"I have nothing to tell you about myself," she answered, frankly. "I am alone in the world, without friends and without relations. The very name I use is not a real name. I was a foundling. At times I am sorry I do not belong to any one, and at other times I am glad. You know I am fond of books and of art, so my life is not altogether empty; and I find my pleasure in hard work. When I saw you at the gallery I wished to know you, and I asked one of the students who you were. He told me you were a misanthrope. Then I did not care so much about knowing you, until one day you spoke to me about my painting, and that was the beginning of our friendship."
"Forty years ago," he said, sadly, "the friend of my boyhood deceived me. I had not thought it possible that he could be false to me. He screened himself behind me, and became prosperous and respected at the expense of my honour. I vowed I would never again make a friend. A few years later, when I was beginning to hold up my head, the woman whom I loved deceived me. Then I put from me all affection and all love.
Greater natures than mine are better able to bear these troubles, but my heart contracted and withered up."
He paused for a moment, many recollections overpowering him. Then he went on telling her the history of his life, unfolding to her the story of his hopes and ambitions, describing to her the very home where he was born, and the dark-eyed sister whom he had loved, and with whom he had played over the daisied fields, and through the carpeted woods, and all among the richly tinted bracken. One day he was told she was dead, and that he must never speak her name; but he spoke it all the day and all the night,--Beryl, nothing but Beryl,-- and he looked for her in the fields and in the woods and among the bracken. It seemed as if he had unlocked the casket of his heart, closed for so many years, and as if all the memories of the past and all the secrets of his life were rushing out, glad to be free once more, and grateful for the open air of sympathy.
"Beryl was as swift as a deer!" he exclaimed. "You would have laughed to see her on the moor. Ah, it was hard to give up all the thoughts of meeting her again. They told me I should see her in heaven, but I did not care about heaven. I wanted Beryl on earth, as I knew her, a merry laughing sister. I think you are right: we don't forget; we become resigned in a dead, dull kind of way."
Suddenly he said, "I don't know why I have told you all this. And yet it has been such a pleasure to me. You are the only person to whom I could have spoken about myself, for no one else but you would have cared."
"Don't you think," she said gently, "that you made a mistake in letting your experiences embitter you? Because you had been unlucky in one or two instances it did not follow that all the world was against you. Perhaps you unconsciously put yourself against all the world, and therefore saw every one in an unfavourable light. It seems so easy to do that. Trouble comes to most people, doesn't it? And your philosophy should have taught you to make the best of it. At least, that is my notion of the value of philosophy."
She spoke hesitatingly, as though she gave utterance to these words against her will.
"I am sure you are right, child," he said, eagerly.
He put his hands to his eyes, but he could not keep back the tears.
"I have been such a lonely old man," he sobbed; "no one can tell what a lonely, loveless life mine has been. If I were not so old and so tired I should like to begin all over again."
He sobbed for many minutes, and she did not know what to say to him of comfort; but she took his hand within her own, and gently caressed it, as one might do to a little child in pain. He looked up and smiled through his tears.
"You have been very good to me," he said, "and I dare say you have thought me ungrateful. You mended my coat for me one morning, and not a day has passed but that I have looked at that darn and thought of you. I liked to remember that you had done it for me. But you have done far more than this for me: you have put some sweetness into my life. Whatever becomes of me hereafter, I shall never be able to think of my life on earth as anything but beautiful, because you thought kindly of me and acted kindly for me. The other night, when this terrible pain came over me, I wished you were near me; I wished to hear your voice. There is very beautiful music in your voice."
"I would have come to you gladly," she said, smiling quietly at him.
"You must make a promise that when you feel ill again you will send for me. Then you will see what a splendid nurse I am, and how soon you will become strong and well under my care, strong enough to paint many more pictures, each one better than the last. Now will you promise?"
"Yes," he said, and he raised her hand reverently to his lips.
"You are not angry with me for doing that?" he asked, suddenly. "I should not like to vex you."
"I am not vexed," she answered, kindly.
"Then perhaps I may kiss it once more?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered; and again he raised her hand to his lips.
"Thank you," he said quietly; "that was kind of you. Do you see that broken sun-ray yonder? Is it not golden? I find it very pleasant to sit here; and I am quite happy, and almost free from pain. Lately I have been troubled with a dull thudding pain near my heart; but now I feel so strong that I believe I shall finish that Andrea del Sarto after all."
"Of course you will," she answered, cheerily, "and I shall have to confess that yours is better than mine! I am quite willing to yield the palm to you."
"I must alter the expression of the mouth," he replied. "That is the part which has worried me. I don't think I told you that I have had a commission to copy Rembrandt's 'Old Jew.' I must set to work on that next week."
"But you have given me your palette and brushes!" she laughed.
"You must be generous enough to lend them to me," he said, smiling.
