growing,--only a few more months and it would have grown so big and real
that nothing but a little house would hold it. And Theophil was brought
sometimes to peep in too,--"O love, think of it--our little home."




CHAPTER XVI


THEOPHIL ALL THIS TIME

Have I seemed to shirk the subject of Theophil's feelings all this time?

Well, I confess I have rather shrunk from writing down in so many words
that he was in love with Isabel,--obvious as the fact has been,--just as
he himself shrank from admitting the same truth even to his own soul.

When he had sat up in his study that night of the recital, he had looked
the whole sad splendid truth in its wonderful face, had loved it wildly
for an hour, and then shut his eyes to it for ever.

He knew that Isabel was the woman God had made for him, sweet, dear
Jenny the woman he had made for himself, and he bowed before the work of
the greater artist.

Never voice nor look nor touch of woman had affected Theophil before as
the least tone or glance or movement of Isabel stirred him to the centre
of his being. To meet her eyes was to release a music that went
shuddering through the whole world; her lightest word was filled with