“I thank you from my heart,” Lawrence Newt said to her. And taking her hand, he bent over it and kissed it. She sat looking at him, and at length said,
“Mayn’t I do any thing to show my gratitude?”
“You have already done more than I deserve,” replied Lawrence Newt. “I must go now. Good-by! God bless you!”
She heard his quick footfalls as he descended the stairs. For a long time the sombre woman sat rocking idly to and fro, holding her work in her hand, and with her eyes fixed upon the floor. She did not seem to see clearly, whatever it might be she was looking at. She shook out her work and straightened it, and folded it regularly, and looked at it as if the secret would pop out of the proper angle if she could only find it. Then she creased it and crimped it—still she could not see. Then she took a few stitches slowly, regarding fixedly a corner of the room as if the thought she was in search of was a mouse, and might at any moment run out of his hole and over the floor.
And after all the looking, she shook her head intelligently and fell quietly to work, as if the mystery were plain enough, saying to herself,
“Why didn’t I trust a girl’s instinct who loves as Amy does? Of course she is right. Dear! dear! Of course he loves Hope Wayne.”
CHAPTER LV. — ARTHUR MERLIN’S GREAT PICTURE.
Arthur Merlin had sketched his great picture of Diana and Endymion a hundred times. He talked of it with his friends, and smoked scores of boxes of cigars during the conversations. He had completed what he called the study for the work, which represented, he said, the Goddess alighting upon Latmos while Endymion slept. He pointed out to his companions, especially to Lawrence Newt, the pure antique classical air of the composition.