Egypt, and the delight she promised herself there.

Presently Bertha reverted to the unfinished story.

"Oh, it doesn't interest you."

"Doesn't it indeed! Please go on. You had just explained all about
'Sanctuary'--which isn't really a bad picture at all."

"Oh, Bertha!" cried the other in pained protest. "That's your good
nature. You never can speak severely of anybody's work. The picture
is shameful, shameful! And its successor, I am too sure, will be
worse still, from what I have heard of it. Oh, I can't bear to think
of what it all means--Now that it's too late, I see what I ought
to have done. In spite of everything and everybody I ought to have
married him in the first year, when I had courage and hope enough to
face any hardships. We spoke of it, but he was too generous. What a
splendid thing to have starved with him--to have worked for him
whilst he was working for art and fame, to have gone through and
that together, and have come out triumphant! That was a life worth
living. But to begin marriage at one's ease on the profits of
pictures such as 'Sanctuary'--oh, the shame of it! Do you think I
could face the friends who would come to see me?"

"How many friends," asked Bertha, "would be aware of your infamy? I
credit myself with a little imagination. But I should never have
suspected the black baseness which had poisoned your soul."

Again Rosamund bit her lip, and kept a short silence.