cers, and the sugar out of the cupboard. Tell me about yourself; you look a little better. Do you feel better?

"You know I have no illusions about myself," he said with strange indifference, as he placed the cups and saucers and the sugar-bowl on the table. "I have only a few months to live, and when I got out to Australia, it suddenly struck me what a fool I was to take all the trouble of going there, just for the sake of prolonging my life for a few paltry months. After all, what are a few months in the long-run? Surely it is better to have the shorter time with the surroundings one cares for, and near the work to which one has given one's whole life. There is some comfort in being near the work, even if one cannot do it."

He held the teapot for her to pour the boiling water into, and then she drew her chair nearer to the table.

"And then," he continued, "I thought how selfish my choice was. There I was, out in Australia, doing no one any good, and at least, if I were at home, I might be giving the best of my help to those who might be glad to have such help. It seemed such an utter waste of my abilities, such an utter waste of all my studying. And then I thought of you.' She was leaning back in her armchair, and did not look up, even at his last words.

"Yes," he answered. "I hope I did not vex you. I could not bear to think that you were to be put to the extra expense because of me. But I see you are vexed."

"No," she answered, smiling frankly at him. "If I were vexed at that, I should not be able to understand any kind of poetry and chivalry. You have always been good to me, and I have never been a credit to you. But you must not say that my failure was owing to you, for it was entirely owing to my own stupidity and to my over-fatigue. Still I was disappointed. One always does hope for success. it is a serious thing for any one working for a livelihood to be kept back a whole year. And I lost the chance of an appointment which was to depend on my success in the Intermediate Science."

And

"I did not answer your letter which announced your failure,” he said, “because I felt that there was nothing to be said on the subject. But, you know, there are other failures in the world. Look at my own."

"Ah! do not say that," she said eagerly; "no one who has done good work, as you have done, can be said to have failed."

"But I have had no time," he said impatiently.

"What is time?" she asked, smiling sadly. "You yourself said that a few months more or less made no difference."

"But that is when a man is doomed," he said. "When he is doomed, the sooner he goes the better. But, for my own part, I seemed to be played out before I had a chance of playing myself in. It is maddening to have opportunity, and tal

Again she pushed the hair back from her forehead, and still she did not look up. She seemed to be thinking.

"I took your failure to heart, last year," he said, as he balanced his tea-spoon on his finger. "I believe I gave careless lessons, for at times I felt almost too ill to teach well. I never thought that you had a genius for mathematics; but all the same, I felt as though you had failed because of me. And I wish you to pass, because, when you have once taken your degree, or even part of it, your whole position in the teaching world will be altered, and you will not have to drudge."

"Mr. Annerley," she said suddenly, soon after you had gone, I went to the New College to pay in my fees. I found I had been forestalled. You paid them for me, did you not?"

and strength. And then to think of the many people in the world who do not make the best use of their strength, and who complain of time hanging heavily on them. Good God! if one might take from them both time and strength!"

He pushed the teacup impatiently away from him. "But there now!" he said. "I hate grumblers, and I have not come to talk about myself. I want to hear what you have been doing in my absence. By the way, you had done one of those problems most disgracefully; indeed I think your mistake there was unpardonable." As he spoke, he showed her the corrections he had made. "You ought to have known better than this," he said; "it is a careless piece of work, enough to dishearten any teacher."

"I do not want to excuse myself," she said; "but lately I have been so worried

"But you redeemed yourself here," he said, pointing to the problem which had met with his approval. "That is really neatly and elegantly done, enough to encourage any teacher. Ah! I am glad I have come home. I am going to make you help me to fulfil my one remaining ambition."

"And what is that?" she asked.

"My one remaining ambition," he said, half to himself, "is that you should pass your examination. For this purpose, I wish you to accept my help in your work, as long as I am able to give it. I have always had the deepest reverence for you, Miss Hurst, and wish all good things to fall to your share. Such knowledge as I have, I should like to leave behind as a legacy to you, to make life easier for you. Independent natures do not care to be under obligations to any one, I know well; but if you would be generous enough to accept my help, you would make these few remaining weeks very beautiful for me."

Her hand rested gently on his.

"Indeed I accept it," she said quietly. "I am glad you have come back, for your companionship was always a pleasure to me, Mr. Annerley. And then, too, although you knew how to scold me, you also knew how to encourage me. That is what your pupils have always said of you. I think it must be a real comfort to you in your trouble, to know how your pupils have felt for you, and how they have missed you too. The new master at the New College had a very difficult position to fill when he took your place amongst us. And though he did his best for us all, he had not that sympathy which makes teaching a success, nor that enthusiasm which can turn mathematics into real poetry. If you only knew how we had missed you, you must needs have been gratified.'

never thought it worth while to be agitated about, or disappointed with, men or things. Humanity might be unsatisfactory, but I never found hyperbolæ unsatisfactory. Ellipses were always my consistent friends."

Gertrude Hurst laughed. "Perhaps it all depended on the way in which the hyperbole and ellipses were treated,” she said. 66 Perhaps you understand them better than humanity. With all due respect to you, I prefer humanity."

"We have never been able to agree on that subject," he said, smiling. "It is no use whatever to pin one's faith to humanity; it is much better to believe in hyperbola."

"Well, like every one else," she said, "you are a contradiction to yourself, for you are always interesting yourself in humanity. My own case, for instance; if you find every one so disappointing, why should you take the trouble to interest yourself in me?"

"You are something quite apart," he answered quietly. "I regard you very much in the way that I do the choicest curves. All things considered, I should think you could not be disappointing."

She shook her head deprecatingly. "To know is the beginning of sorrow," she said, as she turned to her exercise-book.

46

Well, I shall not have much time to know," he said with sad humor; "so just allow yourself to remain on the list of the choicest curves. Do you mind me sitting quietly here, while you finish correcting your books? And then, if you are not too tired, we might perhaps have a mathematical lesson with which to finish up the evening. And meanwhile I will read one of these treatises on socialism, and try to become interested in all those new theories. No wonder you are over-tired, if you crowd so much into your life. You ought to be content with your own personal work."

returned to England because he could not keep away any longer from his mathematics, the real truth was that he could not keep away any longer from Gertrude Hurst. She was by no means the most promising of his pupils at the New Col

"Finish your corrections," he said, "and let us get to the mathematics; for I am on safe ground there, and you cannot dispute what I teach you."

So the evening passed away, and he trimmed the lamp for her, and pulled down the blinds, and then returned to his post by the fireside. Sometimes he looked round to see how she was getting on, but he made no movement to disturb her, and she could not see the smile of quiet pleasure which was on his worn face. At last, when she was ready for him, he gave her an algebra lesson, and having explained away many of her difficulties, set her some problems to do, and rose to go.

"Thank you for your kindness," she said, as she opened the door for him. "I feel sure that with your help I shall have no difficulty in passing my examination." "Then you will fulfil my only remaining ambition," he said, as he passed down the stairs.

II.

It was generally understood amongst those who knew Elkin Annerley, that the only thing he really cared about was mathematics, and the teaching of mathematics. He had a very rare gift of teaching, and had always been considered one of the ablest masters at the New College, where he interested himself in an impersonal sort of way in all his pupils, both men and women. But his kindness to them, and his interest in them, began and ended with the mathematics. He was generous of his time to them at the New College, and was always willing to correct any extra exercises which they might wish to bring him. But this being done, he returned to the region to which he was supposed to belong, the region of abstract thought, where the words love, and friendship, and human companionship had no formulæ, and were therefore unknown quantities. So after some time, his very kindness came to be regarded as one of the properties of a strange curve, the eccentricity of which was something out of the ordinary. Perhaps he was eccentric; but, as a matter of fact, he had just done a most ordinary thing in coming home from Aus

point. But there was something in her frank manner which had won his atten. tion; and her eagerness to overcome her difficulties, and her enthusiasm for work, had claimed his interest, and an unconscious kind of sympathy between them had done the rest. Sometimes they chanced to meet on their way to the New College, and as time went on, they had learnt to take a quiet pleasure in each other's companionship, although, after all, it was very little they saw of each other. Whatever his feelings towards her may have become when he got to know her better, his manner was precisely the same as it had always been when she was merely an unpromising pupil, and nothing more." She had no idea that when he saw her looking worried and overworked and sad, he suffered, and would fain have done anything to help her. But he went away to Australia without her guessing anything of this, and even when he came to her last night, his manner would have revealed nothing to her; though the mere fact that he had returned to help her, told her more than any words or any special manner would have told. And Gertrude Hurst began to understand at last.

The next day, when she was out teaching, she found herself thinking constantly of Elkin Annerley. While she was thinking of him, he called at her lodgings in the Marylebone Road, and left the books that they would require for their studies; and he who had no notion of comfort for himself, looked about the comfortless room, wondering how he might improve it for her. He did not know anything about women, but he had vague notions that they liked cushions and footstools, and choice flowers; and there were none of these luxuries here, but only a little fern, which had answered to Gertrude Hurst's loving care. He bought a cushion, which he fixed in her easy-chair; and he chose some flowers from a florist's near at hand, and arranged them with as much taste as he could command, in a little vase which he found on the mantel-shelf. Then he wrote on a piece of paper that he would call that very evening to give his lesson.

He came punctual to the moment, just as though he were going to give a profes

sional lecture; and the two, without any preliminary conversation, set to work to attack conic sections, which had always baffled Gertrude Hurst. He was almost disagreeable in his stiffness, and occasionally when she made some slip, or seemed dull of understanding, his manner was sharp and impatient.

46

You have gone back very much," he said at the close of the lesson. "And if you are not careful, you will not get through your examination. I think, though, that I am almost too irritable to be a good teacher now; you must bear with me."

"You are not irritable," she said, though the tears had darted to her eyes at some of his sharp observations.

"But I know better," he said. "I should not be able to do much teaching now. Only, if I am hard on you, it is because I am so anxious for you to do really well."

So day after day they worked together; and sometimes, when the lesson was over, he would sit by the fire reading the evening paper; or, more often than not, staring into the fire, and sometimes stealing a look across the table at Gertrude Hurst stooping over her papers.

"You seem better to-night," she would say to him sometimes, and he would smile, and let her think what she pleased. He never complained of his fate. If there had been any bitterness in his heart at being cut off in the midst of his work and his ambitions, something had come to sweeten bis life. It was not religion, and it was not resignation.

One day when he had been coughing a great deal she said to him: “I think these lessons are too much for you, Mr. Annerley."

She was sorry at once that she had allowed him to think that she noticed his growing weakness, for he seemed to be quite annoyed.

"I'm not worse," he said sharply, "and these lessons are mere child's play to me. You surely do not flatter yourself that you have reached the mountain-tops of mathematics, where the brain reels? You are only at the base of the mountain. I tell you it is all child's play to me."

So she did not again allude to his illness, until one night, after the lesson was over, she happened to speak of endurance, and she told him that his courage would always help her to endure. But he shook his head.

"Don't mistake it," he said; "it is not that people learn to endure; it is that the

edge of most things wears off, whether it be the edge of pleasure, or sorrow, or disappointment."

At no time was there very much personal conversation between them; they talked of events and theories, and, at his request, she would read poetry to him, especially Browning and Shelley.

"Read me some Browning," he would ask; "I want to feel strong and vigorous again, and Robert Browning, of all the poets, helps one to do that."

He was quite alone in the world, and had no relations to care for him in his illness; but Gertrude Hurst watched over him as well as she could, and tried to be thoughtful for him in many ways. She spent her half holidays with him, and made every effort to be cheerful with him, although she was feeling over-worked and over-anxious, and altogether miserable. She was in that unsatisfactory state of mind when one analyzes everythinglife, its objects, its sorrows, and its pleasures; and having thus come even to analyze its pleasures, she had ceased to enjoy anything. Mercifully for her, and for all like her, this state of mind cannot last long at a time. There come, even to the most parched minds, oases in the desert of thought, and the heart is once more reconciled to life, its objects, its sorrows, and its pleasures. Once, when she confided to Elkin Annerley her state of mind, in consequence of his having reproved her for carelessness in her work, he said to her :

"Do not attempt to analyze anything if you want to live on happily. Never stop in the middle of your work and question yourself about the value of that work; for there is nothing so fatal as that. Those who do that, are lingerers by the wayside, and they will never reach their destination. Take my advice, Miss Hurst, and do not worry yourself with thought. If you must think, learn to think of nothing."

"But you have not succeeded in doing that," said Gertrude.

"Mathematics help me to do that," he answered; at least, I mean to say, that my reason becomes so occupied with these abstractions, and these indefinite conceptions are so engaging to my fancy, that my mind simply cannot contain thoughts of another genus. I should certainly advise people who are troubled with doubts and sorrows and misgivings about things in general, to turn to mathematics; for they give comfort by inducing forgetfulness."

"I don't believe a word of what you