HOW CHANCES MOCK.
II Henry IV.; in.—I.

Early on the following forenoon Helen took her way to the studio. She was in unusually good spirits that day, for no especial reason that she could have told, although indeed it is possible that the prospect of meeting Grant Herman may have subtly contributed to the buoyancy of her mood.

She walked briskly through the bracing morning across the Common, her mind full of bright fancies. A thin column of smoke arose from the chimney of the lodge in the deer-park, rising straight in the clear air, and cheerfully suggestive that some tiny family, not too large for the building, were at breakfast within. It might even be the deer themselves; and Helen smiled at her whim, almost laughing outright as a picture arose of a matronly doe preparing coffee, while a solemn buck sat in his easy chair before the fire, reading his morning paper and now and then glancing at his wife over his spectacles.

In this joyous mood she came to the studio. A sudden thought darted through her mind, with no apparent connection, of the talk of the night previous, and for an instant her face clouded; but the exhilaration of the morning and the reaction from the sad, overstrained state in which her husband had left her, both helped her to throw off all mournful thoughts. Ninitta had not arrived, and Mrs. Greyson busied herself about the bas-relief, preparing for work. Suddenly the tap of Grant Herman sounded upon her door.

"Good morning," he said, entering in response to her invitation. "I knew by your step that you were in good spirits, and it gave me so much pleasure to think you were glad to be back, that I had to come up."

"I am in good spirits," she returned. "It is such a glorious morning, and Ninitta has kept me away from my work long enough for me to be very glad to return to it."

"What of Ninitta?" he asked, a shadow coming over his fine face. "She is not still with you?"

"No, but she is coming to pose this morning, though I hardly think she is strong enough."

The sculptor took in his hands a bit of clay and began nervously to model it into various shapes.

"Why did you take her home, Mrs. Greyson?" he asked after a moment's silence.

"Because she needed me," Helen answered. "And besides," she added hesitatingly, "I thought you would like her to be under my care."

"Did you?" he returned eagerly. "I was more grateful to you than you would let me tell you! I—"

He broke off abruptly as if determined to keep himself from any dangerous demonstrativeness.

"Come into my studio a moment," said he, throwing down the clay he held. "I have something to show you."

Helen followed willingly, glad to avoid the chance of their being interrupted by the arrival of Ninitta, whose jealousy might easily be aroused again. The sculptor led the way through a couple of chambers, bringing her out at the top of the stairs leading down in the corner of his studio. The morning sun shone in through the window far up in the side wall, tinged to rich colors by the stained glass which Herman had set there. The statues and casts looked in the light coming from above them, as if they had just emerged from garments of shadows which yet lay fallen about their feet. Helen uttered an exclamation of admiration.

"How charming the studio is in this light," she said. "It is like looking down into a ghost world."

"It is a ghost world," was the response. "It has long been haunted, but I had not supposed that any eyes but my own saw the wraiths which dwell here."

The vibratory quality in his voice warned her not to answer. She felt that she stood upon the brink of a significant interview, yet she lacked the resolution to turn back.

She descended the first flight of steps into the gallery, the sculptor following closely. She could not have defined to herself what she wished or intended. Somewhat paradoxically she wished to escape from Herman, yet had she fled she would have been unhappy had he not pursued. Nothing is more contradictory than a nascent passion, and, indeed, the tenderness of any woman for a man is not very profound if unmixed with some desire to escape from him.

All sorts of artistic rubbish had accumulated in the little gallery; broken casts, fragments of statues and vases, pieces of time discolored marble, and the thousand objects which make up the dÉbris of a sculptor's studio. A bit of warm colored though faded tapestry hung dustily over the railing of the little balcony, making the white-plaster goddess appear doubly wan. Against it stood a small antique altar, around whose base a train of garland-bearing Cupids danced in immortal glee.

"How lovely," Mrs. Greyson said eagerly. "I never saw this altar before. Where did you get it, and why is it hidden up here?"

"I picked it up in Rome, years ago," Herman returned, a trifle shamefacedly. "It came from somewhere in Greece. Isn't it beautiful?"

"Yes; but why is it hidden here?" she repeated.

"The truth is that when I was young and romantic, I bought that altar—it is a Hymeneal altar, they say—and said I would pour a libation upon it at my marriage; a sentimental and heathenish notion enough."

He paused a moment, a certain hesitancy showing itself more and more definitely in his manner. He glanced at his companion, then looked away into the ghost world below. Her heart was beating quickly. She cast down her eyes, her hand, the whiter by contrast with the discolored marble, resting upon the altar.

"When I left Rome," he resumed, "I could not quite make up my mind to leave it behind; so I had it boxed up and sent home. It has been boxed up ever since until—until recently."

However determined Helen might be to avoid dangerous topics, she was yet a woman, and she had in her heart a strong yearning towards the sculptor which could hardly be repressed. Before she had considered to what the question might lead, she asked:

"And recently?"

"Recently," re-echoed he, regaining his composure, "I took it out and meant it to stand down in the corner there to remind me."

He pointed as he spoke, down into the studio below, still dim, since the screens covered the large windows. Her glance followed his motion in an abstracted, impersonal way.

"To remind you?" she in turn echoed.

"To remind me," he took up the words again, "that I am like other men, and that life is at best an aspiration; at worst a despair."

She understood the intimation of his words, but it seemed not to touch her. She did not flush or start, but regarded abstractedly the jocund Cupids. Then she raised her eyes to his face.

"But you removed it here."

"Yes," he said. "Our friend Fenton once said that there is in this world only one good, into which all others resolve themselves—the amelioration of life. The reminder, with all its suggestiveness, was too poignant; I ameliorated my life by putting it up here out of sight."

She did not question him further, but, gathering up her dress, turned and went down the next flight of stairs, which brought her to a landing eight or ten feet from the floor of the studio. There she turned again and looked back at him descending. She almost seemed to herself not to speak, yet by some inward volition her lips formed the words:

"Hope is only a bubble, yet it rims with rainbows whatever we see mirrored in it."

"Yes?" he returned, inquiringly.

"I was only thinking," replied she, continuing her descent, "that it is worth some pains to keep the bubble unbroken as long as possible."

"But facts are such achromatic glasses."

To this she made no answer, and together they moved towards a modeling stand upon which stood something covered with wet cloths. These the sculptor carefully removed.

A perfectly nude male figure was disclosed, exquisitely modeled, and of superb proportions. It lay upon a hillock, about which fragments of broken weapons and the torn ground indicated a recent battle. The head and limbs of the figure drooped down the sides of the mound, falling with the limpness of death. About the noble, lifeless head were bent and broken stalks of poppies, ridden down by the horses, yet not wholly destroyed.

Herman and Mrs. Greyson stood in silence looking at the figure, the pathos of the work so penetrating Helen that the tears gathered in her eyes.

"What do you call it?" she asked, struggling to regain composure.

Her companion pulled away the cloth, which still lay against the pedestal, and she saw the words:

"I strew these opiate flowers
Round thy restless pillow."

Again she was silent. Perplexity, regret, and, more keenly than all, a delicious exultation, overcame her. She stole a half-glance up into the face of the tall form beside her.

"But he is dead," she murmured at length.

"It seems so," he assented.

She turned and faced him, a sudden paleness making her very lips white.

"I have no right to let you show me this," she cried, in a voice thrilling with emotion. "My husband is alive. I never pretended to love him, but I am his wife. You must have seen him with Arthur Fenton—Dr. Ashton."

"Dr. Ashton!" he echoed, in bewilderment. "Your husband? Dr. Ashton,
Teuton's friend?"

"Yes," replied she, her eyes falling, and her breast beginning to heave. "I had promised not to tell; but it was not right. I should have told you, but I could not bear—Oh," she cried, breaking off her sentence abruptly, "if you despise me it is only my due!"

"Despise you! As if it were possible! But don't you know? Haven't you been told?"

"Know? Been told?" demanded Helen, in alarm. "What is it?"

"Haven't you seen the morning paper, even?"

"No. What was in it? Has any thing happened to Dr. Ashton?"

"Yes," Herman said slowly, wondering in a baffled way if 'it was possible to soften the blow. "He is dead."

"Dead!"

Her cry rang out sharply in the dim studio, over that clay figure of a lifeless warrior.

A cry of horror, of pain, and, too, of remorse. There was in it nothing of love, only that nameless fear that death brings, and still more that groundless self-reproach which sensitive natures must feel when confronted by the irremediable—as if some blame must be taken for the acts of fate. Imaginative natures never quite shake off the responsibility of the inevitable, and Helen began instinctively to question herself. The scene of the previous night came before her. Ought she to have yielded to the love which had called her, late aftermath of a blighted wedded life? At least when her husband spoke of his suffering she might more strongly—A sudden thought pierced her like a knife.

"How did he die?" she questioned breathlessly.

"Of heart disease."

So then the world would not know the truth, if what she feared were truth.

"I will go home," she said. "Please tell Ninitta."

When she reached her rooms she found a letter, addressed in Dr. Ashton's hand, which the penny-post had left for her after she had gone out in the morning. It contained only an impression in wax which resembled a large seal. With hot eyes she bent over it, making nothing of its reversed letters. Then, with a sudden thought, she held it before the glass, seeing in the mirror the words, which read backwards, like the life of him whose last act had been their forming:

"DEATH FOILS THE GODS."