with you. I feel sure of that.'

The words were spoken so decisively that he knew he would not succeed
in changing her. Then his face grew pale with anger, and he said:
'Then everything you've said--all your promises--everything was a lie,
a wretched lie.'

'No, Alfred, I tried to believe. I did believe, but I had not thought
much then. Remember, I was only eighteen.' She gathered up her
painting materials, and, holding out her hand, said, 'Won't you
forgive me?'

'No, I cannot forgive you.' She saw him walk down the pathway, she saw
him disappear in the shadow. And this rupture was all that seemed real
in their love story. It was in his departure that she felt, for the
first time, the touch of reality.




III.


Mildred did not see Alfred again. In the pauses of her painting she
wondered if he thought of her, if he missed her. Something had gone
out of her life, but a great deal more had come into it.

Mr. Hoskin, a young painter, whose pictures were sometimes rejected in
the Academy, but who was a little lion in the minor exhibitions, came
once a week to give her lessons, and when she went to town she called