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330 commanded that respect without which the girl, after her first cruel experience, would never have given her whole heart. She did give it, unreservedly: and therein lay the strength of this union; though I think I hear a reader, at the close of the last chapter, exclaim, "Could two such dominant natures ever be happy together?"

The ordinary man of the world will be incredulous, but it is none the less true, it was a shock to Alaric Baring to learn that the woman he loved—the woman he had pledged himself to marry—possessed a large fortune. Had he been an unsuccessful painter, the sense of dependence on his rich wife would, without doubt, have materially clouded his happiness. But his talent was at once recognized, and though the public shied a little at first at such bold impressionism, connoisseurs, whose dictum was final, declared that no man living could seize character and reproduce it on canvas as did this vigorous American. Then it became the fashion for young men and old to flock to his studio in Melbury Road, together with such wise women as did not wish to be flattered.

But this was only during certain months of the year. At Whiteburn, where Elizabeth and he passed the greater part of the winter, Elizabeth built a large painting-room for her husband; and there it was he produced the more ambitious, imaginative work which has been so extravagantly praised and so severely criticized.

It was characteristic of Elizabeth that, with all her passionate devotion to her husband, which increased rather than diminished with years, she never succeeded in always seeing, nor did she pretend always to see, with