Two years before this, it had occurred to her that she should like to study art, and might possibly find in it a means of self-support.

She was allowed to attend classes at South Kensington, but little came of this except a close friendship with a girl of her own age, by name Bertha Cross, who was following the art course with more serious purpose.

When she had been betrothed for about a year, Rosamund chanced to spend a week in London at her friend's house, and this led to acquaintance between Franks and the Crosses.

For a time, Warburton saw and heard less of the artist, who made confidantes of Mrs.Cross and her daughter, and spent many an evening with them talking, talking, talking about Rosamund; but this intimacy did not endure very long, Mrs.Cross being a person of marked peculiarities, which in the end overtried Norbert's temper.

Only on the fourth story flat by Chelsea Bridge could the lover find that sort of sympathy which he really needed, solacing yet tonic.