Fenwick's Career

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

'Perfectly. And she was the model for the big picture, too? I see. A lovely creature! How old is she now?'

'Thirty-six—if she lives.'

'I tell you, she does live! Probably more beautiful now than she was then. Those Madonna-like women mellow so finely. And the child? Vois-tu, Anatole!—something superior to monkeys!'

But he pressed the little animal closer to him as he spoke. Fenwick rose to go, conscious that he had stayed too long. Watson looked up.

'Good-bye, old man—courage! Seek—till you find. She's in the world—and she's sorry. I could swear it.'

Fenwick stood beside him, quivering with emotion and despondency.

Their eyes met steadily, and Watson whispered:

'I pass from one thing to another. Sometimes it's Omar Khayyám—"One thing is certain and the rest is lies—The flower that once is born for ever dies"—and the next it's the Psalms, and I think I'm at a prayer-meeting—a Welsh Methodist again.'

He fell into a flow of Welsh, hoarsely musical. Then, with a smile, he nodded farewell; and Fenwick went.

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