Yes,” he acquiesced, “yours is.”

“Mine? I don’t agree with you; my features are too indescribable. There. It’s finished. I have caught the expression, haven’t! But I haven’t done justice to the nose. Will you sit in this chair near the window, please? you are dreadfully late, so we mustn’t waste further time.”

Jill worked rapidly, and there could not possibly be any question as to her ability. Markham watched her with interest, and every now and again he rose from his seat to have a look how the work progressed, notwithstanding her protest that it spoilt the pose.

“I can’t help that,” he declared, “it fascinates me, I must look.”

“I had no idea before that you were so vain,” she said.

“I’m not,” he answered. “It isn’t the subject that interests me but the work. I could stand behind you and watch you all day.”

“Not having eyes at the back of my head I shouldn’t make much progress with the portrait in that case,” she retorted. “Do you mind going back to your seat, please, and allowing me to study your physiognomy again?”

He obeyed reluctantly, and for a time the work continued in silence; Jill was too engrossed to talk, and Markham apparently had no desire to. He sat quite motionless watching her with a strained, intent, unfathomable expression in his glance that Jill in unconscious accuracy was transmitting to the painted eyes on the canvas, though the expression was by no means habitual to him, and gave the portrait an unlifelike appearance. She shook her head over it despondently, and stood back from the easel in order to take a better look.

“I must leave the eyes alone to-day,” she said, “I am making a muddle of them. They are your eyes, and yet they are not yours. I don’t understand it.”

“Oh, bother the portrait,” he exclaimed. “Put it up for to-day and let’s talk.”

“It wouldn’t get finished very quickly at that rate,” she answered.

“I don’t want it finished quickly,” he said.

“No?” Jill’s tone was expressive of surprise, and she looked at him very straightly as she spoke. “What are you going to do with it when it is finished?” she asked.

“Give it to you if you will accept it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! that’s not what you had it painted for.”

“Now, how do you know that?” he enquired. He had risen, and coming forward took the palette and paint brushes out of her hand; then, receiving no remonstrance, he began to untie the strings of her painting apron.

“Shut up shop for to-day,” he pleaded. “I am going to stay to tea.”

It was rather an unfortunate moment for St. John to choose for putting in an appearance. Had he been married as many years as he had months it would not have mattered, but under existing circumstances it was regrettable that he should open the door when he did Jill, all unconscious of the suspicious proximity of Mr Markham’s arm to her shoulder, smiled serenely as she encountered St. John’s sharp, surprised glance, and noting that he looked displeased, presumed that he had spent a wearisome afternoon in the studio.

“Leisurable at last?” she queried cheerfully. “I am so glad, dear. Come and make yourself agreeable while I see about the kettle; Mr Markham is going to stay to tea.”

“Sorry, but I can’t,” he answered shortly. “I have to be in the dark room in a few minutes, and have enough developing to keep me engaged for some time. How’s the sitting getting on? You don’t appear to be very busy. Is Markham tired already?”

“We’ve been at it a solid three quarters of an hour,” rejoined Markham aggrieved, “and as for not being busy, look at the canvas, man.”

St. John did look; he stood a little way off, and studied it earnestly for several minutes, but he did not speak.

“Well, what do you think of it?” enquired the other.

“I never presume to criticise Jill’s work until it is finished,” he answered. “At present I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I,” acquiesced Jill, “that’s why I was not loth to give up for to-day. It’s the eyes, I think; they have a sinister expression that makes him look like a stage villain. And yet I’m sure the expression was there at the time.”

“I hope not,” St. John rejoined, looking fixedly at his friend in a rather disconcerting manner; “the eyes never lie, you know.”

Jill took the canvas down from the easel and leaned it with its face hidden against the wall.

“Don’t utter uncomfortable platitudes,” she remarked. “If you can’t be more cheerful I hope you’ll retire to your dark room speedily; Mr Markham and I were enjoying ourselves till you came.”

To her surprise he took her literally, and, muttering something about ‘sorry to be a wet blanket,’ wheeled about abruptly and left the room. Jill looked at Markham, and her eyes were both angry and concerned.

“I can’t think what’s the matter with Jack,” she said half apologetically; “he is not often such a bear. Do you know that I think you had almost better not stay this evening. It wouldn’t be very hilarious if he were in that mood, would it?”

“Of course I won’t stay; I was only joking. Jack is a bit huffed about something no doubt, but you’ll soon coax him into a better temper,” he responded, “I’ll come to-morrow for another sitting, shall I?”

“No,” Jill answered slowly; “the same day and hour next week, if you please.”

On the following Tuesday when Markham turned up for the arranged sitting he found Jill alone as on the former occasion, St. John having purposely gone out to spend the afternoon with Evie Bolton. The latter had written to him during the past week asking him if he could manage to meet her somewhere as she had something of importance to impart to him, and St. John, in his fit of suddenly awakened jealousy had settled on the day that Jill had fixed upon for the second sitting, taking a very malicious satisfaction in her evident annoyance when he stated his intention. She said little enough at the time, but her manner betrayed her vexation, and the strained relationship that had existed between them during the past few days grew more apparent. When Markham arrived, she was feeling more hurt than angry, and her mood was softened and subdued, and nearer akin to tears than it had been since her marriage.

“Jack has gone out,” she said in answer to his enquiry, not so much explanatorily, but because she felt she must say something, and that was the only thing she could think of at the moment. It was the one miserable refrain that kept repeating itself in her mind—“Jack has gone out—back to his own people.”

“He won’t be home till late,” she went on apathetically. “He said he was going to take a journey into the past, and forget the sordid present for a time. I don’t think it altogether wise of him, do you? Where is the use in looking back when the sordid present has to be lived through, and the uncertain future to be faced?”

“Mrs St. John,” Markham answered gravely. “St. John—our St. John was never wise; the only noteworthy action of his life was when he married you.”

“Ah!” said Jill with a very pathetic smile, “I often fancy that that was the most unwise thing he ever did.”

Markham looked at her speculatively, and failed to make an immediate reply. Was it St. John, himself, who had given her cause to think so, he wondered. Was she finding out so soon that their marriage had been a mistake?

“You are depressed,” he said, leaning towards her, his hands lightly grasping the arms of his chair. “It isn’t good for you to feel like that. Jack is a brute to leave you to yourself. What can I do to cheer you up, I wonder? After all we are both in the same boat; for if you are lonely, so am I.”

“You!” echoed Jill in a tone which implied that her listener did not know what loneliness meant. “How can you talk of loneliness? At least you have Evie—”

“No,” he interrupted shortly; “Evie is nothing to me, and less than nothing. She is engaged to marry a marquis. I should have thought you would have heard of that by now.”

At his words, Jill’s face visibly brightened. It flashed upon her with a certain amount of conviction that this was why her husband had gone to his cousin; possibly she had sent for him to consult him on the subject, and the trouble that had oppressed her lightened instantly with the thought. How could she have doubted him even for a moment? But he ought to have taken her into his confidence; it was a mistake to make a secret of so simple a thing.

Markham misinterpreted the sudden brightening of her countenance, and when in her impulsive, sympathetic way she laid her small fingers compassionately over his, he grasped the little hand feverishly between both his eager palms, and held it against his breast while he drew her nearer to him and stared into her face with burning, compelling eyes. She thought his manner strange but pardonable under the circumstances.

“I am so sorry,” she said gently, “so very sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” he asked.

“Oh, the—the—your disappointment,” she rejoined with an awkward deepening of the colour in her cheeks. She felt that she was getting on to delicate ground, and did not know very well how to proceed; but he relieved the situation by a short, impatient laugh.

“There wasn’t any disappointment,” he returned. “You must have known that I was off that long ago. Don’t humbug, Jill; you must have perceived that ever since I knew you I have cared for no one else. I should not have mentioned it only I see now that you care a little also—that your marriage is not altogether a success. You are lonely as well as I, dear. Why not let us console one another?”

Chapter Seventeen.

For a few seconds Jill sat mute, too thoroughly taken by surprise even to move. No lurking suspicion had ever entered her pure, wholesome, unspoilt mind that any man could so insult a decent woman. Even then it struck her that in some way she must have unconsciously given him an opening. How else would he have dared to make love to her, and to seem so assured that his love would be returned?

She drew herself away from him, not violently, but with a cold displeasure that carried more weight than any fierce resentment could have done, and in a voice that trembled slightly with repressed anger exclaimed as she rose and faced him,—

“Mr Markham, you have insulted me past forgiveness. If any action or word of mine has led you to speak as you have done I deplore it with my whole heart—I couldn’t feel more humiliated even if such were the case; I feel so abjectly debased as it is. How dare you imply that I do not get on with my husband? I love him with the whole force of my being. I doubt if you could understand or appreciate such love as ours.”

“I doubt it too,” he sneered. “My love is not of the kind that can so readily efface itself. You are rather unreasonable, I think; a man can’t help his feelings. Some women would take it as a compliment.”

“I am sorry for the sort of women you seem acquainted with,” she answered rather sadly. “You have formed a very low opinion of the sex. It is not a compliment that you have paid me, and you know it. Don’t say anything more please; I decline to discuss that, or any other subject with you. I must request you to leave my rooms, and never to enter them again. You have made further intercourse an impossibility, and our past friendship something to be remembered only with regret.”

“Don’t say that,” he began pleadingly; but Jill cut him short.

“Please understand that I am quite in earnest,” she said. “When Jack comes home I shall explain to him what has happened; it is well that he should understand the true character of his friend. I can never thank heaven sufficiently that my husband is both a man of honour, and a gentleman.”

“For that matter so should I have been if I had met you first,” he answered gloomily. “You are rather hard on me, Jill. Perhaps I have been too precipitate; but I love you so madly, and to-day you seemed so sad, and sweet, and lonely, that I wanted to comfort you.”

“Enough!” exclaimed Jill excitedly. “If you don’t go I shall ask Mr Thompkins to come and protect me from further indignity. How contemptible you are!—how mean! Why don’t you insult me when my husband is at home? The sight of you is hateful to me. Why won’t you go?”

“I will,” he answered quietly, “as you wish it. I do not want to frighten you; but remember—always remember that I love you with all my heart.”

Jill stood quite still and watched him as he gravely quitted her presence, and then listened dully to his footsteps clattering down the stairs. When they died away along the narrow passage and she heard the street door bang behind him she put her hand to her forehead in a dazed kind of way, and glanced vaguely round the little room seeing nothing but Markham’s cynical face with the ugly expression in his eyes that was in the painted eyes of the canvas on the easel. Her glance travelled to the portrait, and rested there for a moment. The sight of it seemed to rouse her into action, and, with a catch in her voice that sounded like an angry sob, she took up a brush, and in a few vigorous strokes painted the whole thing out again as she would have liked to blot the incident from her memory.

To Jill the fact that Markham loved her was anything but a congratulatory matter. The red blood surged to her temples in a flood of indignant colour at the mere thought of such an outrage to her wifehood. She was very angry; her calmness and self-possession had entirely deserted her leaving her excited and wholly unlike herself. She did not expect St. John home for some time; he had told her not to wait tea, he should be late; and so she seated herself in the big chair by the window to watch for his return, too upset to think of getting tea for herself, too miserable to feel the need of it. St. John was not very late however. He had promised Thompkins to be back by six, and at a few minutes to the hour he arrived. Jill saw him coming but she did not move. She remained where she was until she heard his footstep on the stairs, then she rose and walking quickly to the door threw it open. He was going into the bedroom to change his coat for the old one he did his work in. Jill called to him softly, but he went on as though he had not heard. She set her lips tightly and followed him, determined to clear up the misunderstanding that existed between them at any cost, and to tell him what had occurred during the afternoon.

“Jack,” she said, “I want to talk to you.”

“Sorry,” he answered, “but I haven’t time. I have a lot of work to do.”

His manner was anything but encouraging. At another time she would have turned away and allowed the breach to widen, but to-day she was sick of quarrelling about nothing, and longed for a complete reconciliation, and so she persevered.

“You are not very kind to me, dear,” she said. “I think the work can wait a few minutes longer, and what I have to say is most important. I have had a very unpleasant experience to-day, Jack, and feel quite worried and upset about it—if you only knew how worried I am sure you would give me your attention.”

St. John turned towards her, an expression of surprise on his face. He was in his shirt sleeves, and looked handsome, bad-tempered and ill at ease, his afternoon with Evie had apparently not conduced to exhilaration of spirits.

“What on earth can be worrying you?” he exclaimed. “Didn’t Markham turn up?”

“Yes, he turned up,” answered Jill sharply. “That is the trouble. I had to send him away again. You, who knew him so intimately, had no right to leave me alone with such a man—no right to introduce me to him at all. He insulted me—he actually tried to make love to me.”

She broke off abruptly. Her voice shook a little, and she put up a hand to her burning face. St. John swore. He dropped the jacket he was holding on to the floor, and began struggling fiercely into his outdoor coat again. Jill watched him anxiously. Then she laid a restraining hand upon his arm.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Find him and—give him a lesson.”

He looked so fierce and determined that Jill felt frightened. She was nervous and unstrung with the excitement of the afternoon, and she trembled slightly as she clung tenaciously to his arm.

“Let him alone,” she cried quickly. “I will not have my name dragged into any dispute. We have done with him; that is enough. The matter must end there.”

“That is all very well,” he retorted, “but do you suppose I am going to stand quietly by and allow any cad to make love to my wife?”

“If you had not stood quietly by it might never have happened,” she answered. “I don’t quite know what it is we have been quarrelling about, but I do know that lately we have drifted apart, and he noticed it—he said so. He thought that I had found out that our marriage had been a mistake.”

She looked up to meet St. John’s gaze riveted upon her face, with an expression in his eyes that puzzled her, it was so unlike anything she had seen in them before. He looked as a man might look when someone he has loved and trusted deals him a blow on the face, so stern and white and miserable, and so full of an unspeakable shame.

“Jack,” she half-whispered, “what is it? What is the matter, dear?”

“Forgive me,” he cried brokenly, “If I have misjudged you; but I thought—as Markham thinks. And, my God, I think so still.”

Jill drew away from him, wounded into silence by what she heard. For a few moments she stood irresolute, struck motionless with an anguish too deep for words; then with a half articulate cry she tottered forward, and fell, a forlorn little bundle, at his feet St. John stooped swiftly, and gathering her up, laid her tenderly upon the bed, and, bending over her with a face even whiter than her own, stared down, awed and humbled, at the motionless, unconscious form.

He was almost too stunned at first to realise that there was anything serious the matter; but it gradually dawned upon him that she ought not to be allowed to lie there as she was without calling in some assistance, and so, not pausing to put on his coat, he ran out of the bedroom on to the landing, and stood there in his shirt sleeves, in terrified and breathless anxiety.

“Thompkins!” he cried excitedly. “Thompkins!”

“Hallo!” answered a voice from the bottom of the stairs, a voice of calm and unruffled serenity.

“For God’s sake run for the doctor,” St. John called back.

There was silence for a few seconds; then the street door was opened and banged to again, and St. John returned to the room to watch by his wife and wait.

Chapter Eighteen.

It was not many weeks after her sudden and unusual attack of unconsciousness that Jill presented her husband with a little son. The small stranger appeared upon the scene rather too soon, and was delicate and puny in consequence, and a great source of anxiety to its parents. Jill, herself, was very ill for a long while after its birth, so that St. John had a trying and expensive time of it, the only beneficial result being that every minor worry was forgotten in the all absorbing one of his wife’s health.

After the child’s birth he wrote a brief note to his father acquainting him with the news. He considered it his duty to do so, though he neither expected nor hoped for any reply to the letter; and he was not disappointed; Mr St. John, Senior, might never have received it for all the sign he made, and Jill, being ill and low-spirited at the time, cried with annoyance to think that her husband should have written to him at all.

“He will only imagine that you want something out of him,” she exclaimed pettishly.

“Never mind what he imagines,” answered St. John, bending over the speaker’s couch, and touching the baby’s smooth cheek with his finger. “It needn’t bother us so long as we are satisfied that we have done what is right. You wouldn’t like to think that one day this little man might fail in his duty to his father, would you?”

Jill looked down at the wee, mottled face, and laughed softly, though the tears stood in her eyes still, and would not be blinked away.

“How absurd it seems,” she said, “to think that this will one day be a man. It’s so small and frail that I’m half afraid of it, Jack. And it’s dreadfully ugly too, isn’t it, dear? Not even you could call it pretty.”

“Never mind it’s looks,” St. John answered reassuringly. “They’re all putty-faced at first, you know. If he only grows up with but half his mother’s charm and goodness he’ll do all right.”

Jill laughed again; the extravagance of the compliment amused her.

“I hope he won’t grow up with his mother’s temper,” she said, adding with a mischievous look at St. John, “nor his father’s either for that matter; I’d like him to strike out an original line there, Jack.”

“Too late, I’m afraid,” St. John answered ruefully as the baby screwed up its face preparatory to howling. “He always yells for nothing just when we’re having a quiet chat.”

Jill sat up a little and rocked the child gently in her arms.

“He is jealous,” she explained; “he takes after you in that.”

“I think the less you say about it the better,” he retorted. “I remember some rather uncomfortable half hours spent on Evie’s account.”

She smiled, her face close pressed to the baby’s, her lips caressing it’s hair.

“How ridiculous it all seems now!” she exclaimed—“How small! What a pair of geese we were!”

“Yes,” he said, and he straightened himself and walked away to the window to hide the mortification in his eyes. His jealousy had been of a far graver nature than hers, and he did not like to hear it referred to even. He was very much ashamed of himself, and rather embarrassed by a generosity that forgave so quickly and entirely as Jill had done.

“Yes,” he repeated softly more to himself than her, “we were a pair of geese. How I wish we had found it out sooner than we did. What an infinitude of suffering it might have saved us both!”

The next important event in their lives, which took place as soon as Jill was well enough to walk to Church, was the baby’s christening. He was called John after his father as the eldest sons of the St. John’s had been from time immemorial. It was Jill’s wish that this should be, St. John, himself, having no idea on the subject. It was also Jill’s wish that Mr Thompkins should stand Godfather, and, upon being asked, the senior partner gave a somewhat reluctant consent. He was a practical, hard-working old bachelor, and babies were not much in his line, but he had an unbounded admiration and respect for this baby’s mother, so when she informed him of her desire very much after the manner of one conferring an inestimable favour he had not the pluck nor the cruelty to say her nay. The honour cost him a guinea in the shape of a christening present, but the guinea weighed lightly in the balance compared with the interest that he was expected to take in his Godson. Jill had a way of putting it in his arms, and watching him nurse it which not only embarrassed but annoyed him greatly; and sometimes St. John would come in and look on with a grin, observing the while that he was quite a family man, or something equally idiotic.

St. John was idiotic in those days. He thought so much of his ugly offspring, as the infant’s Godfather mentally called it, and spoilt as many plates in attempting to photograph it as would have served for all the babies that came to the studio in a year. Mr Thompkins groaned, but Jill laughed happily; this tiny link between herself and Jack seemed the one thing necessary to make her life perfect. Its advent had closed a chapter in their history and commenced a new one altogether brighter and happier than the last. The last had known Evie Bolton, and Markham; but now the name of the one was seldom mentioned, the other never. Jill had not seen Markham from the hour she sent him from her presence—neither had St. John—but a few days after the affair she had received a letter from him, just a short note of apology which ran as follows:—

“Dear Mrs St. John,—

“I cannot, I fear, convey to you my heartfelt sorrow at the indiscretion I was guilty of last Tuesday. I have been reproaching myself for my folly ever since. The fault was mine, as is also the loss. I made a mistake. Try to forgive me and to forget. I go abroad next week indefinitely. Goodbye.”

Jill offered it to her husband when she had finished reading, but St. John put her hand aside, and shook his head decisively.

“You know that that isn’t necessary between you and me,” he said reproachfully.

“I think he would like you to see it,” she answered.

He took it then and read it through; when he had done so he handed it back again with a grave half-troubled smile.

“Considering how I, myself, was mistaken,” he said, “I don’t think that I have the right to censure him at all.”

Jill tore the note up slowly, watching the fragments intently as they fluttered from her fingers. The knowledge that her husband had misjudged her was the bitterest part of all. And yet in her heart she did not blame him; she even found excuses for him, but the pain was none the less acute because she refused to admit its reason, though no doubt it was easier borne, and would be more readily forgotten.

“I am very much afraid,” she said gently, with a slight hesitation of tone and manner, “that I, also, must have been at fault to cause two men to make the same mistake. I don’t suppose that I have any right to blame him either. I think the wisest course would be to do as he suggests—forgive everything, and forget.”

And as St. John was of the same opinion the matter ended there, and if not entirely forgotten was at least never referred to between them again.

Chapter Nineteen.

It was just two years after Jill’s baby had been born that a very wonderful thing occurred; Mr St. John senior visited Thompkins and Co. for no less a purpose than calling upon his son’s wife. He did not come unexpectedly; he wrote a week beforehand apprising them of the fact, and duly on the appointed date he pushed open the outer door and entered the mean little shop, standing in it, as it were, protestingly, his hat off, his shoulders slightly bowed; tall, and cross, and dignified—frowning at his son. St. John came forward quickly. He was expecting his father but pride forbade his making any preparation. He had been in the studio during the early part of the afternoon and was still in his working clothes though Jill had suggested to him the propriety of changing, but he had chosen to ignore the suggestion, arguing that that which was good enough for his wife should be good enough for his father too; and so he came forward as he was and stood in front of the visitor just as he might have done had he been any ordinary customer. The old man’s glance travelled slowly from the strong face with its proud smile to the shabby suit of clothes, the stains upon them testifying to the nature of the wearer’s work, and his carelessness as an operator. As he looked he smiled also. It was not a pleasant smile, and the younger man silently resented it.

“Photography does not appear a very lucrative employment,” he observed.

“No,” answered St. John. “At least I do not find it so.”

“Ah! Well, no doubt that assists you to realise the mistake you made.”

“I made no mistake,” the other interrupted shortly. “If you refer to my marriage that is the one thing I have never—and shall never regret.”

“Yet it has been the means of reducing you to your present strait.”

“Pardon me,” retorted the younger man, “want of a profession, and not my marriage, has been the means of my poverty. If I failed in my duty to you as a son remember that you in the first place failed in your duty to me.”

The grey brows drew together over the high-bridged nose, and the old eyes glared angrily into the young, indignant ones.

“I brought you up to the profession of a gentleman,” Mr St. John remarked.

“If by the ‘profession of a gentleman’ you mean a dependent beggar—a parasite—a less than menial,” rejoined the son, “you did. And until I met Jill I was not man enough to feel the degradation of it.”

“Until you met Jill you were not a fool,” snapped his father.

“We won’t discuss that point further,” St. John rejoined; “it is one on which we are never likely to agree. You wanted, your note said, to see Jill. I can’t imagine why, but if you still wish to see her we will go upstairs at once.”

Mr St. John having intimated that a two minutes’ uncomfortable conversation with his son had not altered his intention in coming, the latter turned impatiently upon his heel and led the way to the sitting-room where Jill was waiting with her little boy, striving, in her efforts to amuse him, to stifle her own nervousness and vague misgivings.

The child was simply and daintily dressed in white, and had grown from a puny infant into a sturdy, healthy little man, with more than an ordinary share of good looks and good spirits, and a very charming and lovable disposition. Jill idolised him, but she was wise in her love, and the spoiling—if spoiling it could be called—was of a very judicious kind, tending chiefly to bring out the best qualities in the impressionable baby-nature, so that surrounded, as this baby was, with love and care and tenderness, he bade fair to turn out a generous, affectionate, happy little fellow; and if he were not as well off as some babies, at least he had been born without the silver spoon, and so was not likely to feel the deprivation.

Jill had been playing with him on the floor, doing her best to keep him good-tempered before his grandfather’s arrival; for with her mother-instinct she associated this visit with the child, and was naturally anxious that he should appear at his best. When she heard their steps upon the stairs she scrambled hastily to a more dignified position, and stood with bright eyes, and flushed cheeks waiting to receive her former enemy. She had not forgotten his first and only other visit to her; she was not likely to forget it, nor to forgive him the pain he made her suffer then, and the insult which he had offered her. But she was content to ignore the past for her husband’s sake more than her own, and equally ready to treat her father-in-law with a politeness and consideration that he had no right to expect at her hands. Doubtless he remembered the incident also; he certainly did not anticipate a welcome, for he returned her cool little bow with equal distance—indeed hardly appeared to notice her at all. It was evident that if she had not forgiven him neither had he forgiven her; to her he owed the upsetting of all his plans, and his present lonely, childless condition, and he was not the sort of man who easily forgot an injury, nor readily pardoned the offender. His supercilious gaze rested for an instant on the mother’s face, and then wandered away to the child’s, taking in every detail of the baby-features from the wide, curious eyes, so absurdly like Jill’s both in expression and colouring, to the pretty curved lips, and rounded chin which even then gave promise of being as square and obstinate as his father’s. What he saw apparently pleased him; his features relaxed a little, Jill even fancied that he smiled back when the child in his friendly, confiding fashion smiled up at him, though if such were the case, which was doubtful, he made no further advance. He had never cared for children, and he did not now pretend to feel any interest in this one more than another. He had not come to see his grandson, but merely to make a proposal concerning him, and this proposal he forthwith expounded to the baby’s parents to their no small astonishment and dismay. His offer—and it was a good one from a worldly point of view—was to adopt the child altogether; to take him at the age of seven from his present surroundings and bring him up as he had brought up the father, bequeathing, at his death, his entire fortune to him unconditionally. He made no stipulation against the child seeing his parents as often as the latter wished, but he was not to live with them, nor to stay beneath their roof for any length of time.

When he had finished speaking he looked towards his son, but St. John shook his head decisively, and turned abruptly away; he could not answer such a question; he felt that he had not the right to do so.

“Ask his mother,” was all he said.

“Petticoat government, eh?” sneered the old man. “I appealed to you because I hoped that you would have profited by your own experience and been glad of the opportunity of giving your son a chance. With women it is different; they are so beastly selfish in their love; they always want the object of their affection near them.”

“Ask his mother,” St. John repeated in a hard voice. “A mother has more right than anyone else to decide the future of her child.”

Jill, who had remained till now impassive, listening open-eyed to all she heard, came forward as her husband finished speaking and stood between the old man and the baby on the floor as though she would protect the child from his grandfather’s designs. She was quite calm and collected; St. John wondered rather at her evident self-control.

“It is very good of you, Mr St. John,” she said, “to make Baby such a handsome offer. But you are wrong in thinking that a mother’s love is selfish; it is not where it is real; and it is entirely in my baby’s interests that I am going to regard your proposal.”

“Going to refuse it you mean,” he snapped.

Jill smiled.

“Going to refuse it if you like to put it that way,” she said. “Of course it would be splendid for Baby in one sense, but I don’t think it would be kind. I have never approved of bringing children up in a different position to their parents. My boy, no matter how good-hearted he turned out, would grow to look down upon his father, and the poor little shop with its poorer photographs, and upon the kind old man who stood Godfather to him, and drops his h’s, but loves the child almost as though he were his own. I have heard of such things before. Children who are exalted to very different positions to their parents learn to despise them, and feel ashamed of them, and then, of course, they despise themselves for doing so; and altogether it is very hopeless, and rather cruel, I think.

“Don’t fancy me ungrateful; it is not that. It isn’t that I wouldn’t spare my boy if I considered it all for the best; but I don’t I think he will be a much happier, and a better little boy if he is brought up just as well as we can manage, with no more brilliant prospect than the knowledge that he has to make his own way in the world as his father did before him.”

“So you are going to make an independent beggar of him as you did of his father, eh? Well, I would have made him an independent gentleman. But no matter. You possess the right unfortunately of ruining both their futures. Perhaps one day you will remember my offer with regret, but understand, please that I shall not renew it; neither will you or yours benefit from me in any way.”

“I had never expected that we should,” Jill answered with proud simplicity. “I have not been accustomed to luxury and so don’t feel the need of it. It is harder for my husband than for me, harder for him than it will be for the boy; but I don’t fancy that Jack minds it much.”

“Jack is a fool,” his father answered bitterly. “He could have been anything almost if he had followed out my wishes.”

St. John smiled faintly. He did not resent the slighting epithet applied to himself; he understood in a way, the old man’s keen disappointment, and felt more sorry than chagrined at his unrelenting harshness.

“Don’t think too much about it, sir,” he said; “I should have been bound to fail you somehow. I was never one of those brainy ambitious fellows, you know; it takes more than money to make a great career.”

“It takes a man,” Mr St. John answered sententiously. He had not sat down throughout the brief interview, although his son had placed a chair for him, and now he turned to go with less ceremony than when he entered. He even omitted the courtesy of bowing to Jill; he simply walked out without looking at her. St. John followed him and opened the shop door for him to pass through.

“Good-bye,” he said earnestly. “I regret the breach between us with all my heart—though that will hardly bridge it over, will it? If at any time you want me you have only to command.”

“You have always obeyed my commands so readily, eh?” retorted his father. “I am not likely to trouble you again. By the way you need not consider it necessary in future to make a kind of family Bible of me for the chronicling of domestic events. Our intercourse is at an end from this date. I neither wish to hear of, nor to see you again.”

Chapter Twenty.

When St. John had closed the door after his father he walked into the studio and busied himself unnecessarily shifting back scenes and rearranging everything in order to work off the depression the recent interview had left behind. He thoroughly understood that this was the final break with his father, and the realisation cost him more than one pang of bitter regret. He felt that to a certain extent he had been wanting in duty, and yet he knew that he could not have acted otherwise; the whole thing was as deplorable as it was inevitable; and it might have been so different had it not been for the obstinate pride of one ambitious old man.

In the midst of his sad reflections he forgot Jill altogether. Sorrow inclines one to be selfish, and St. John just then was dwelling so much upon his own wounded feelings that he had no room for any other thought. That Jill, too, might be hurt, and that very possibly she was worrying on his account did not occur to him or he would have gone to her at once, instead he seated himself on a little rustic bench that had so often served to pose a difficult subject, and leaned his head dejectedly upon his open palm. And thus Jill found him later when, having left her baby in his Godfather’s charge, she came in search of him wondering at his continued absence. The sight brought the tears to her eyes, and she drew back with the half-formed resolve of going away unseen, but changing her mind almost immediately she dropped the shabby curtain which formed the exit behind her, and running forward put both her arms about his neck.

“Oh! my saint, my dear old saint, don’t take it to heart so,” she cried imploringly.

And at the sound of her voice, the voice that was dearer to him than any other in all the world, he lifted his head and smiled up at her, a loving, reassuring smile.

“I am not taking it to heart,” he said. “I was a little bit hipped, that’s all.”

“You don’t think that I acted wrongly?” queried Jill diffidently. “You are not vexed that I declined his offer for baby?”

“Good Lord, no!” he answered vehemently. “I could never have reconciled myself to giving the little beggar up. We managed very well without him before he came, Jill dear; but we couldn’t manage now after once having him, could we? You did what was right as I knew you would. In any serious matter I should invariably leave the decision to you.”

“How good you are to me, Jack,” she whispered gratefully. “How unselfish! It doesn’t seem fair that you should have had to give up so much for me. And now comes this fresh trouble. We have had one or two worries, haven’t we dear?”

“Yes,” he answered brightly, rising, and putting his arm protectingly around her waist, “we have, but fortunately we are both sufficiently self-respecting, and single-purposed to trust one another implicitly, and so the worries don’t affect us very much. Some people would have magnified them into tragedies, but we have managed to shake them off somehow, and come up smiling. So long as we have each other, and health—”

“And Baby,” supplemented Jill. “And Baby, of course; there is nothing much we need worry about. The business manages to keep on its feet somehow; I think one day it may possibly even walk.”

“You are brave and confident,” Jill whispered a little wistfully, “but you will never be well off now dear.”

And St. John with his arm still round her, drew her nearer to him and kissed her upon the lips. The feeling of sadness had passed, a deep happiness and contentment had risen in its place.

“I am well off,” he answered. “No man, whatever his social standing or the size of his banking account, could be better off. I wouldn’t swop you and the boy, Jill, for the untold wealth of the world.”

The End.

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Chapter 1

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Chapter 2

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Chapter 3

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Chapter 4

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Chapter 5

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Chapter 6

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Chapter 7

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Chapter 8

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Chapter 9

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Chapter 10

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Chapter 11

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Chapter 12

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Chapter 13

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Chapter 14

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Chapter 15

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Chapter 16

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Chapter 17

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Chapter 18

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Chapter 19

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Chapter 20

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