HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE • ... CHAPTER I. 'We can be nothing to each other, and yet are too much to each other. I will see thee no more. All I can say is mere folly. In future I shall see thee as men see the stars.' HERMAN is not false to his promise made at the railway-station. He works as he has seldom worked before; labours for long hours with a spring and a freshness in his work that make it light. Bright thoughts come to him unsought; the gold lies on the surface. It is as if some fairy sat beside him. and breathed happy fancies into his mind. There is no grinding against the grain. His pen, swift as habit has made it, cannot keep pace with his fancy. And he knows that this new book-higher in design, simpler in treatment than any other story of his VOL. II. B |
