His habits had undergone a great change: he could not rest at home; the pleasures to which he had begun to accustom himself became more and more necessary. To Beatrice's complaints and reproaches he had always one answer: 'I am meditating — wait awhile.' But he began at last to dread to meet her, and to wish that he could pay the debt he owed her.

Meanwhile, Beatrice's treasure was approaching its end, and she knew no one of whom she could borrow; for the baroness, her sister, was so poor that she had been unable to pay Beatrice her last quarter's salary. She began to dread that Stanilaus would abandon himself entirely to his growing taste for pleasure, and lose his hopes of fame for ever. She knew it was useless to persuade him then; but one night a plan occurred to her to save him, which might be employed as a last resource. She went to her friend, M. Rivet, and asked him if she could not, upon her debtor's acknowledgments, obtain a power to cast him into prison whenever she pleased. Beatrice recollected some stories of great works of art having been produced in the solitude of a prison; and her idea was, that she might one day find it advisable to employ that desperate means of snatching him from destruction.

M. Rivet replied that no law proceedings could be taken without the service of notices at his abode. This was a small objection; for Beatrice undertook to intercept them, and thus to keep her neighbour in ignorance of the fate that hung over his head.

6

One evening, when Stanilaus had come into her room after two days' absence, Beatrice unlocked a little drawer, and pulled out a single bank-note: Take this, Stanilaus,' said she; it is for a hundred francs. It is my last, but you are welcome to it. I have only hoarded them for you.'

Stanilaus stared at her bewildered, as if he had just been asleep. 'Beatrice,' said he, 'this tells me all. I have indeed behaved like a villain.'

'Do not say that,' said Beatrice; 'but let me implore you now to make up for lost time.'

'I will, Beatrice; I declare to you I will. I must get some money for the model of my great work. I will do two small things, and with the proceeds I will set to work in earnest.'

Stanilaus kept half of his word: he worked all that week, and earned two hundred francs; but the temptation of having much money in his pockets was too strong for him: he began to idle again, and to shun Beatrice. When she caught him, he would say that artists required repose—that the mind was like a field, that must lie fallow after a crop. But he had not much faith in his own

excuse.

One morning, after Beatrice had wished him good-day, and passed out of her room to go down-stairs, Stanilaus, who had just sat down to work, was surprised to hear a key turn in the lock of his door

outside. 'What is that?' he exclaimed, springing from his seat, and finding the door fastened.

'It is I,' said Beatrice. 'You must be my prisoner to-day. Do not be angry.'

'O never fear, Beatrice,' said he. I would as soon be a prisoner as not-I meant to work hard to-day.'

Beatrice laughed, and promised to come and release him by and by. I am going to Charenton on business to-day,' said she, ‘and shall return about six o'clock.'

Stanilaus set to work, and remained working and singing for several hours, till he recollected that he wanted to visit his friend Engelhart. He had also a desire to call upon the baron, to speak to him about the design of a work which he contemplated; but there was that door locked. The confinement became irksome: it seemed to him a ridiculous position to be prevented from going out, as he said to himself, by the whim of his capricious neighbour. His patience was exhausted. He took one of his tools and forced open the door, after breaking the tool in the lock.

That afternoon, he felt a strong inclination to call at the Baron de Lonzac's. He knew that Beatrice was not there, and hoped that she would not hear of his visit. He resolved to go at last; and under the excuse of waiting for the baron, he remained there with Julie and her mother for some time. Julie sang and played some Polish airs, and the baroness inquired what new designs he had been engaged upon lately.

To tell the truth,' replied Stanilaus, rather awkwardly, ‘I have been idling a little.'

'Do not call it idling,' said Julie: ‘the mind of an artist requires recreation. It must be as necessary to him as light and air.' Stanilaus felt grateful to her for her defence, and accepted it eagerly.

'I shall work now with new power,' said he. This very day I seemed to be conscious of a sudden growth in my enthusiasm for art.'

A few days after, Stanilaus obtained permission from his friend Engelhart to model his great statue in one of his rooms. The clay was kneaded ready, and every evening Beatrice inquired how he had progressed. Stanilaus, who had not touched it yet, but who firmly believed that his musings were a preliminary as necessary as the manual work, replied in good faith that it was proceeding favourably. One day Beatrice resolved to visit him in his studio, and surprise him. Engelhart, when she inquired for him, shook his head and smiled. I don't think he is in the studio,' said he; and he directed a servant to conduct Beatrice to the place where she expected to find him. He was not there; his tools lay scattered about, and the clay was untouched. Stanilaus had left a message that he had gone to the Louvre, and thither Beatrice departed in search of him.

She found him at last, alone in one of the rooms, contemplating some fragments of Greek sculpture that hung against the wall. He was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, and did not see or hear her till she touched him on the arm.

'Beatrice!' he exclaimed; 'how you surprised me!' But this time he did not seem confused or ashamed to meet her.

'I have been to Engelhart's,' said she. 'I was disappointed to find you gone.'

'I always come here for an hour or two,' said Stanilaus. 'In this place I breathe a kind of atmosphere of art. It calms, and brings me to a happy mood, after the noise and bustle of the streets. Look at these divine forms which we strive in vain to imitate. As I contemplate them, my mind seems secretly to abstract from them that quality of beauty that pervades them all, and to be refreshed and strengthened.'

Beatrice looked where he pointed, and saw some arms and legs, and bruised trunks of human bodies, sculptured in marble, by no means beautiful to her eye.

'Pooh!' said she; 'what need have you to worship other men's old broken works? You might do yourself things a hundred times more beautiful.'

Her extravagant praise of his talents made Stanilaus feel ashamed; for some strangers, who had just entered the room, had heard her, and were tittering at what she had said. The young Pole was so sensitive to ridicule, that he was glad to hasten out of the place. The circumstance had disturbed his contemplations, and he felt vexed. Beatrice, on her part, was hurt to think he had told her, as she believed, a falsehood about the progress of his work.

VII.

As Stanilaus became more confirmed in his dilatory habits, he began to feel the presence of Beatrice to be more and more irksome. He fancied that her prosaic common sense exercised an injurious influence upon his mind, and was one of the causes of his disinclination for serious work. He took every means of avoiding her; but if he met her by accident, he felt like a culprit in her presence. This constant humiliation fretted and annoyed him. He deplored the circumstance that had given him into her power, and felt his debt of gratitude to her to be an intolerable burden.

For some time past, however, Beatrice had shewn greater kindness towards him than ever. She treated him with a kind of maternal tenderness, as if she was weary of contending with his failings, and had resolved to indulge him in them, or as if she knew how weak he was to struggle with them, and had taken to pity him instead of shewing anger. Stanilaus felt this, though he scarcely

knew the fact. His heart was secretly grateful to her, for not reproaching him with faults with which he reproached himself bitterly enough in his dull humours. She never inquired about his statue, though she knew from Engelhart that he had scarcely touched it. She left him perfectly free; and Stanilaus thought she was trying an experiment, and flattered himself that she had taken a wise course, and that she would soon see the good effects of it in his increased diligence. She borrowed for him such books as he wanted from the baron's library, and for a little while Stanilaus. would sit at home of an evening, though his old restlessness soon returned. Beatrice deplored her own blindness in introducing him to her brother-in-law, for she saw that he had become entirely changed since that day.

Engelhart, who had a strong affection for the young artist, had offered him a sleeping-room in his house, thinking to confine him to his work by that means; and at the time when he had felt the control of Beatrice most troublesome, he had talked of accepting it, and endeavoured to persuade her that it would be much for his advantage. Beatrice had not opposed his scheme, though she had secret misgivings that the change would prove of no real benefit to him; and now Stanilaus, who had forgotten Engelhart's offer for some time, began again to talk of accepting it.

One afternoon, in the autumn of the year, Beatrice returned from the Baroness de Lonzac's earlier than usual, and found Stanilaus smoking in his room. She had brought him a basket of peaches from the baron's garden, and she asked about his health with a solicitude that surprised him. He felt that her manner was strange. She said that she must go, she had some business to do; but she lingered, as if loath to depart. She inquired if he intended to go out; and Stanilaus, thinking that her solicitude arose from anxiety about the late hours he had kept of late, replied that he intended to sit at home that night and work. And will you come back, Beatrice?' said he.

'I do not think I shall see you again to-night,' said Beatrice. 'I am not sure.'

Her voice faltered, but Stanilaus was thinking now of other matters, and did not note it. She lingered behind him awhile, watching him; but he was too much occupied to be conscious of it. He heard her afterwards moving about her room till she went out and shut the door.

Stanilaus sat there smoking for some time. He had really worked at his model that day, and he was calculating how long it would be, at the rate at which he had been working, before it would be ready for the founder, who was to cast the statue in bronze. He had not told Beatrice of his sudden activity, and he calculated upon surprising her before long with the news that his work was finished. While he was thinking of these things, sitting alone in the twilight, he was

startled by a rapping at the door. He opened the door of Beatrice's room, thinking that it was she returned; but the knocking was at the door of his own room. Beatrice rarely knocked there; but he opened the door, expecting, nevertheless, to find her there. Two men were on the landing. One of them asked in a strange voice for the Count de Lemberg, and Stanilaus bade them come in.

'We have the disagreeable duty of arresting you, count,' said one. 'Of arresting me!' said Stanilaus. 'Of what am I accused?' He knew that the jealousy of the French government of the presence of refugees in the capital constantly led to such unpleasant adven

tures.

'You are not only suspected,' said the man; 'you are known to be indebted to the amount of two thousand five hundred francs to a lady, who has obtained a decree against you.'

'What is the lady's name?' inquired Stanilaus astonished. 'Beatrice de Salins,' replied the man.

Stanilaus demanded to see his warrant, and lighted a candle to read it. He saw at once that it was correct, and he prepared to depart with them. Stanilaus felt bitterly towards Beatrice as he walked between the two officers into the street, where he fancied every passer-by observed them; but the men, at his request, called the first coach they met, and in half an hour the artist found himself a prisoner in the prison of Clichy.

A foreigner?' inquired the keeper of the prison, as he passed into a little office to see his name inscribed on the books.

'Count Stanilaus de Lemberg,' said he proudly.

'Ah!' said the man, 'the worse for you. A Frenchman stays five years in prison, and then he may depart, whether his debts be paid or not; but a foreigner must pay, or lie here for ever.'

The conduct of Beatrice appeared to Stanilaus at first inexplicable; but he soon became convinced that he had been the victim of a cunning scheme. He knew that proceedings must have been taken in secret, and that she must have intercepted the process left at his room, in order to keep him in ignorance till the day of his arrest. On reflection, he found that these proceedings must have been commenced soon after he first communicated to her his intention of leaving his lodging, and when, doubtless, he seemed to her to be endeavouring to escape from her power. He was shocked at the hypocrisy with which she had concealed her movements, and redoubled her expressions of kindness on the very night on which she had instructed the officers to arrest him. He remembered now her inquiry whether he was going out, and her excuse for leaving him, saying that she was not sure whether she should see him again, although she must then have well known that he would be in a jail before she returned. His faith in the simplicity and generosity of her nature was gone in a moment. That she, who had pretended such anxiety for his fame, had not scrupled to cast him into a prison,