easier thing to-day — she did not know why
—to tell Paul that he was an enthusiast, than
it had ever been before.

"My Magdalen! — but I must not chide
you, love; I know that you have not reached
my place of faith, from whose heights the
world looks so small, and insuperable
difficulties seem so easy. What is our mission?
Is it not that I am to be the artist, the great
artist of my day?— embodying thoughts
which the world is too sceptical and
material, too irreligious and God- forgetting to
keep in daily view; giving back its true
religion to my art; giving back its forgotten
glory, and raising it from the dust where the
iron heels of trade and scepticism have
crushed it for so long ?—  is it not that I am
to be the Raphael, the Michael Angelo of
England? And you,—  O, what will you not
be in my glorious life! You will be its
star, its love, its glory! When I am dead
it will be written on my tomb, that this great
artist was made great by love; that
Magdalen, his queenly wife, had sat by his side
as his inspiration, and his interpreter of the
divine. Oh, Magdalen! Magdalen! do not
doubt our mission, nor of the glorious manner
in which we shall fulfil it; for we shall
regenerate the art-world together! Apart we
should be nothing; no, Magdalen, without
me your strength would crumble into ashes,
as mine would without you. We were made
to be the leaders of our age, the founders of
a new race, and of a higher generation. We
were made to be the restorers of faith and
love to art. Magdalen, we shall be all that
man and wife can be together, and our lives
shall be a deathless lesson of good and beauty
to mankind. Is it not so ? "

"Yes, Paul, I hope," said Magdalen; "but
will you please let go my hand," for, in
her present state of excitement, she could
not bear the nervous irritation produced by
his restless touch. It was as much as she
could do to listen to his dreamy voice and
vague visions, with composure. Those restless
burning fingers passing perpetually over
her hand, irritated her beyond her self-
command.

"Do you not love me, Magdalen?" he
said, letting her hand fall mournfully. His
eyes tilled with tears.

"Yes. I love you very much, and you know
that I do; but it disconcerts me to have my
hand held. And then yours is so unquiet."

"No expression of your love could annoy
me, whatever it might be," said Paul, very
sadly.

"Don't be vexed with me, dear Paul; we
are more nervous on some days than on
others, and to-day I am not very well."

"And does your love depend on your
health, Magdalen? If I were dying, your
caresses would be just as precious as in my
best moments!" His eyes turned to the sky
where the sun was sinking into darkness, and
his lip quivered.

With a strange gesture, sudden and
abrupt, feeling for the first time annoyed at
being obliged to soothe him so like a child,
Magdalen passed her hand across his hair
with a caressing gesture—that still was
hardly loving.

His tears grew larger, though now for
joy, and fell fast and heavy on her lap. He
took her hand, and kissed it eagerly.

Magdalen turned away. "I wish he were
more manly, and did not cry so soon," she
said to herself; "and O! how I wish that
he was more of a man of the world, and
understood the realities of life better than he
does!"

In the terrible conflicts of real passion — in
her first outstep into actual life—the vague
and dreamy hopes of Paul ; his impracticable
assertions, his unreal romance, and the
sufficiency to him of mere words of — the mere
visions they called up, rose through the
tumult in her own heart like the notes of an
Æolian harp through the clang of martial
music. They were very beautiful, but
meaningless; without purpose or design; vague
sounds, struck mournfully and at hazard by
the passing wind. What she wanted then
was some powerful manly practical adviser,
on whom she could rely for real assistance.
Paul's poetry was very lovely, but very
unstable; and, in spite of all his assertions
respecting the strength that he bestowed,
Magdalena felt that a child would have been
as useful in her present pass as he. He
wearied her, too. Like a hungry man, she
wanted substance, and he gave her only
dreams and visions. She began to be
conscious of his weakness; not confessedly
conscious, but none the less really so; sensitive,
tender as he was; easily wounded, easily
soothed again by caresses; so living on words,
and so satisfied with them; so certain that in
the future — that future which never comes
to the idealist — he would be touching pencil
or brush, and spending his days in dreams
and love-making; a power in art, yet
seldom child-like in actual experience, but
child-like in his vain belief that he had
received all the teaching life could give him, and
that he did not require further experience.

"No, no," Magdalen used to say to herself,
"he is nor guide nor strength to me."

Paul saw something of this feeling. He
knew that his words often fell coldly on
her ear, and that not a pulse of her calm,
strong heart beat in unison with his, throbbing
wildly at the future of fame and influence
he was picturing. And soon he knew,
too, that her character was developing itself
in a direction away from him, and that her
soul was disengaging itself from his. But he
shut his eyes to that, and only suffered
instead of acknowledging.

                   CHAPTER IV.

BEFORE proceeding to extremities, Andrew
wrote again and again to Magdalen. Altering