He had many of this world's blessings. Wealth, position, influence. By some curious fate he now stood isolated, no particular human being having a claim upon him. Hosts of acquaintances stood ready to come at his beck, partake of his bounty, applaud his fine taste, his superior judgment, and feel proud of the honor accorded them. But this did not satisfy him. It left an emptiness and weariness of soul; a hunger and poverty that narrow, self-satisfied natures never dreamed of, could not even comprehend.

And yet he had sometimes fancied that he could be content to drift with the tide. To-night the grand major chords of existence had been touched. He had tried to lose himself in the different regions of intellectual fascinations; he had taken up art, music, and religion by turns, and found that some peculiar power of application was lacking. He had not roused himself to any earnest endeavor, save where his own integrity before God and man had been concerned. That he had kept his soul stainless was no special merit in his own eyes. He was far too fastidious for any of the forms of vice to be alluring.

With his intense and subtle vitality he had found much to enjoy. He had endured his fiery trial, and found that suffering, nobly borne, ennobles the heart. Rich in a certain self-sustaining power, he had never feared loneliness; and yet there comes a time in the lives of many when they are weary of experimenting upon themselves, and turn to general humanity, willing to risk coldness and ingratitude, so that they may but benefit their kind.

And now an overruling Providence had brought Tresorier within his orbit. There was a work to be done for him. Influence to be used in a skilful manner, patronage that would not wound the sensitive pride, and yet bring him before the public, advance him to his true height. But the rare soul he meant to keep intact for himself. He possessed an exclusiveness amounting almost to jealousy. There were certain moods and feelings that it seemed sacrilege to share with more than one, and

what he gained for himself alone he most earnestly desired to keep. Once established in his empire over Tresorier's heart, he could afford to defy the rest of the world.

And then he thought of the one who must ever come between, whose right was first and strongest. It was foolish to dislike a woman of whom he knew nothing, but he felt that in some manner she had interfered with Tresorier's full and harmonious development. Her love must be weak, her soul narrow, since she had failed to anchor her husband's heart. Was there not a lonely depth she had never reached?

Yet she was an immutable fact. He could not ignore her, and every feeling of honor protested against widening the but half-conscious breach. It was necessary, then, to overplan her. And since his first miserable failure in life he had studied women deeply, not with the scorn of a shallow brain, but the breadth of a ripe and rare intelligence. Still he could not blind himself to the fact that in some strange manner they must always be rivals.

VI.

ARIEL.

IF Felix Dana had followed out his first impulse, he would have sought Tresorier the next day; but he understood him much too well. He meant to give him time to wonder a little, and perhaps experience a want of him. He could even endure to be doubted. In this he planned wisely.

For with Claude's earliest retrospection came an agony at the thought of the betrayal he had made. The reaction from a long reserve, and the fascination there had been in this interchange of soul with one who seemed to divine thoughts before they were fairly uttered, had thrown him off his guard. And now he dreaded seeing Dana, with a nervous and morbid terror. What use would he make of the knowledge he had gained? Go on probing the heart that lay quivering before his eyes possess himself of the dread secret before the time? Only a strong will could have kept such a rebellious soul in order. He listened to every footstep with senses warily acute, and a ring at the hall door served to send him into a state of active resistance. More than once he resolved not to see Dana again.

Or

To this mood succeeded a calm, an indifference, the result of stoicism rather than courage. And then a fear that tortured his sensitive pride. What if he had been used for the transient amusement of this man, who had the dangerous faculty of penetrating the secret recesses of one's nature? what if Dana considered him deficient in that real fineness of soul that could rightly appreciate kindness so delicately bestowed? And now that the first brilliancy of the dream was fading, he clung to it with frantic eagerness.

Therefore the relief was delightful, when one evening the housekeeper announced his coming. Mrs. Tresorier had taken her child out for a walk in the pleasant sunset air, and Claude was alone in his studio.

"Show him up, please," he said, quietly, but every pulse throbbed with unwonted emotion.

There was a shy grace in his welcome, which, if a trifle constrained, was not so from any lack of pleasure. Dana read in a moment that he had come at a most auspicious time. The longing was at its height, a flood tide of warmth, lighting and beautifying friendship.

"My dear fellow," Dana said, with his easy insouciance, after the first greeting was over; "in my fear of boring you I have half martyrized myself. Give me credit for some self-denial.” "Why did you not come before?" he asked, simply. "You would have been welcome."

"Would I?" Dana gave a curious smile, that made the other color vividly. "You have quite forgiven me, then?" Claude made an effort to recollect. "There was nothing to forgive," he said, slowly.

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Absolutely nothing? I am compelled to believe you, for there is an expression of fine honor in your face that satisfies me, sets me at rest. But while it is light, let us look at your pictures. We can talk afterwards."

"There are only a few. You will see that I have had just one inspiration."

"Which is mine;" and Dana turned upon him that fascinating smile, dangerous alike to man or woman. powerless to resist the subtile mastery.

Claude felt

"It is such a poor feast," he began, despondingly.

"It will be better some day. I have much ambition for you. And I think you were brave to dare the battle single-handed. You must have had unbounded love for it."

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And urgent necessity," added Claude, "which kept me from dreaming my life away, as I might have done."

Some old remembrance reasserted itself in his face, and he made a gesture, as if to thrust it out of sight. "I honor your perseverance all the more. But I was speaking the other evening of a landscape. Is this for sale? Dana indicated the picture of a sunset striking upon a rocky declivity, broken here and there by knots of brilliant autumn foliage. At the base ran a tiny stream of water, visible only at intervals, but defined through the rank grass and reeds.

"I shall be glad to dispose of it.”

"And my friend wants a sunset. Will you trust me to make a bargain for you?"

"I shall be deeply indebted. Your partiality for me must not render you oblivious of its faults. It is one of my early pieces retouched, and it always vexes me. If one could imprison such rays as that," and Claude glanced from the window.

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It is well we cannot, for we should be as gods. There's something in that glory and immensity that cannot be put upon canvas. And the eye never wearies of it, for its variety is endless. It stirs the soul's inmost depths."

“Mr. Dana, I wonder you are not an artist," Claude said, suddenly.

my

“Because I am subject to artistic impressions? That is misfortune, or rather my pleasure, since I cannot create. When I first grew up some time I will tell you all about it, but now I shall only say, that I had a most intense longing to achieve distinction. Law, politics, and medicine were not sufficiently æsthetic for me. And youth has unbounded confidence in itself! Well, I tried painting. I used to have such glowing, tantalizing visions. I went at it scientifically, too, and toiled patiently for a long while, but the divine inspiration forever eluded me. Correct lines and prosaic materialism, or faithful imitation, is not all. The soul must be transcribed to thrill and enthrall. I could feel my ideal in every pulse of my being, in every drop of my blood, but it never came to the