of womanhood, to begin with, if something had not happened, to her delight, to render it unnecessary.  A friend of her husband’s, the editor of the most important newspaper in the city and county, who was dining with them one day, observed during their conversation about the poet that his (the editor’s) brother the landscape-painter was a friend of Mr. Trewe’s, and that the two men were at that very moment in Wales together.

Ella was slightly acquainted with the editor’s brother.  The next morning down she sat and wrote, inviting him to stay at her house for a short time on his way back, and requesting him to bring with him, if practicable, his companion Mr. Trewe, whose acquaintance she was anxious to make.  The answer arrived after some few days.  Her correspondent and his friend Trewe would have much satisfaction in accepting her invitation on their way southward, which would be on such and such a day in the following week.

Ella was blithe and buoyant.  Her scheme had succeeded; her beloved though as yet unseen one was coming.  “Behold, he standeth behind our wall; he looked forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice,” she thought ecstatically.  “And, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”

But it was necessary to consider the details of lodging and feeding him.  This she did most solicitously, and awaited the pregnant day and hour.

It was about five in the afternoon when she heard a ring at the door and the editor’s brother’s voice in the hall.  Poetess as she was, or as she thought herself, she had not been too sublime that day to dress with infinite trouble in a fashionable robe of rich material, having a faint resemblance to the chiton of the Greeks, a style just then in vogue among ladies of an artistic and romantic turn, which had been obtained by Ella of her Bond Street dressmaker when she was last in London.  Her visitor entered the drawing-room.  She looked towards his rear; nobody else came through the door.  Where, in the name of the God of Love, was Robert Trewe?

‘O, I’m sorry,’ said the painter, after their introductory words had been spoken.  ‘Trewe is a curious fellow, you know, Mrs. Marchmill.  He said he’d come; then he said he couldn’t.  He’s rather dusty.  We’ve been doing a few miles with knapsacks, you know; and he wanted to get on home.’

‘He—he’s not coming?’

‘He’s not; and he asked me to make his apologies.’

‘When did you p-p-part from him?’ she asked, her nether lip starting off quivering so much that it was like a tremolo-stop opened in her speech.  She longed to run away from this dreadful bore and cry her eyes out.

‘Just now, in the turnpike road yonder there.’

‘What! he has actually gone past my gates?’

‘Yes.  When we got to them—handsome gates they are, too, the finest bit of modern wrought-iron work I have seen—when we came to them we stopped, talking there a little while, and then he wished me good-bye and went on.  The truth is, he’s a little bit depressed just now, and doesn’t want to see anybody.  He’s a very good fellow, and a warm friend, but a little uncertain and gloomy sometimes; he thinks too much of things.  His poetry is rather too erotic and passionate, you know, for some tastes; and he has just come in for a terrible slating from the --- Review that was published yesterday; he saw a copy of it at the station by accident.  Perhaps you’ve read it?’

‘No.’

‘So much the better.  O, it is not worth thinking of; just one of those articles written to order, to please the narrow-minded set of subscribers upon whom the circulation depends.  But he’s upset by it.  He says it is the misrepresentation that hurts him so; that, though he can stand a fair attack, he can’t stand lies that he’s powerless to refute and stop from spreading.  That’s just Trewe’s weak point.  He lives so much by himself that these things affect him much more than they would if he were in the bustle of fashionable or commercial life.  So he wouldn’t come here, making the excuse that it all looked so new and monied—if you’ll pardon—’

‘But—he must have known—there was sympathy here!  Has he never said anything about getting letters from this address?’

‘Yes, yes, he has, from John Ivy—perhaps a relative of yours, he thought, visiting here at the time?’

‘Did he—like Ivy, did he say?’

‘Well, I don’t know that he took any great interest in Ivy.’

‘Or in his poems?’

‘Or in his poems—so far as I know, that is.’

Robert Trewe took no interest in her house, in her poems, or in their writer.  As soon as she could get away she went into the nursery and tried to let off her emotion by unnecessarily kissing the children, till she had a sudden sense of disgust at being reminded how plain-looking they were, like their father.

The obtuse and single-minded landscape-painter never once perceived from her conversation that it was only Trewe she wanted, and not himself.  He made the best of his visit, seeming to enjoy the society of Ella’s husband, who also took a great fancy to him, and showed him everywhere about the neighbourhood, neither of them noticing Ella’s mood.

The painter had been gone only a day or two when, while sitting upstairs alone one morning, she glanced over the London paper just arrived, and read the following paragraph:-

‘SUICIDE OF A POET

‘Mr. Robert Trewe, who has been favourably known for some years as one of our rising lyrists, committed suicide at his lodgings at Solentsea on Saturday evening last by shooting himself in the right temple with a revolver.  Readers hardly need to be reminded that Mr. Trewe has recently attracted the attention of a much wider public than had hitherto known him, by his new volume of verse, mostly of an impassioned kind, entitled “Lyrics to a Woman Unknown,” which has been already favourably noticed in these pages for the extraordinary gamut of feeling it traverses, and which has been made the subject of a severe, if not ferocious, criticism in the --- Review.  It is supposed, though not certainly known, that the article may have partially conduced to the sad act, as a copy of the review in question was found on his writing-table; and he has been observed to be in a somewhat depressed state of mind since the critique appeared.’

Then came the report of the inquest, at which the following letter was read, it having been addressed to a friend at a distance:-

‘DEAR -,—Before these lines reach your hands I shall be delivered from the inconveniences of seeing, hearing, and knowing more of the things around me.  I will not trouble you by giving my reasons for the step I have taken, though I can assure you they were sound and logical.  Perhaps had I been blessed with a mother, or a sister, or a female friend of another sort tenderly devoted to me, I might have thought it worth while to continue my present existence.  I have long dreamt of such an unattainable creature, as you know, and she, this undiscoverable, elusive one, inspired my last volume; the imaginary woman alone, for, in spite of what has been said in some quarters, there is no real woman behind the title.  She has continued to the last unrevealed, unmet, unwon.  I think it desirable to mention this in order that no blame may attach to any real woman as having been the cause of my decease by cruel or cavalier treatment of me.  Tell my landlady that I am sorry to have caused her this unpleasantness; but my occupancy of the rooms will soon be forgotten.  There are ample funds in my name at the bank to pay all expenses.  R. TREWE.’

Ella sat for a while as if stunned, then rushed into the adjoining chamber and flung