Mr. Gresham, faithful to his promise, appeared once more in London early in December, and remained till he had seen his ward, together with her safeguard, Mrs. Cumberbatch, comfortably settled in the new house in Highbury. The intercourse between Helen and her guardian during the period of removal was extremely slight. The former left to Mrs. Cumberbatch, who gloried in the trust, the whole business of choosing the furniture, and Mr. Gresham was not displeased to have this means of avoiding communication with his ward, in whose presence he could never feel altogether at his ease. Only once did Helen consult him as to her future life, and that was with reference to Lucy Venning. The artist, with characteristic politeness, expressed his complete concurrence in Miss Norman’s plans, saying that he esteemed it a most happy idea, and one which, had he been acquainted with a suitable person, he should certainly have himself suggested. But he showed no desire to make the acquaintance of Miss Venning, being quite content to repose all confidence in Helen’s discrimination. As Mr. Gresham grew older he became more and more convinced that the true philosophy of life consisted in minimising one’s share in the troublesome details of the world’s business. On the very day succeeding that of Helen’s ultimate settlement in Holly Cottage, Mr. Gresham took his departure. Even now he felt that unnecessary delay in the neighbourhood of his fair ward would be dangerous to his peace of mind.

Mr. Heatherley lost no time in paying Helen a visit in her new home. He came on New Year’s eve and found her sitting alone in the pleasant little room which was especially her own, and which she had arranged in the manner of a study. Mrs. Cumberbatch was enjoying herself at a festive gathering with some of her numerous acquaintances, and Lucy Venning, who now made her home with Helen, was passing the evening with her father. Helen met her visitor with a cheerful, even a gay, reception.

“Doubtless I disturb you in some deep and serious philosophical investigation,” said the clergyman, with that slight tone of good-humoured banter with which he generally spoke of Helen’s studies.

“By no means,” she replied, resuming her seat by the fire. “I must actually confess that I had descended to the frivolity of the newspaper. To tell you the truth I feel a little tired tonight and not quite fit for serious work.”

“I suppose you have been receiving a good many visitors since you became settled?”

“Visitors?” asked Helen, smiling.

“Yes,” replied the clergyman. “I mean your friends and acquaintances.”

“You are the first of such visitors, Mr. Heatherley,” said Helen, “and in all probability will he the last. Besides yourself I have neither friends nor acquaintances upon whose visits I may depend.”

“Your life must be a strangely solitary one, Miss Norman,” said Mr. Heatherley, after regarding her for a moment with some appearance of surprise.

“I will confess that I have now and then felt it to be so,” returned Helen, “and on that account I persuaded Lucy Venning to come and be a companion for me.”

There was a brief silence, during which the clergyman knit his brows and appeared to be reflecting upon some rather disagreeable subject.

“I heard of that for the first time,” he said at length, “about a week ago, from Mr. Venning.”

“With pleasure or the opposite?” asked Helen, adding immediately, “perhaps with indifference?”

“Certainly not with indifference,” he replied, coughing slightly and keeping his eyes fixed on the fire, whilst he rested his hands upon his knees in a manner customary with him when about to speak seriously. After pausing for a moment, during which Helen regarded him with a curious look, he again coughed and proceeded.

“May I ask what kind of companionship you look for from Miss Venning?”

“The companionship of a pleasant friend,” replied Helen. “When I am merry she chats with me; when I am in a more earnest mood she saves me from the unpleasant habit of soliloquy. We have taken up a course of reading, too, together. I hope to be able to teach Lucy much that she has hitherto had no opportunity of learning.”

“That I anticipated, Miss Norman,” said Mr. Heatherley, “and it was partly in consequence of this anticipation that I came to see you to-night. If I speak to you with some freedom on a matter of grave interest to me, I am sure you will not take it amiss?”

“I trust you will not do me the wrong of thinking otherwise, Mr. Heatherley.”

“Then I will take the liberty of asking you one more question. Does it enter into your plans to impart to Miss Venning your views on the subject of religion?”

“I have no such intention,” replied Helen, smiling. “Lucy believes me as orthodox in all such matters as she is herself. Indeed, I feel sure that her simple mind is incapable of conceiving heterodoxy as grave as mine; or, if it be, she certainly could not attribute such depravity to the most abandoned of criminals. So careful have I been lest I should prove a rock of offence to her, that I have resolved to be guilty of habitual falsehood, in leading her to suppose that I visit a place of worship in the West End each Sunday. I think you will admit that it is a pious fraud, Mr. Heatherley?”

The clergyman made no immediate reply, but continued to sit with his hands upon his knees, gazing into the fire.

“What are you reading with her at present?” he asked.

“One or two of ‘Macaulay’s Essays,’” she replied, with a smile.

“Is Miss Venning an apt pupil?”

“Extremely so. Her intelligence is admirable, and the excellence of her heart is a guarantee for the soundness of her moral judgment.”

“You have relieved my mind from a very disagreeable load, Miss Norman,” said Mr. Heatherley, after a brief silence. “If you think I have been guilty of an injustice towards you in being for a moment fearful, I beg you will pardon me in consideration of the interests at stake. Since Miss Venning’s joining you in the work of the evening classes, I have seen in her qualities which before I had never suspected, knowing her only as a good and quiet member of my Sunday School. I will confess, too, that your evident fondness of her society has increased my interest in her. It would have been impossible for me to stand by whilst the foundations of her faith were being attacked, and perhaps hopelessly destroyed. But, as I said, you have relieved my mind.”

Finding Helen’s eyes closely fixed upon him, his face coloured slightly as he finished speaking, and, almost immediately, he turned the conversation into a wholly different channel. At the end of about half-an-hour he rose to go.

“I have not made a formal enquiry after your health, Miss Norman,” he said, as he was drawing on his great coat, “for I deemed it unnecessary. For the last few weeks I have been astonished at your improvement. The weather has been so extremely trying, and yet you appear to grow better in health and spirits every day.”

“I certainly do feel much better than I did,” replied Helen, with a slight laugh. “I am somewhat at a loss to account for it.”

“Well, do not, for all that, presume upon your strength. You certainly ought not to walk about much in the snow. Pray take counsel from the past, and exercise prudence.”

“Oh, Mr. Heatherley,” exclaimed Helen, “how can you have the heart to advise me to think so much of my own comfort, when the poor are suffering so terribly! I think if I were ever so ill the thought of starvation in those terrible hovels in weather such as this would compel me to keep at work. Help is more than ever needed just now, and certainly there is more gratification in affording it than when the need is less obvious. I met this morning a wretched woman whom I scarcely ever see sober, and could not help buying her a warm gown and a cloak. I feel almost sure that before tomorrow they will both be pawned for drink, but I could not do otherwise.”

“I often think I am becoming somewhat hard-hearted,” replied the clergyman, as he held out his hand. “I refused charity this morning under very similar circumstances. I cannot afford to throw away what might be of real use.”

The next two months passed quickly both for Helen Norman and for Arthur Golding. During that period they only saw each other once, and then without interchange of more than a bow, and yet there were not many minutes during the day in which the thoughts of each were not occupied with the other. Both were happy, for both were nourishing their hearts with the anticipation of a blissful future, though probably neither ventured to peer too closely into the golden mist which swam before their eyes.

During this time the constant presence of Lucy Venning was inexpressibly comforting to Helen. Without assumedly making her simple friend a confidante in the secret emotions of her heart, Helen did not hesitate to speak to her of Arthur as she would have spoken to no one else, reposing the most absolute trust in Lucy’s discreet and affectionate nature. The latter soon understood that it gave Helen the utmost joy to see any specimen of Arthur’s work, and her woman’s nature taught her how to meet half way Arthur’s wish that she should be the means of taking drawings to Holly Cottage. Every Sunday she spent at home with her father, and sometimes one or two evenings in the week also; and at such times Arthur was sure to find an opportunity of giving into her care a small parcel which she took away with her, and brought back on her next visit. Once or twice Lucy was entrusted to express to Arthur, in private, Miss Norman’s special delight in some drawing she had seen; whereupon Arthur at once sent it back again, begging that Miss Norman would accept it from him. And these gifts Helen treasured up with unspeakable care.

At length, early in March, Lucy was once more entrusted with a message to the effect that Arthur would feel grateful if Miss Norman could accord him an interview on a matter of some importance. She brought back the answer that on the following Sunday morning, about eleven o’clock, Miss Norman would be at liberty. At this time Helen knew that Mrs. Cumberbatch would be attending her special place of worship in the Mile End Road, exercising her eternal curiosity on the concerns of heaven instead of those of earth. She felt sure she knew the purpose of Arthur’s visit, and she looked forward to it with an impatience even greater than that she had experienced three months ago.

She received him in the drawing-room, a handsomely-furnished apartment which looked out on to the little garden in front of the house, the view being strictly circumscribed within this small area by the high hedge of impenetrable holly-bushes which skirted the garden on all three sides. The privacy thus secured was delightful to Helen, who detested the sight of vulgar and pretentious people, such as she knew her neighbours on either side to be. She looked forward with delightful anticipation to the warm days of summer, when she would be able to sit on the lawn, and yet be as private as though in her own room.

They met with perfect freedom from embarrassment, and with a keen joy on both sides which neither affected to conceal. After a few introductory sentences exchanged, Arthur proceeded to state the object of his visit.

“A fortnight today, Miss Norman,” he said, “will be my twenty-first birth-day. As Mr. Gresham has, of course, no knowledge of my address, I wish to apprise him of it; but before I can do that, I must know where to write to.”

“I will give you the address,” replied Helen, taking up a piece of paper and writing upon it. “Mr. Gresham lives in France now.”

Arthur took the paper, and, after reading the address, put it in his purse. There was a minute’s silence, during which his eyes wandered round the pictures on the walls. At length they fell upon one of his own drawings, hanging framed in a good light. He turned his head quickly towards Helen, and their eyes met. The latter blushed, bent for a moment over a book which lay open on the table, and then forced herself to speak.

“Are you a reader of poetry, Mr. Golding?” she asked, rustling over the leaves before her, whilst Arthur stood enraptured with the unconscious grace of her attitude and the glowing beauty of her countenance.

“I have had neither time nor opportunity to read as much as I should like to,” he replied. “Shakespeare, and many of the older poets, I learned to love from Mr. Tollady. Of the modern writers, I think I know Shelley best. But perhaps I am more capable of appreciating his principles than his poetry. To enjoy the latter requires, I fear, more culture than I may pretend to.”

“Oh, you underrate your own powers, Mr. Golding,” replied Helen, earnestly. “The very fact that you like Shelley proves you are able to appreciate him. He is not a poet to attract vacant minds by mere empty jingle or easily-digested platitudes. I myself learnt to love Shelley from my father when a mere child, and now I prize him as my surest safeguard against despair of the world. Those who, like myself, see too much of the evil and discouraging side of life, cannot afford to dispense with poetry.”

“I have often thought the same with regard to my own art,” replied Arthur. “I know scarcely anything of the life which is raised above sordid cares and miseries, except from what I have read in books and imagined in my too-frequent daydreams; yet no sooner do I take up a pencil than I seem to taste all the delights of a higher and nobler existence, where the only food which is yearned after is that of the mind and the heart, and where the joys and sorrows are deeper and purer than those of the every-day world. How much I have to thank you for, Miss Norman!” he added, with a voice which trembled with emotion. “Had it not been for your encouraging words I might still have been suffering unspeakable wretchedness. At present I look back upon that time in which I had no thought of art as a period of something worse than death. I think it would be impossible for me to sink into such apathy again.”

“I trust it would be,” she replied. “And yet I am not sure you do right in speaking of it as apathy. Even then your mind was occupied with no ignoble thoughts. No, no; you must not call it apathy; for the thoughts and the plans which then engrossed your attention were the very same which will, I trust, form the occupation of my whole life. I have become convinced, Mr. Golding, that we should not regret any single event in our lives which was not absolutely the result of an evil purpose. Every such event has been necessary for our development; without it we should have lacked some useful experience which has contributed to the formation of our character. I am very optimistic in my philosophy,” she added, smiling, “and it is happy for me I can be so. The difference between my own point of view and that of a pious Christian who says that everything is for the best, is not really so great as it might at first sight appear.”

She watched the result of these words upon him carefully, and was pleased to see the smile of intelligence and sympathy which rose to his lips as she spoke. There was something of pain, too, in the expression of his face, which she attributed to the recollection of some by-gone unhappiness, and which affected her with compassion unspeakably tender. Again a brief silence ensued, during which she turned over the leaves of the book on the table.

“I was reading Tennyson when you came,” she said. “There is a deep, glad ring of hope throughout his poems which chimes delightfully with my own best thought............