The Well-Beloved

some residents at his former home, of the movements of the Bencombs. The extended voyage of Marcia's parents had given them quite a zest for other scenes and countries; and it was said

ssity for joining him had arisen; and thus the separation of himself and

the vanished Ideality. Thus during the first year of Miss Bencomb's absence, when absolutely bound to keep faith with the elusive one's late incarnation if she should return to claim him, this man of the odd fancy would sometimes tremble at the thought of what would become of his solemn intention if the Phantom were suddenly

at ever-bubbling spring of emotion which, without some conduit into space, will surge upwards and ruin all but the greatest men. It was probably owing to this, certainly not on acco

ithout effort.

nt of being a bachelor, he was floating in society without any soul-anchorage or shrine that he could call his own; and, for want of a domest

o mortal eye but his own. This indifference to the popular reception of his dream-figures lent him a curious ar

readth in mutable flesh what he was at that moment wishing to express in durable shape. He would dodge and follow the owner like a detective; in omnibus, in

his father's tons of freestone were daily landed from the ketches of the south coast. He could occasionally discern the white blocks lying there, vas

maturity advanced. It was possibly because of his utter domestic loneliness that, during the productive interval which followed the first years of Marcia's departure, when he was drif

t be, in an at first unnoticed lady, met at some fashionable evening party, exhibition, bazaar, or dinner; to flit from her, in turn, after a few months, and stand as a graceful shop-girl at some large drapery warehouse into which he had strayed on an unaccustomed errand. Then she would forsake this figure and redisclose herself in the guise of some popular authoress, piano-player, or fiddleress, at whose shrine he would worshi

full, curvilinear. Only one quality remained unalterable: her instabili

ness for me.' For all these dreams he translated into plaster, and found that by them he was hitting a public taste he had never deliberately aimed at, and mostly despi

for I admit that you are in practice as ideal as in theory. I mean the process will be reversed. Some woman, whose Well-Beloved flits about as

daily, like the Apostle's corporeal self; because when I grapple with the reali

u are older,'

- A YOUNG

ill needs tha

orce I mu

o chance ma

h and in

alway my

nd suffer

T.