them to restore this interesting collection of antiquities to their
original dust.'




XII


He was, perhaps, a little too conscious of his happiness; and he feared to
do anything that would endanger the pleasure of his present life. It seemed
to him like a costly thing which might slip from his hand or be broken; and
day by day he appreciated more and more the delicate comfort of this
well-ordered house--its brightness, its ample rooms, the charm of space
within and without, the health of regular and wholesome meals, the presence
of these two women, whose first desire was to minister to his least wish or
caprice. These, the first spoilings he had received, combined to render him
singularly happy. Bohemianism, he often thought, had been forced upon
him--it was not natural to him, and though spiritual belief was dead, he
experienced in church a resurrection of influences which misfortune had
hypnotised, but which were stirring again into life. He was conscious again
of this revival of his early life in the evenings when Mrs. Bentley went to
the piano; and when playing a game of chess or draughts, remembrances of
the old Shropshire rectory came back, sudden, distinct, and sweet. In these
days the disease of fame and artistic achievement only sang monotonously,
plaintively, like the wind in the valleys where the wind never wholly
rests.

Sometimes, when moved by the novel he was reading, he would discuss its
merits and demerits with the two women who sat by him in the quiet of the