A MADONNA OF THE CELLS . 
She looked at him trustfully and smiled 
gravely. 
“ I always was a very nice boy/" said Mark. 
“ Don’t forget that. May I come and see 
you and your mother to-morrow ? ” 
“ If you don’t mind seeing us as we a:e, I 
should be glad if you would come, Mr. 
Nugent,” said the girl. “ You’ve been very, 
very kind to me.” 
And then she did break down, and Mark, 
with more self-restraint than even he thought 
he possessed, only took her by the hands and 
said, “ Don’t, little girl, don’t. It's all right— 
it’s all right. You’ve got some friends now.” 
And then they came to her road and her 
house, and he got out with her and took her 
to the door. And on the step he said, “ I’ll 
come and see you to-morrow afternoon. 
Don’t forget — at four o’clock.” 
She looked at him through her tears and 
nodded, but could not speak. He turned 
round sharply and, entering the cab, drove 
back to the Temple. 
Deep in his heart he knew he must do 
something for her, and for her mother. He 
might call her a child and see her as a child, 
but she was none now. She called to him 
and clung to him. And still the man of clear- 
cut ambitions resented her appeal. A man 
of strong individuality, he had always resented 
the notion of necessity, of fate, of destiny ; 
yet here he saw necessity and fate at work. 
Before it grew dark he took a cab and went 
up to Oxford Street, and there bought a 
carbon reproduction of the Mother and Child, 
the part of the Madonna di San Sisto which is 
usually reproduced. He took it back to his 
chambers and examined it closely, with care. 
There was something very strange about it. 
Most certainly the woman was wonderfully 
like Nina, though there was both more and 
less in the girl’s face than in the Madonna’s. 
He laid the picture on the table and pre- 
sently covered the child in the Virgin’s arms. 
It seemed to him that there was instantly a 
strange alteration in the Madonna’s face. 
She no longer looked a woman, but a child. 
With the infant in her arms she might be 
twenty, or even older. Without it, she seemed 
but sixteen — young and very innocent. He 
removed his hand, and again saw the child 
there. The Virgin was the mother, and not 
so youthful, though perhaps more beautiful. 
Some day — some day, such a change might 
come to Nina Stewart. 
That night when he slept he dreamed of 
her, not as she was, but as she had been in the 
old days ; and yet in this passing dream she 
295 
was not a child, or rather she was the same 
childlike creature as the Madonna, a virgin 
in her garden before love came to her. He 
woke up in the morning tired and unre- 
freshed, and with a sense of painful solitude 
about him. 
He worked that morning in the courts and 
did his work well, and yet all the time he was 
in a dream. In the afternoon he had to go 
to Brixton, and he waited anxiously for the 
time to pass. And still he felt that it was 
folly for him to go — and yet it was sweet folly 
and natural, for he knew he loved her. 
With these thoughts in his mind he went 
down to Brixton, knowing what had happened, 
and yet fearing — as every lover will — that 
in spite of the way she looked at him, in spite 
of the long years she had remembered him, 
there might be someone else in her heart. 
She had been waiting for him, trembling. 
Though she looked a child, she was no child, 
but had the heart of a woman, and perhaps 
she understood. He came up to her with 
strange abruptness and held out his hands. 
44 Nina — I want to marry you.” 
She looked at him as if she did not under- 
stand the words he spoke, and then she went 
as pale as death. 
“ Oh, you can’t mean it,” she said. 
44 I do mean it,” he cried. “ Child, I want 
you to come to me — I want to marry you." 
But she trembled, and cried out, “ 1 
couldn’t — I couldn’t ! Don’t you under- 
stand ? ” 
44 Understand what ? ” asked Mark. 4i I 
know what I know — that I love you.” 
But still she said she could not do it, and 
was greatly and strangely agitated. 
44 Of course, you don’t love me,” said 
Nugent. “ How can you ? ” 
44 You have been so good to me,” she said. 
44 That’s not the reason. If you knew — you 
wouldn’t ask me.” 
“ If I knew what ? ” he cried. 
44 If you knew the truth,” she said. 
44 What truth ? ” 
But for a moment she could not speak, and 
then she turned to him with a strange, 
pathetic dignity. 
44 Do you not know ? ” 
44 Do i not know what ? ” he asked, obsti- 
nately. 
44 Know that I — I stole that purse for my 
mother’s sake,” said Nina. 
And Mark Nugent laughed strangely, and 
put out his hands and took her by the shoul- 
ders and said, 44 Why, of course I know — of 
course I know ! ” 
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