a I B R.AR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 Ecl37t 
 V. 1
 
 / V
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. HARRY BENNETT-EDWARDS. 
 
 Art is long, and Time is fleeting. 
 
 And our hearts, though strong and brave. 
 Still like muffled drums are beating 
 
 Funeral marches to the grave." 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 SAMUEL TINSLEY & CO., 
 
 10, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND. 
 
 1879. 
 
 [Ail Rights Reserved.^
 
 ^^3 
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 :>>»;< 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ' He's so ill-tempered, so morose — no one 
 
 likes him.' 
 
 ... *" 
 
 It was only a child they criticised ; and 
 
 they were right, for he was what they had 
 '^made him. Not as he came from his Creator's 
 'shand, not Divine work; but human, and so 
 ^they despised him. He was a reproach to 
 "^them for their little care, their feeble intellect, 
 -which could not mould even a child into any- 
 
 thinof better than a creature ' so morose, so 
 c bad-tempered ' that no one liked him. 
 VOL. I. 1
 
 2 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 They were an Honourable family, and a 
 pious ; much respected by their neighbours, 
 and without self-reproach. It is easy to be 
 honest where there is no temptation to sin ; 
 easy to be pious where religion demands 
 nothing beyond its outward observance ; easy 
 to be respected when the purse is well filled 
 and the table well covered. 
 They were irreproachable. 
 Is there value in numbers ? They were 
 many, and each a reflection one of the other ; 
 rapid emanations from a primary body, the 
 composition of which they partook. There 
 were variations, mixtures and admixtures, 
 combinations and subtractions ; but the pri- 
 mary element remained pure and unadulte- 
 rated in all. They were narrow-minded, they 
 were bigoted ; Expansion, Space, Universe, 
 Progression, Eternity, were meaningless words 
 to them — vague terms ^fuU of sound and 
 fury, signifying nothing.'
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 6 
 
 But they were Chi'istians, and that was 
 enouo'h. 
 
 o 
 
 Each child as it came to them had been 
 conscientiously placed on the straight road of 
 conventional uprightness, and followed it un- 
 swervingly ; all except one, and he was so mo- 
 rose, so bad-tempered, that no one liked him. 
 
 ' The devil stood godfather to him,' the 
 nurse said. 
 
 'He is a fool,' his sisters and brothers 
 sneered. 
 
 ' Don't notice him,' replied his mother and 
 father. And they did not notice him. 
 
 They were a ^andsome family, with the ex- 
 ception of the pale-faced, fair-haired, dreamy- 
 eyed boy for whose sins his Satanic Majesty 
 had stood sponsor, and seemed to be fulfilhng 
 his duties with at least as much zeal as is 
 shown by terrestrial god-parents on behalf of 
 those for whose redemption they make them- 
 selves answerable. 
 
 1—2
 
 4 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 He was a wicked child. Listen. 
 
 One day he had -drawn a picture, after a 
 week's toil, and he had framed it in a 
 magnificent chipped out paper frame, painted 
 blue, and gold, and scarlet. The subject was 
 God upon His throne, with the angels around 
 Him, and the devils at His feet. The boy 
 brought it to his mother, that &he might 
 admire the completed work of art. She took 
 it from his hand, and scolding him for his 
 profanity, tossed it into the fire, whilst he 
 stood by her side horrorstricken at the sacri- 
 lege ; for it was a sacred thing in his sight. 
 He painted no more — then. 
 
 At another time he was in a passion^ — a 
 wild burning rage — and he ran to his father, 
 eyes, lips, and cheeks all aglow with anger : 
 
 The gardener had whipped his favourite 
 dog ' wid' a great big stick till it was nearly 
 quite dead.' 
 
 * And why had John been so cruel V his 
 father asked.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 5 
 
 ' Only 'cos Boss did run into a great heap 
 of flower-pots, and wagged them all down 
 with his tail.' 
 
 * And what was planted in the pots V 
 
 ' On'y them orchidisses you bought last 
 week.' 
 
 ' The brute ! the hrute ! Ill have him 
 killed ; beating indeed ! serve him right !' 
 
 And the father hastened away, to see for 
 himself the extent of the injury his cherished 
 orchids had sustained. The child clenched 
 his little hands and screamed aloud in his 
 passionate indignation, hugging the dog, 
 which with limping steps had followed him 
 into the house, and lavishing words of the 
 tenderest pity upon the worthless cur. ' You 
 didn't know you was going to wag 'em 
 over, did you, Boss ? poor Boss ! they shan't 
 kill you, for I'll kill 'em all first, that I 
 will.' 
 
 ' What are you going to kill now, you
 
 6 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 cruel boy V said his eldest sister, listening at 
 the door. 
 
 * Anybody what kills Boss,' said the boy, 
 standing up and looking defiance at the in- 
 truder. 
 
 * If this is the effect Boss has upon your 
 temper,' said his sister, * the sooner you and 
 he are parted the better.' 
 
 And she caught the dog out of his small 
 protecting arms, which clung to it with super- 
 human strength. She left the room, and she 
 left the boy raving like a little maniac. His 
 mother heard him, and was told the horrible 
 thing he had said ; she sent him upstairs, and 
 he was put to bed by nurse, whose last words 
 before she left him were, ^ That he would 
 come to the gallows some day.' 
 
 He wished he might. 
 
 He never saw his dog again ; he never 
 asked what they had done with it, he only 
 hated his sister, who with placid voice had
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 7 
 
 called him cruel, and with cool, firm hand had 
 wrenched Boss away from him. He hated 
 the orchids too. It was their fault for 
 tumbling down when poor Boss wagged his 
 tail amongst them ; they at least might have 
 shown gome fellow-feelinof with him, and the 
 dog ; flowers were not generally so cruel. He 
 used to love them all, but not now, not 
 orchids ever again ; he hated them. 
 
 Esther was a sensible woman; she was 
 several years older than the others ; her 
 mother had educated her, and she educated 
 the younger branches with a praiseworthy 
 self-sacrifice. She was of doubtful age now, 
 and handsome still ; strong-minded, and con- 
 stitutionally strong. Her great ally, when 
 at home, was her eldest brother, Roscoe, or 
 Captain Lyndon, or the Captain, according 
 to circumstances. Her sister Ruth she de- 
 tested ; Buth was her rival in age, in good 
 looks, in talents, in everything except in her
 
 8 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 mother's aiFections, over which Esther and 
 E^oscoe held undivided sway. She stooped 
 to pet Gladys and Oscar : they were children, 
 or she looked upon them as such ; but Ellis 
 was altogether beneath her notice ; an ugly 
 boy, a blemish in the family circle, a morose, 
 an ill-tempered fellow whom no one liked. 
 I speak of the past ; but as it was in his 
 childhood so it remained in his youth : as he 
 was, as they had made him, so he continued ; 
 as they were then, so are they now — those 
 of them at least who have survived to see the 
 day in which I write. 
 
 Time goes forward, chronicles go back ; 
 they cannot begin to-dsCy and march on into 
 a future as we are doing. They commence 
 last year, or five years ago, or twenty ; and 
 progressing slowly towards us, pick us up, or 
 hope to pick us up, before we shall have 
 strayed away into the Elysian fields or the 
 Tartarus of modern theology.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 9 
 
 Ellis Lyndon was a child twelve years 
 ago ; twelve years since they had torn his 
 pet dog out of his arms, twelve years since 
 they had burned his picture of God and the 
 angels, twelve years since they had thwarted 
 every desire of his young life, crushed every 
 aspiration of his strange wandering intellect, 
 and trodden the hfe-blood out of his boyish 
 affections. Twelve years ! but they were not 
 changed, nor he. He stood amongst them, 
 yet apart ; not one thought, one feeling, one 
 s}Tiipathy in common with them — for they 
 had themselves closed the door of his heart, 
 turned the key in the lock, and left it alone 
 with its own communings. But still he had 
 one friend. It was only the village doctor, 
 indeed ; but he, by a few sympathetic words, 
 had bound the boy to him for life. 
 
 It had happened when Ellis was twelve 
 years old. He had never been to a public 
 school. ' He did not possess energy enough,'
 
 10 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 they said, ' to compete with other boys, or 
 talent enough to make the outlay justifiable 
 on his behalf.' Roscoe had been at Eton and 
 was even then at Oxford. ^ Koscoe was a 
 splendid fellow, and would make a fine sol- 
 dier ;' Ellis, on the contrary, showed a decided 
 objection to following any line of professional 
 or mercantile life which they proposed to or 
 for him. He would read books of his own 
 choosing, not of theirs ; think his own 
 thoughts, not theirs ; lead the life he had 
 mapped out for himself, and not that which 
 they so kindly offered him. He was idle, and 
 stupid, they said. 
 
 But about the doctor. 
 
 It was a long time ago, on a morning visit 
 to Mrs. Lyndon in the summer, when the 
 windows were all open. They sat just inside 
 them talking — Mrs. Lyndon and Dr. Osborn. 
 Outside, under the verandah, the boy Ellis 
 was reading the life of Socrates ; it was only
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 11 
 
 a translation from the Greek of Demetrius of 
 Byzantium, but it stirred his soul with a 
 noble enthusiasm. The boy was just smiling 
 to himself over the reply w^hich the philo- 
 sopher made to those men who expressed their 
 surprise that he had allowed the crowd to 
 kick and buffet him about without retaliation, 
 when he said, ^ Suppose an ass had kicked me ; 
 would you have had me bring an action 
 against him f Something in the words found 
 an echo in the boy's spirit, but the conversa- 
 tion inside the room presently arrested his 
 attention. They mentioned his name — he 
 listened, they could not see him, he was 
 safe. 
 
 ' And when is Ellis going to school V the 
 doctor asked. 
 
 ' I fancy not at all, ' replied his mother ; ' he 
 is so idle, he would never work if his studies 
 were not forced upon him from day to day 
 and fiom hour to hour ; this could scarcely be
 
 12 A TANTALUS CU?. 
 
 done at school ; Mr. Clive gives him lessons 
 every morning at home.' 
 
 ' Mr. Chve !' in a surprised tone ; ^ I should 
 have thought the boy's intellect would have 
 distanced Olive's Ions: ao^o. Clive ! I should 
 have said, now, that he was the last person 
 to be trusted with the handling of such a 
 delicately and curiously constituted mind as 
 that of your son Ellis.' 
 
 ' Mind ! oh ! my dear doctor, you are greatly 
 mistaken in the boy ; you presuppose a mind 
 because of your acquaintance with our Roscoe, 
 but Ellis is different, oh so different !' with 
 a long, drawn sigh. 
 
 ' I know he is different ; his intellect is of 
 a higher class than that of your eldest son, 
 although now in its infancy, less calculated 
 to bring upon him the applause of men. 
 Train it properly, judiciously, and the world 
 shall lie at its feet. 
 
 * Oh ! my dear doctor,' with a feeble
 
 A TA^ TALUS CUP. 13 
 
 laugh, ' indeed you have been misled by some 
 one as to his capabilities. I do not wish to 
 under-rate my own son ; he is a good boy 
 when he chooses to be so, and I have no 
 doubt does his best — at least Mr. Clive 
 makes no complaints of him, so why should 
 I '■ — but intellect ! mind ! May your prog- 
 nostications prove true ; that is all I can 
 hope and pray for.' She wiped a tear from 
 her eve. and siohed aoain. 
 
 A bitter smile curled the hp of the boy 
 listening outside. 
 
 ' If I had time to take him in hand, I 
 would prove them true/ the doctor said 
 warmlv, ' but the luxurv of doinsf o-ood out 
 of my own particular sphere is denied me. 
 All day I am away on my roimds ; all night 
 I must read and write for my profession. If 
 I rest for an hour, I lose a human hfe ; or so 
 it seems to me, for every moment I can give 
 to thought, and to the study of the works of
 
 14 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 men greater and of wider knowledge than 
 myself, brings me so many steps nearer to the 
 hght — gives me so much more power to heal, 
 so much more will to work.' 
 
 * What a treat it is to talk with a man of 
 intellect like yourself, Dr. Osborn ; — a plea- 
 sure one rarely gets in these days of narrow- 
 minded prejudice ; the people one meets in 
 every day life are so selfish, they have not 
 a thought beyond the pleasures of to day. 
 Esther and I often wonder what has become 
 of all the great minds in ihese days. Where 
 are our Walter Scotts, our Napoleons, our 
 Byrons, our Oliver Cromwells T 
 
 ' Buried, that their dust may give birth 
 to greater genius still. But indeed I have 
 no time to spare, Mrs. Lyndon, so good- 
 bye.' 
 
 In another moment the doctor was outside 
 the window, and standing face to face with 
 the boy Ellis who scarcely looked up, until 
 addressed.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 15 
 
 ' What are you reading V asked Dr. Osborn. 
 
 ' The hfe of Socrates,' answered the boy 
 morosely; and yet there was a soft Hght 
 in his grey eyes as he raised them to the 
 doctor's face. 
 
 ^ And what good, think you, will it do 
 yoa?' 
 
 ' The good of knowing that there have 
 existed men with souls, and hearts, and 
 consciences — men who have sought for truth 
 and found it.' 
 
 ' And how much were they the better for 
 it, my boy V 
 
 ' They could suffer and be still,' EUis 
 answered stubbornly. 
 
 ' And you expect to be like them V 
 
 ^Yes.' The answer came from the boy's 
 heart ; there was no hesitation, no doubt, a 
 firmness of purpose at which the doctor mar- 
 velled. It was only a childish dream, he 
 knew, almost impossible of realization, but
 
 16 A TANTALUS CUR 
 
 why should he awaken the sleeper ? Let him 
 dream on ; the long rest would at least 
 freshen his spirit for the real work of his 
 waking life, it would leave its impression on 
 his mind, if perchance he could dream on 
 lono^ enouo^h. So the doctor laid his hand 
 upon the boy's shoulder, and said only these 
 few words : 
 
 ^ You are right ; man is master of his fate, 
 my boy ; good-bye.' 
 
 It was the first, the only word of encour- 
 agement that Ellis Lyndon had ever heard 
 fall from the lips of human sympathy. He 
 said nothing ; but from that day he loved Dr. 
 Osborn with a silent, man's devotion ; a devo- 
 tion which will never try to utter what it 
 feels, because words are all too inadequate 
 to express the grandeur of its truthfulness; 
 actions might prove it some day, if cir- 
 cumstances ever called them forth. In the 
 meanwhile the boy showed no outward sign
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 17 
 
 of the impression which the doctor's words 
 had left on his spirit. The satire with which 
 he rephed to his sister Esther s reproofs was 
 not a deoTee less cuttino^ than before. His 
 long silences towards his parents had not 
 lessened with his years. They had refused 
 him sympathy once, he refused it to them 
 now ; they had known nothing of, or cared 
 nothing for, his sorrows or his joys then, 
 they would never know them now. He was 
 only w^aiting till manhood should make him 
 independent, to leave them one and all. 
 
 He had his secret. 
 
 His secret was locked away in an old chest 
 in his bedroom ; it lay on some sheets of 
 paper on a canvas or two, amongst a few 
 colours, and a few pencils, which were care- 
 fully locked away from sight in the old oaken 
 chest — a sacred spot, a temple in wliich the 
 first breathino's of an artist soul were hid- 
 den from the pollution of gross minds and 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 18 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 vulgar tongues, an altar at which Ellis wor- 
 shipped in the dead hours of the night. It 
 was the secret of a mind struggling to fulfil 
 its destiny, even though a mother had herself 
 cast into the fire the first work of her child's 
 hand and brain, crushing out its earliest 
 aspirations in the security of her Christian 
 rectitude. But they were immortal ; it was not 
 in her power to destroy them ; they sprang 
 into life again, a secret life, an existence as 
 yet unknown to any except the author • of 
 their being. 
 
 He was, as they said, morose and ill 
 tempered. 
 
 But not a child now.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The house was a grey stone, gabled building, 
 hidden from sight by gnarled oaks, giant 
 elms, and wide-spreading beeches standing 
 sentry-like around it. There was a rookery 
 in the elms, and squirrels' nests in the oaks ; 
 birds, butterflies and flowers everywhere. 
 Nature was struggling for perfection out of 
 doors, man was trying to thwart her indoors. 
 There was an utter want of harmony between 
 the internal and external life at the Stone 
 House. 
 
 It was Gladys' birthday ; she was sixteen, 
 but they called her a child, and even baby 
 
 2—2
 
 20 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 sometimes. She was the youngest and the 
 prettiest — a golden-haired, sunny-eyed crea- 
 ture, full of life, and grace, and love, her 
 father's darling, her mother s favourite play- 
 thing, her sisters' pet, her brothers' pride — 
 Eoscoe and Oscar's, that is to say. Ellis 
 knew nothing of her, and cared less ; she was 
 a beautiful thing, he liked to look at her, and 
 that was all ; he was twenty, and still he 
 stood alone and unloved. Gladys was one of 
 them. She had been born in the early sum- 
 mer, with the roses and the white camellias 
 — her nature was as pure as their own ; but 
 righteous hands were at work upon it daily, 
 hourly, moulding it to a standard of worldly 
 perfection which had as its model Esther 
 Lyndon and her virtues. Even Gladys' out- 
 ward aspect was changing : she had been a 
 picture pure as the women of Ary SchefFer, 
 she was fast becoming one conventionally 
 beautiful as the Avomen of Millais or Ward,
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 21 
 
 vriih their rouge and their hair-dye, lending 
 new and wonderful tints to nature. It was 
 her sixteenth birthday, and her dearest friend 
 (when present) was spending the day at 
 the Stone House. Another ' child,' as they 
 called her ; less beautiful than their Gladys, 
 less talented than, their Huth — a harmless 
 girl, who took nothing from their own per- 
 fection by comparison ; a desirable companion, 
 the daughter of a rising professional man, 
 the doctor's only xjhild — Enid Osborn. His 
 child, his friend, his heart's treasure, the one 
 creature who, since his wife's death, consti- 
 tuted the doctor's world of love. Enid was 
 truly a child in the sum of her worldly 
 ^\dsdom : she had travelled nowhere, she 
 knew nothing of men or women in the great 
 world, and yet she was a woman in all the 
 womanly attributes of domestic love and lore. 
 She had kept her father's house for the last 
 four years, ever since the death of her mother
 
 22 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 — kept it on small means, but not in little 
 comfort ; for wherever Enid was, peace and 
 tranquillity lay around and about lier. The 
 touch of her hand refined the coarsest sur- 
 roundings, the music of her voice cheered 
 the dreariest monotony of existence. But 
 still she was a child. 
 
 Sixteen years had only made her a woman 
 in name, had only begun to round her form 
 from the angles of its awkward girlhood ; it 
 had not sobered her step or tarnished the 
 purity of her spirit ; she was a child, still 
 taking a child's delight in mere animal 
 existence, still glorying in its health, in the 
 strength of its limbs, in the air castles which 
 it builds so generously and decks with such 
 lavish beauty, still believing in the truth of 
 her few girl friends, and thinking Gladys 
 Lyndon the perfection of human goodness 
 and beauty. 
 
 Enid had only a strange charm, all her
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 23 
 
 own. Xo one could say wherein it lay ; 
 whether in the depths of her dark grey eyes, 
 or on the surface of the smooth open brow ; 
 whether the firm lips spoke it, or whether 
 it was a hidden glory veiled by the long- 
 black eyelashes. But it was there ; and no 
 one doubted its existence. Nevertheless, 
 women said she was positively plain. Esther 
 said it, and Ruth said it, but Gladys, with a 
 torturino- smile, answered them : 
 
 • She'll beat me out and out, you see if she 
 doesn't.' 
 
 They were sitting under the black-branched 
 cedar tree drinking their late tea. All the 
 family was there, and Enid Osborn. It had 
 been a hot day, but the evening breeze was 
 creeping up over the hill and refreshing them 
 with its cool touch. The wood-pigeons w^ere 
 cooing in the beeches and the rooks cawing 
 their evensono; in the elms. It was a mo- 
 ment of perfect peace. Enid felt it so, and
 
 24 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 was silent, watching the dark shadows creep 
 over the level green turf; she fancied them 
 spirit forms passing before the sunlight, the 
 shadows of dreams preceding the night 
 queen on her journey earthwards. Enid was 
 only a child. 
 
 Roscoe spoke — he was at home on ^ sick 
 leave ' for a week or two : * Where's that 
 fellow Ellis ? He's always out of the way 
 when one wants him, and in it when he would 
 be better away.' 
 
 * Might as well ask where the evil spirits 
 live whom we never see, but hear a good deal 
 of for all that !' chuckled his father. 
 
 * Haven't you told him about the splendid 
 opening you have prepared for him ?' in- 
 quired Mrs. Lyndon ; ' I am sure it was most 
 kind, most considerate, of Sir Wallace Monk 
 to interest himself in Ellis. I hope you made 
 your good friend understand how grateful 
 V, e are, Roscoe. Do you think he could be
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 25 
 
 persuaded to pay us a visit in our humble 
 country home ; a man of such generosity 
 must be worth cultivating.' 
 
 'Don't see what we have to be particu- 
 larly grateful for, all the same,' replied Koscoe. 
 ' It was no great trouble for Monk to ask his 
 brother to take Ellis into his office. I've 
 done as much for Monk before now ; one 
 good turn deserves another, you know, mater. 
 I'm Monk's commanding officer, pro tern' 
 
 ^ And do you suppose you are going to 
 persuade Ellis to work V asked Esther softly. 
 
 ' He'll have no choice in the matter/ said 
 paterfamihas with much decision, thrusting 
 his hands into his pockets ; ' chat or no- 
 thing. I shall accept it for him ; if he doesn't 
 choose to work, he may go to the devil.' 
 
 ' Hush, Yaudry !' exclaimed his wife, 
 'you are sjDeaking of your own child, re- 
 member.' 
 
 Some reply was forthcoming, when a long
 
 26 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 dark shadow appeared on the lawn. Roscoe 
 looked up and saw Ellis just about to turn 
 down one of the winding paths. He shouted 
 to him. 
 
 ' What do you want ?' asked Ellis, stopping 
 and turning towards them. 
 
 * Come here, can't you ? I want to speak 
 to you, of course ; what the devil else should 
 I have called you for V Roscoe forgot that 
 he was in the company of ladies ; the mere 
 presence of his brother had the effect of 
 irritating his temper beyond all control. Ellis 
 came up to them, book in hand. 
 
 ^ Suppose now, young fellow, you put those 
 resuscitated mummies out of your mind for 
 five minutes, and listen to me,' said Roscoe. 
 
 Ellis did not move. 
 
 ' In one of your pleasant moods, I see ; all 
 right. That's for you,' — Roscoe tossed him 
 .a letter^ which Ellis picked up, put into his 
 pocket, and was moving away again. ' Stop !
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 27 
 
 that's not all ; the letter's about a situation 
 which I've managed to get for you, after in- 
 finite trouble ; just suit you ; I must have 
 your answer to-night, mind.' 
 
 * For what post of honour may I be in- 
 debted to you V asked Ellis, a bitter sneer 
 curhng his lip. 
 
 ' Monk's brother is a wine- merchant, as 
 you know ; he is willing to take you into 
 his business on certain conditions, which 
 the governor can arrange for you ; splendid 
 opening, I assure you, young fellow.' 
 
 ' Sir Wallace Monk, senior, was himself in 
 the business before he died, Ellis,' added his 
 mother. ' It is quite a gentleman's calling, or 
 Sir Wallace would not have pursued it ; they 
 . are one of our oldest families, whose honour 
 has never been impugned.' 
 
 There was a moment's silence. 
 
 * I shall not accept it,' said Ellis at last, 
 turning his back upon them, and walking
 
 28 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 aAvay. His father sprang up from his seat on 
 the ground, strode after him, and caught him 
 by the shoulder. It was not difficult to trace 
 the source of Ellis Lyndon's violent temper. 
 
 • Look here, young man,' — his voice was 
 hoarse with passion — ' I have accepted that 
 post for you.' (He intended to accept it ; it 
 was only a substitution of the j)ast for the 
 future tense ; that is nothing, our language 
 being adaptable.) ' If you don't pursue it 
 steadily, I'll do nothing more for you, now 
 or ever ; do you understand me V 
 
 ' Perfectly ; I refuse it.' 
 
 It was almost a shake with which the 
 father threw him off. 
 
 ' Then I refuse to move a hand to help you 
 ever again so long as I live. Obstinate fool !' 
 he muttered between his clenched teeth ; 
 ' you hear what I have said ? I shall not 
 change; never expect help from me.' 
 
 'Perhaps if our compact is signed and
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 29 
 
 sealed with the seal of fatherly justice, you 
 will let me go. There's the letter/ he said, 
 tossing it back to his brother ; I don't want 
 to waste time over reading it ;' and he left 
 them as he had come, an alien from the sym- 
 pathy of any. He walked away down the 
 long winding pathway, where the shrubs shut 
 out the day-light ; he threw himself upon a 
 mossy bank and fell asleep. 
 
 A footstep awoke him ; Enid Osborn was 
 standing by his side. 
 
 ' I have come here on purpose to find you, 
 Ellis. They are all so angry. Why did you 
 speak to them so curtly V She sat down by 
 his side on the moss-bank, and looked up, 
 child-like, into his face. 
 
 * I spoke to them as they spoke to me,' he 
 replied, scarcely noticing her. 
 
 ' But if you had refused in softer terms, 
 they would have been less hurt, and conse- 
 quently less angry with you.'
 
 30 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 ^ How can a^ou know what they would be ? 
 I know what they have been.' 
 
 ' I judge them by myself. Had any one I 
 loved spoken to me as you spoke to them, I 
 should have been — oh! so unhappy about it.' 
 
 ' Love !' with a sneer ; ' you are begging 
 the question. Love is not part of the present 
 argument ; it's a simple sequence of cause 
 and effect ; you don't know the cause, how 
 can you argue on the effect V 
 
 She could not answer him. 
 
 It was almost dark now ; the stars came 
 out one by one as the last glowing rays of 
 the setting sun called them from their hiding 
 places. Venus looked down upon them with 
 her pale yellow light, round and bright, but 
 cold, pitilessly cold, always ; be her name 
 Vesper or Lucifer, she is a pale passionless 
 orb, a type of peace but not of love. 
 
 * What a beautiful star,' said Enid, pointing 
 to it.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 31 
 
 * It is the planet Venus.' 
 
 ' Do you know anything about them, Ellis V 
 
 ' What V he asked morosely. 
 
 ^ Those worlds above us.' 
 
 ' I know that they are a part of the 
 universe ; a part without limits, without 
 measurement. I know that the same Creative 
 Power which placed them there, placed me 
 here ; that when they shall cease to be, I 
 shall cease to be ; that as they have been 
 from all eternity and will be to all eternity, so 
 also has the immortal soul existed, so shall 
 it exist. I know that 
 
 * " Before creation peopled earth 
 
 Its eye shall roll through Chaos back ; 
 
 And where the furthest heaven had birth, 
 
 The spirit trace its rising track. 
 
 And where the future mars or makes, 
 
 Its glance dilate o'er all to be, 
 
 AYhile sun is quenched or system breaks, 
 
 Fix'd in its own eternity." ' 
 
 The music of his voice was a cadence of 
 thrilling melody. It died away, leaving its
 
 32 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 influence on her heart. But he spoke in the 
 old bitter tone : 
 
 ' I forgot ; you don't know Byron, of 
 course ; he is not permitted as an element 
 in the education of a delicate-minded young 
 lady ; you are only allowed to read Ouida's 
 novels, I believe.' 
 
 ' Indeed, I may read anything I like. I 
 know Byron by heart. I love him ; every 
 word that he has written finds an echo in 
 my own feelings. There is a great deal that 
 I can't understand, I confess ; but even so, I 
 feel the charm of his strange thoughts and 
 the power of his words. When I am older, 
 I may learn to understand him by experience ;" 
 she smiled : '' he writes so much of love, and 
 although I can fancy the meaning of it all, 
 I can't really understand it ;" then, after a 
 pause, ^' Do you think it possible to feel true 
 sympathy with what we have never expe- 
 rienced, Ellis ?"
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 33 
 
 ' I can imagine a nature which miofht do 
 80; I have never met one.' 
 
 There was another long silence. Presently 
 she laid her hand upon his arm : 
 
 ' Ellis, you have not been content to know 
 nothing of this world in which we live so 
 thoughtlessly, nothing of those other worlds 
 above us, nothing of the conditions which 
 surround us. I too wish to learn a little 
 beyond the history, geography, and astro- 
 nomy of the school-room. Can I do it ? Tell 
 me how and where shall I begin V 
 
 The glow of her large grey eyes reached 
 his, even in the pale starlight ; he admired 
 the enthusiasm which prompted her desire to 
 search into the unknown. Yet he turned 
 his head away, and smiled the old mocking 
 smile — smiled at the childishness of her ideas. 
 She had talked of above and below as if they 
 were actual existences, and not mere relative 
 terms ; she had spoken of grasping nature's 
 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 immensity; she had looked upon his ignorance 
 as knowledge, and asked him to helj) her in 
 what he was only struggling after himself. 
 How should he answer her '( He gave the 
 stereotyped advice : ' Kead and think for 
 yourself, child ; knowledge will come to you 
 if you seek it.' 
 
 ^ I have no books ; will you lend me some 
 of yours V 
 
 'Yes, if you like ; such as I have.' 
 
 ^ May I take home two or three to-night ? 
 and when I have studied them, will you 
 question me, to see how much or how little 
 I have understood V 
 
 ' If you wish — . But men object to clever 
 women, you know.' 
 
 ' Oh, never mind about that ; I shall look 
 upon you as my teacher henceforth. I 
 must go back to Gladys now, and I will knock 
 at the door of your room before I go home, 
 to ask for the books. Good-bye.' She
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 35 
 
 run away with the swift pace of girlhood ; 
 he was alone again. 
 
 Enid Osborn and he had known one 
 another for ten years. This was the first 
 time they had ever spoken, beyond latterly 
 the ordinary politenesses of conventional neces- 
 sity, and formerly the quarrels of childhood. 
 She was Gladys' friend, and probably — like 
 Gladys herself, as all other girls, a soulless 
 butterfly, sipping the nectar of the flowers, and 
 making no question whence they came or 
 whither they would go. 
 
 But he found himself wrong. 
 
 There were at least the germs of greater 
 things in her nature. She was a child, he said, 
 and it would amuse him to watch these germs 
 spring into life and being, under his guidance. 
 Yes, so long as he remained at home, he would 
 do for her what she asked ; teach her, open her 
 mind, if she possessed one to open. They 
 met often enough ; there would be no lack 
 
 3—2
 
 ?6 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 of opportunity. And her father — he who 
 had turned aside out of his way to praise the 
 morose and ill-tempered boy, to defend him 
 against a mother's calumny 1 Ellis had heard 
 him say, not so long ago, that one of his 
 greatest regrets was having no time to train 
 his little daughter's mind, so that greater 
 things than the price of a new dress, the plot of 
 a new novel, might enter in and dwell there. 
 
 Ellis never forgot. 
 
 What the father could not do because of 
 the necessities of his life, perhaps he, Ellis 
 Lyndon could ; Enid wished it, he would try; 
 he should at least find out whether a woman's 
 mind were capable of being other than the 
 narrow, crabbed, distorted thing he looked on 
 with a shudder in his mother and his sisters. 
 
 He gave her some books that evening, 
 and he marked certain passages in them 
 which he wished her to notice particularly. 
 She thanked him, and went away rejoicing.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 37 
 
 She had always wished to learn something of 
 the workings of nature, to have an insight 
 into the great scheme of creation. The desire 
 of her life seemed about to be accomplished. 
 She was excited and happy ; she felt glad 
 too, that Elhs Lyndon had taken an interest 
 in her ; he had always seemed to her childish 
 fancy so far above the others in intellect, 
 although as a friend and companion she always 
 preferred Roscoe, who was so fond of her, and 
 who still called her ' little sweetheart/ with 
 the old bo}nsh familiarity. Ellis was only her 
 teacher, to be feared, not loved, by her ; but 
 she might be grateful even to him, she 
 thought, and thinking, stretched fearlessly 
 forth her hands to pluck the fruits of the tree 
 of knowledge. But even as she opened her 
 lips, Eros watching, came and laid his kiss 
 upon them, so that the fruits were j^oisoned 
 ere they passed into her hfe to nourish it and 
 to oive it strenorth.
 
 38 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 Ellis's room was apart from the rest of the 
 house ; he had taken up his abode in it unin- 
 vited. It was built for a wash-house ; he 
 used it as a sleeping room, a library, a studio. 
 No one entered it ; he cleaned it himself, 
 made his own bed, and turned the key in 
 the lock when he left it. A comfortless 
 dwelling-place, with boarded floor, white- 
 washed waUs, a deal table, a chair, a pallet, 
 and some books. That was all you could 
 see, but greater treasures lay hidden in the 
 old oak chest behind the door ; sacred things 
 which sanctified the place in which they were 
 enshrined.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 39 
 
 His pictures. 
 
 Strange dreamy fancies, wild incomprehen- 
 sible imaginings ; all crude and incorrect, all 
 showing a want of education, aU l3ursts of 
 genius, all works of art. 
 
 He had asked once to have lessons in 
 painting instead of Latin and Greek, for 
 which his father paid Mr. Clive, the curate, 
 so highly. He had not only been denied 
 peremptorily, but laughed at, and called a 
 fool ; he never asked again. 
 
 He was only waiting ; waiting till the 
 possibihty of earning a bare maintenance 
 shoidd present itself to him, waiting to cast 
 himself upon the world's mercy, and his art 
 before the judgment-seat of criticism. It 
 must not be yet; his general education was 
 incomplete ; he could at least study other 
 things at home. His father allowed him 
 fifty pounds a year ; if he went away he 
 must forfeit that — forfeit everything, and live
 
 40 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 by the sweat of his brow. The necessity to 
 sustain life, to eat, to drink from day to day, 
 would crush the poor young shoots of his 
 artist soul, which were trying so hard to 
 struggle into existence. 
 
 ' Not yet,' he said, ' not yet : men greater 
 than 1 have waited. I can wait.' 
 
 In the meantime he was not idle : so much 
 as it lay in his power to do for himself, that 
 he did. He could not work by day; they 
 w^ould have found him out, and once dis- 
 covered, he knew that his father's iron Avill, 
 which had no respect for art, would have 
 placed insurmountable barriers in the way of 
 his continuing ' to waste his time.' The 
 family would ridicule his unfinished pictures, 
 laugh to scorn his incomplete ideas, drag his 
 soul's creations into the dirt and pollution of 
 ignorant criticism. It must not be, for his 
 own sake ; it should not be for theirs, the 
 children of his brain and hand ; living, breath-
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 41 
 
 ing souls, which spoke to him in the language 
 of perfect truth, perfect beauty, perfect love. 
 
 They told of the majesty of art. 
 
 He had a model. Far away amongst tlie 
 hills hved an aged shepherd : he was bhnd 
 and lame, he could not work now. His 
 dauo'hter took care of him : she could not 
 work either, not where other women were ; 
 her story was known in all the country 
 round ; they were honest, and would not re- 
 ceive her into their houses. And yet for their 
 hundred sins she had only been guilty of one, 
 but it was such as their code of morality pro- 
 nounced unpardonable. They might drink, 
 and swear, and cheat ; they might malign 
 their neighbours, and drive their husbands to 
 desperation — all these were legitimate sins, 
 and pardonable one towards the other; but 
 for poor Lizzie Grey there was no mercy in 
 heaven or on earth. She had sinned once 
 and suffered always. It vv^as no mitigation of
 
 42 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 her crime that she tended her helpless father 
 night and day with unfailing devotion, that 
 she brought up her child in the way of perfect 
 purity, making his soul a reflection of tha.t 
 nature which lay around and about him. He 
 was physically beautiful as the trees and the 
 flowers : a reproduction of the child-mother 
 who bore him. Ellis Lyndon had painted 
 him over and over again ; as an angel, as 
 Puck, as Cupid, as spirits of his own imagin- 
 ing; and she, the sinner mother, as every 
 pure and holy thing. 
 
 They were his models, the only ones he 
 could get in the narrow circle of his present 
 country life. They were sacred and spotless 
 in his sight. 
 
 They came to him at night when all the 
 family were sleeping, and by the light of his 
 oil lamp, he toiled to do justice to their 
 beauty — moral justice as well as physical. 
 The artist could see virtue where the world
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 43 
 
 said it did not exist ; he found purity even 
 in the defiled. In the summer mornings he 
 rose at daybreak, and whilst the family were 
 still sleeping, he went to the cottage where 
 Lizzie Grey lived with her aged father ; for 
 he w^ho wronged her had long ago passed out 
 of her life. ElHs called her from her hard- 
 earned rest, and they wandered away together 
 up to the shadow-veiled hills ; together they 
 watched Nature's artist, the sun, painting the 
 clouds, and the earth, and the falling water, 
 touching them with a delicacy of which no 
 human hand is capable, colouring them with 
 a blended unity of tints, soft and rich to look 
 upon, marvellous to contemplate ; as the 
 mists floated upwards and the clouds un- 
 veiled the sun, so were the mysteries of 
 Nature made clearer to the artist's mind. 
 
 They were the only happy moments of his 
 life. 
 
 Lizzie could sympathise in his love of the
 
 44 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 beautiful. She understood nothing of the 
 source from which it sprang, she could not 
 follow the Avorkings of his mind, she only 
 saw what he saw — the sunrise on the hills — 
 she only knew that he alone in all the world 
 did not despise her ; she wished him to be 
 great because he desired it for himself; she 
 was proud that he deemed her worthy, on 
 account of her beauty, to help him towards the 
 accomplishment of his destiny ; she felt herself 
 of some use in the world, and she was happy. 
 Afterwards, Ellis Lyndon would appear at 
 the family breakfast table as if he had but 
 just awakened from the peaceful sleep and 
 soulless dreams wherein the upright ones of 
 this w^orld are supposed to spend their hours 
 of slumber, secure in the assurance that the 
 day was well spent, and the sum of their 
 life's calling well worked-out ; confident that 
 it was deficient in no single part, that there 
 was no debt due to the giver of their im-
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 45 
 
 mortal minds for work which might have been 
 done there, but was left undone. No ; we — 
 the educated portion of society — have no 
 such care ; we have been well brought up^ we 
 have no self-reproaches to make, we have 
 nothing to fear. 
 
 Let us sleep. 
 
 In the summer evenings Ellis Lyndon 
 generally went to see Enid Osborn now. She 
 was a new and curious plant, throwing out 
 strange blossoms daily for his delight. A 
 marvellous combination of natural talent and 
 extreme ignorance. With all the desire to 
 learn, she yet knew nothing beyond what her 
 governess and her school books had taught 
 her. She was quick to grasp any subject 
 which he brought within her reach ; but she 
 only saw through the medium of his mind. 
 As he told her things were, so she believed 
 them to be ; she had not the power to use 
 her own intellect in opposition to his. He was
 
 4G A TANTALb'S CUP. 
 
 often hard with her, often morose, often bit- 
 terly satirical ; it mattered not, he was her 
 teacher, and she must learn in his way. She 
 was a child, and did not see the nature of the 
 force which governed her ; she only believed 
 him perfect in his knowledge, she only 
 thought him cleverer than any one else in 
 the world : she only wished to approach him 
 as nearly as her weak woman's intellect could 
 be brought to such perfection. She was so 
 far away from him ! She could only partially 
 understand the words he spoke in a language 
 as yet quite new and strange to her. 
 
 He told her that colour, and light, and 
 heat were not substances, but perceptions, im- 
 pressions on her brain arising from external 
 causes. 
 
 It was hard to fathom his meaning. 
 
 He told her that space and time only 
 existed in the mind of man ; that there were 
 no yesterdays or to-morrows in eternity.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 47 
 
 She could not grasp his argument. 
 
 He told her that size was not an actual 
 but a relative measurement : that laro^-e and 
 small were but human ideas ; that there was 
 no limit to the universe. 
 
 She behoved it, because he said so. 
 
 Her father was glad of the intimacy which 
 had sprung up between them ; he had liked 
 the morose and ill-tempered boy ; he admired 
 the self-willed, self-reliant young man, who re- 
 fused to be as other men were, he whom they 
 called so obstinate. There was no contra 
 dieting them ; he was obstinate, his temper 
 was violent. But the doctor admired him 
 for all that. He did not shut his eyes to the 
 possible result of this intimacy between Enid 
 and the young artist ; but what mattered it ? 
 he must expect to lose her some day. His 
 neighbour, Yaudry Lyndon, was a wealthy 
 man, his children would be well provided for, 
 one and all ; there was no reason for putting
 
 48 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 a barrier between his daughter and Ellis 
 Lyndon. 
 
 In his heart the doctor hoped she would 
 never marry any one ; he would rather keep 
 her to himself till the end of his days, but he 
 was not so selfish as to stretch forth his 
 hand to bring about this desired result. Let 
 fate work her own way ; he could not change 
 the unchangeable, he would not if he could — 
 in this instance, at least. 
 
 That was the doctor's philosophy. 
 
 So the weeks and the months wore on. 
 The summer waned into autumn ; there was 
 no change in the outward aspect of life at 
 the Stone House, or of life at Dr. Osborn's 
 cottage, or of life away amongst the hills 
 which surrounded the primitive Devonshire 
 village wherein they all lay sleeping — they 
 and others. 
 
 There was plenty of good county society ; 
 Gladys and Kuth had their balls and their
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. , 49 
 
 pic-nics, their lovers and their quarrels ; Mrs. 
 Lyndon and Esther had their dinners and 
 their free-talking societies whose motto was 
 * Magna est Veritas et iDvcevalebit ;' of course it 
 was strictly adhered to, as became honourable 
 and Christian women ; Roscoe, when at home, 
 enjoyed the best shooting and fishing in the 
 county ; and Oscar boasted the purest breed 
 of fox-terriers in all Devonshire. Mr. Lyn- 
 don cared for none of these things ; he was a 
 horticulturist, with a particular mania for 
 orchid growing, and a particular objection to 
 modern inventions, especially to agricultural 
 machinery. He was the richest man in the 
 place, and this gave him a claim to be the 
 most respected ; his wife was the best, the 
 most liberal housekeeper in the neighbour- 
 hood, and that established her right as a 
 leader in this society of worthy and incorrup- 
 tible matrons ; his daughters Avere the best 
 looking, best dressed girls in the county, 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 and this, above all other, insured his lasting 
 popularity. 
 
 Roscoe, the brave, handsome E>oscoe, was 
 one of his country's protectors, one of Her 
 Majesty's honoured servants, one of society's 
 spoilt darlings ; besides, was he not an intimate 
 friend of the Kight Honourable the Earl of 
 Longacres, and his satellite, Sir Wallace 
 Monk ! ! 
 
 Ellis was nobody at home ; he refused to 
 go abroad and be nobody there too ; he could 
 not compete with his family's accomplish- 
 ments in the estimation of Littlefield society ; 
 he preferred the company of his books. 
 
 Lately also, of Enid Osborn. 
 
 There was no apparent change in her life 
 or his when the first autumn frosts dyed the 
 leaves of the beeches yellow and crimson and 
 the hazel-bushes a ruddy brown ; when the 
 corn-crowned goddess, holding her flaming 
 torch and her scarlet poppy, stood in the
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 51 
 
 midst of the fruit-bearing fields, and, receiv- 
 ing back the golden sickle from the hands of 
 Triptolemus, told him his work was well done 
 and his rest well earned ; that peace and 
 plenty reigned on the earth, that all man- 
 kind might rejoice. 
 
 No change when the swallows, taking fright 
 at the perception of winter, as yet unseen but 
 creeping towards them, hid themselves away, 
 no one could tell where, whether in the 
 forests or the mountains or the unknown 
 corners of the earth — no change when the 
 days were short, and the nights cold, and 
 Ellis Lyndon could no longer go forth to 
 watch the sun-rise on the hills, or Lizzie Grey 
 continue her visits to the primitive studio in 
 the old wash-house. 
 
 No apparent change, I say ; nothing that 
 could be marked or speculated upon ; and yet 
 all things were not as they had been. 
 
 Enid Osborn had learnt to love her teacher. 
 
 4—2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 '.yjj A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 He was the first person who had shown 
 her that the Hmits of creation lay not within 
 the narrow circle of this insignificant atom of 
 the universe ; that the destinies of a handful 
 of human souls cannot change the unchange- 
 able laws by which that universe is governed ; 
 that we men, who think so much of ourselves, 
 are but a part of one great whole, of which 
 we know not whence it came, or whither it 
 will go ; that we believe in our immortality 
 because we know nothing is lost, nothing 
 ceases to he ; we believe in our God because 
 God is perfection, and perfection is every- 
 where, save where the hand of man brings 
 discord. This was his teaching ; it might be 
 meaningless, it might be wrong : she felt its 
 purity and she believed it true. 
 
 She loved him. 
 
 She did not know the meaning of her pas- 
 sion ; she wondered why, when his hand lay in 
 hers, it sent the blood coursing through her
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 53 
 
 veins and throbbing in her temples, why the 
 sound of his voice made her start, and the 
 mention of his name seemed hke a forbidden 
 sound. She had read of love, and thought of 
 love, but this did not seem to her like her ideal 
 sentiment ; there was too much pain in it, too 
 little of the expected pleasure ; she became 
 afraid of him, and would rather he had ceased 
 to visit her so often. 
 
 She did not understand herself, but he un- 
 derstood her ; he knew the meaninof of the 
 flush on her cheek, of the strange light in her 
 wonderful grey eyes, of the low soft tone in 
 which she spoke to him. 
 
 He was flattered ; he was pleased. 
 
 She was the first intelliofent woman, the 
 first woman of gentle blood and gentle man- 
 ners, who had bowed down and worshipped, 
 not the image of clay, but the precious stones 
 which were hidden beneath it. She was the 
 first who had read his nature correctly, and
 
 54 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 seen in it, not the evil, but the good which 
 it possessed. 
 
 But he did not love her. 
 
 His passion had already centred itself on 
 another object, one at once beyond and be- 
 neath him ; a woman to whom he would 
 rather have died than confess it ; a woman 
 he held sacred, because of her calling ; whose 
 mere physical beauty had enslaved him, 
 whom his honour bade him respect. 
 
 It was Lizzie Grey, his model. 
 
 He had nothing to hope from his infatua- 
 tion except its extinction ; he knew it impos- 
 sible that he should ever confess it — he had 
 no wish to do so. He should forget her 
 when he went away to London ; he had no 
 earthly right to care for her. 
 
 But he might love Enid Osborn if he 
 could. She was intended for Roscoe, he knew. 
 He experienced satisfaction in the feeling 
 that he, the despised one, had supplanted
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 55 
 
 this faultless brother without a struggle on 
 his own part. 
 
 He could not think of marriage yet ; he 
 saw no prospect of it in the years to come, 
 but if Enid loved him, why should he not feel 
 gratified, why not enjoy her society and the 
 knowledge that she was all his own ? She 
 was a child ; she might change, but for the 
 moment her life was his, to do with it as he 
 would ; he had no doubt of his perfect power 
 over her, no doubt of his own satisfaction in 
 the exercise of that power, no mistrust of his 
 own honour, no mistrust of hers. 
 
 If in the future he should wish to make 
 her his wife, there would be no obstacle to 
 his doing so. 
 
 He could scarcely analyse his own feehngs 
 towards her. She stood before all others in 
 his esteem, she had the power to absorb his 
 thoughts, she had made herself a necessity 
 to his existence, he seemed to hve for her in
 
 56 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 the present — and yet he loved Lizzie Grey 
 with all the romance of his young passionate 
 nature. Had she never sat as his model, he 
 might have been less strong to hide his feel- 
 ings ; but honour was not an empty term, not 
 a meaningless word, in Ellis Lyndon's code of 
 morality ; it was the standard which he had 
 hitherto guarded faithfully, which he would 
 guard still with his life, if need be. 
 
 Lizzie Grey was safe in the artist's hands.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 57 
 
 CHAPTEE lY. 
 
 The night was frosty and clear ; the stars 
 and the planets hovered mid- way between 
 heaven and earth ; you could see above them, 
 below them, around them. There was no taint 
 in the atmosphere, no cloud on the face of the 
 blue vault over-head, no sound on the surface 
 of the earth ; a silent harmony ruled the night. 
 The far-off suns throbbed and trembled with 
 a passionate intensity; the planets looked 
 calmly down, emotionless, changeless, secure 
 in the light of their borrowed splendour. Now 
 and again a meteor left its long silver track 
 across the heavens, and the white owl threw
 
 58 ' A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 its shadow on the earth as it flew noiselessly 
 over the face of the moon, dark and weird, 
 like some accursed spirit of evil, seeking rest 
 and finding none. 
 
 A. night for the indulgence of sublime 
 thoughts, for the creation of strange fancies, 
 waking dreams, aspirations, inspirations. A 
 night which called into existence the nobler 
 qualities of the human soul, and gave them 
 ascendency over the coarse lusts of the flesh, 
 which are not ourselves, not pa^t of our 
 Divine inheritance, but alien possessions, 
 things we have stooped to pick up out of the 
 dust of social decadence. They go well-nigh 
 to crush the soul, to disprove its immortality ; 
 but thank God, there are moments when their 
 power ceases, when the spirit rises pure and 
 undefiled, when it asserts its sway with an 
 irresistible force, a mighty persistency. In 
 these moments, man — the humblest, the 
 poorest, the most erring, becomes what
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 59 
 
 he was created : a being worthy of his 
 Creator, worthy of immortahty. 
 
 This was the substance of EUis Lyndon's 
 conversation as he walked up and down the 
 long straight pathway before the doctor's 
 cottage, side by side with Enid. 
 
 The glory of her happiness at this moment 
 was more perfect than the glory of the night ; 
 he was with her, he was talking to her as 
 she delighted to hear him talk ; she wished 
 for nothing beyond in all the earth. She 
 did not know even yet that this heaven was 
 but the existence within her of human love, 
 human passion, ruling her body and soul, 
 swaying her with an uncontrollable power, 
 whose strength she had yet to learn. 
 
 She only knew that she was happy. 
 
 And he was not proof against the influence 
 of the moment ; she seemed all-in-all to him 
 then ; her presence had banished the ideal 
 Li^ie Grey, who was, and had been, the
 
 60 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 idol of his boyish faith — a gilded image to 
 which he clung all the more faithfully because 
 of its unattainability. 
 
 To-night Enid's hand held up a veil between 
 himself and the goddess, hiding it from his 
 sight even as the broad wings of the white owl 
 hid for a moment the light of the planet Mars. 
 But it glowed there still in its red fiery 
 splendour. 
 
 It struck nine o'clock ; they need not go 
 indoors yet. The doctor would be home at 
 ten ; until then Enid was free. 
 
 ' Tell me, Ellis,' she said presently, * why 
 you have made me so happy by giving my 
 mind a broader field over which to wander ? 
 why I feel so much more satisfaction in my 
 life ? I anticipated pleasure, yes, but not 
 such as I feel — why is it T 
 
 ^ The invariable result of all real good — 
 happiness. But I don't want to make you an 
 Epicurean yet, Enid.'
 
 A TAXTALUS CUP. 61 
 
 ' But the happiness is intimately connected 
 with yourself/ she continued innocently, look- 
 ino: straiofht into his face. 
 
 The light of her eyes as the moon showed 
 them to him, intense in their love, perfect in 
 their purity, made him feel less strong than 
 he had been yesterday. An irresistible 
 impulse moved him to speak as he had never 
 spoken before. 
 
 ^ Do you really wish to know the meaning 
 of it, Enid ?' he asked, bending over her. 
 
 His voice was low and intense ; she started, 
 frightened, but still answered him as before : 
 
 ' Yes ; I should like to know.' 
 
 ' You love me, little one.' All the full 
 power of a man's passion lay in his words. 
 
 * No, no, I don't she said quickly, shrinking 
 from the hand he laid upon her shoulder ; 
 * that is to say, yes, of course I do ; you are my 
 oldest friend — you and Gladys ; T love you 
 both.'
 
 G2 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 He smiled at her innocent guile. He was 
 not misled by it ; he knew her far too well. 
 
 ' Are your love for Gladys and your love 
 for me the same kind of feeling V he asked, 
 pursuing the subject with a strange fascina- 
 tion. He had no object in silence before, 
 he had no object in speaking now ; impulse 
 governed him. 
 
 ' No/ she said, trembling as the young aspen 
 leaf trembles before the soft summer breeze 
 which is calling it into life and beauty. 
 
 He took her hand. 
 
 ' Why are you frightened or ashamed of 
 lovina: me, little one ? Am I so worthless an 
 object that even you would rather despise me 
 if you could V 
 
 * No, no ; you know I think you nobler, 
 truer, greater than any one in the world,' she 
 said, with heartfelt fervour. 
 
 ^ Only you would make me believe that it 
 is not so.'
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 6^ 
 
 ' Ellis, why do you talk like that ? I must 
 deceive myself before I could deceive you ; 
 but I don't know, I don't understand either 
 what you mean or what I am talking about. 
 Surely this was not the question I asked you.' 
 
 ' Yes, it was.' 
 
 ' Then — then I didn't mean it !' she stammer- 
 ed. The light was breaking in upon her at last. 
 
 ' Yes ; you did,' he said and the tightening 
 pressure of his hand on hers thrilled with an 
 exquisite pain through every nerve of her 
 body. He was gifted with a wonderful voice, 
 with a power to throw such intensity into a 
 single word that he had no need to explain 
 his meaning. She understood the passion 
 which for a moment moved him ; she believed 
 that he loved her, even as she him. She could 
 not speak now ; everything was changed. 
 Presently a voice called her from the house ; 
 it was her father. She turned to run away ; 
 Ellis cauo'ht her.
 
 64 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 ' Kiss me, Enid,' he said ; and he drew her 
 towards him. She did not resist ; he pressed 
 her to him, and laid one long passionate kiss 
 upon her yielding childish lips — lips which he 
 knew had never been touched by anything 
 less pure than the father's morning blessing, 
 or the dead mother's hourly seal of love. 
 
 Then he let her go, not another word was 
 spoken between them. 
 
 She could not meet her father yet ; she ran 
 round to the back of the house, in at a back 
 door, and up a back staircase to her own bed- 
 room. She turned the key in the lock and 
 fell on her knees by the bed-side. 
 
 She knew the meaning of it all, now. She 
 loved him, and he her ; had he not said so in 
 the kiss which still burned upon her lips, in 
 the low thrilling tones of his voice, in the pres- 
 sure of his hand ? 
 
 She was content. 
 
 She did not think of marriage then ; it was
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 65 
 
 a thing too far distant ; it might or might not 
 end so. It made no difference to their present 
 love, no difference to their present happiness, 
 no change in their present Hfe. 
 
 Soon she went downstairs ; her cheek wa^ 
 still flushed, her eyes moist, her lips red and 
 glowing; she looked quite beautiful. Her 
 father noticed it. He was eating his supper, 
 and she sat down at the table by his side. 
 
 ' You are late, my pet. I was so hungry 
 I had to begin without you ; where have you 
 been V 
 
 ^Walking with Ellis, father.' 
 
 How: strangely things had altered in 
 one short half hour ! she could not even 
 speak his name now in a natural tone, so 
 it seemed to her. 
 
 ' It strikes me you and Ellis Lyndon are 
 very fond of each other's company,' said the 
 doctor, in a half -joking manner; 'take care 
 you don't fall in love with him ; young men 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 6G A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 don't care to go in for marrying penniless 
 women in these days, remember. I should not 
 like to see m}'' little girl wearing the willow 
 for love of a man who cared nothing for her.' 
 He looked up as he spoke, and saw the burn- 
 ing flush on her cheeks ; instantly his manner 
 changed. 
 
 / My darling, come here.' She went and 
 stood by his side ; he took both her hands in 
 his, and looked, father-like, into her face. 
 
 * My warning is too late ; you do love Ellis 
 . Lyndon ; tell me all about it, my child.' 
 
 She knelt down by his side, and leaned her 
 head and her folded hands upon his knee. 
 
 * Yes, I do love him, father.' 
 
 * Poor little pet — poor darling — what can 
 I do for you V 
 
 ' Why do you pity me, father ? I am quite 
 happy, happier than I have ever been in all 
 my life.' 
 
 Then the doctor knew that what he dreaded
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 67 
 
 had not come to pass ; this was not a one- 
 sided love, he could see it by her manner. 
 
 * He cares for yon, then, little one V 
 
 'Yes, father.' 
 
 ' He has told you so f 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' God bless you, Enid, and God bless your 
 husband, whoever he may be.' 
 
 The doctor kissed her fondly, and smoothed 
 her chestnut-brown hair, and looked at 
 her sadly. He was thinking how hard it 
 would be to lose her, the only creature in all 
 the world left to love him. His son was 
 dead, his wife was dead ; Enid alone remained, 
 and she would go away : his home would be 
 empty, his hearth desolate, his grave-rest far 
 yet to seek ; but if she were happy, what 
 mattered the rest ^ 
 
 Dr. Osborn was not a selfish man. 
 
 The next day, before he went out to lavish 
 deeds of mercy on his suffering fellow crea- 
 
 5—2
 
 68 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 tures, he wrote a letter to Ellis Lyndon, 
 which he left with his own hand at the Stone 
 House. This is all he said : 
 
 ^ Ellis, my boy, 
 
 *Enid has told me of your mutual 
 love, and I write to bid you welcome to our 
 hearts and home. 
 
 ' Few words are the truest sympathy. I 
 was young myself once. I loved a good 
 woman, I married her, and we were blessed. 
 Enid is a perfect reflection of that woman's 
 truth and of her spotless nature ; she will be 
 to you what her mother was to me — every- 
 thing on earth, everything to hope for in 
 heaven. Take her, Ellis Lyndon, and God 
 bless you both. 
 
 ' A word to yourself 
 
 ' My daily duties have separated me from 
 you, from all who do not call for my profes- 
 sional care ; had it been otherwise, I could
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 69 
 
 have pointed out to you the rough places in 
 life, and essayed to smooth them for you. 
 Such pleasures are denied me. I could only 
 grasp them at the sacrifice of duty, to the 
 detriment of my calling ; we cannot tread 
 two roads at once. I have chosen mine, you 
 have chosen yours ; pursue it steadily, faith- 
 fully, honestly ; turn not away from it because 
 of the cutting winds, the bitter frosts, the 
 seemingly impassable mires which may op- 
 pose your progress. The human will is strong, 
 the power of man's mind resistless — it can 
 conquer even fate. 
 
 ^ I speak of fate — there is no such thing. 
 Our destinies are our own to make or mar ; 
 ours the hand on the helm of our own ship, 
 which is carrying us onwards to heaven or to 
 hell — the heaven of our. hopes, the hell of 
 our despair; we can steer its course which 
 way we will. Your spirit is willing, your 
 flesh is not weak ; you will sail triumphantly
 
 70 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 into the harbour, and all men shall see your 
 white sails shining pure and perfect in the 
 sunlight. 
 
 ^ I have finished. 
 
 * Yours ever, 
 
 * Horace Osborn.' 
 
 Ellis Lyndon read this letter standing by 
 the small lattice window of the old wash- 
 house. 
 
 He had had no intentions of any sort when 
 he laid that kiss on Enid's lips ; he had not 
 thought of asking her to be his wife, he had 
 thought of nothing but the gratification of the 
 moment. She had misinterpreted him, and 
 now he found himself engaged to her. He 
 could not say to her father, he could not say 
 to her, ^ It is all a mistake, I did not mean 
 anything,' — he would not say it if he could ; 
 he had neither the courage nor the desire. 
 After all, there was nothing to regret. He
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 71 
 
 loved Enid in a strange inexplicable way ; she 
 stood before all others in his estimation. She 
 was a perfect bud, giving promise to unfold 
 a flower of rare value. He had not kissed 
 her in cold blood — passion had prompted 
 Lim ; he must love her, he did, or he would 
 — it was all the same. 
 
 And yet — and yet 
 
 When he was away from her, that other 
 image, the form of his beautiful idol, was ever 
 present still. When he walked with Lizzie 
 and talked with Lizzie, the earth held no 
 greater joy. His senses were entranced by 
 the roundness of her limbs, by the rich 
 fulness of her lips, by the long waves of her 
 golden hair. It was the forbidden fruit for 
 which he thirsted, and it glowed the brighter 
 in his fancy because it hung so high on the 
 tree. He might have climbed up and reached 
 it, he knew, if he exerted himself to do so ; 
 but the branches were tender still : they might
 
 72 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 break, and his fall would kill him. Besides, 
 it was a tree more sacred in his sight than 
 ' the watery lotus that vied with the Tyrian 
 tints in hope of future berries ' — the lotus of 
 which Dryope plucked the flowers to give as 
 playthings to her child, and by reason of her 
 desecration became herself as low as the 
 thing she had destroyed — a soulless plant, 
 like unto the other. 
 
 He dared hot touch it. 
 
 But towards Enid there lay no such pro- 
 hibition ; he should wish to marry some day, 
 she was the only woman he had ever met 
 whom he would have made his wife or the 
 mother of his children ; the only woman he 
 had ever respected ; yet she was a child still, 
 and he looked upon her as such : her mind 
 was unformed, her education incomplete, her 
 whole life only a shadow of what it might be. 
 And this depended on circumstances ; he 
 could mould her into what he would, but the
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 73 
 
 responsibility was a serious one. He had not 
 intended to take this burden upon him ; and 
 she in her innocence had laid it there with her 
 own hand ; there was no putting it down now. 
 
 So he wrote to her, and he spoke of the 
 days — cUstant now perhaps, but not beyond 
 their* reach — when he should call her wife; 
 when it should be her glory to support him 
 by the power of her love in the great struggle 
 for fame, for a spot upon this earth whereon 
 to stand and to call it his own, a place to 
 which other men might look up and say : 
 ' Behold the majesty of art ! see ! our great 
 painter T She was to share his dreams, his 
 successes, his failures, his hfe. 
 
 He wrote with an exquisite tenderness : 
 he would never let her know the mistake 
 which had placed her where she now stood ; 
 it had been his own doing — his the fault, his 
 to make atonement, his to learn the value of 
 such a love as hers. He should not fail.
 
 74 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 His family suspected nothing of all this ; 
 they did not know of his visits to the doctor's 
 cottage ; they neither knew nor cared whether 
 he were at home or abroad. They were glad, 
 rather than otherwise, if he failed to appear 
 at the dinner-table ; he was never too agree- 
 able towards them. His sarcasms struck 
 home and made ranklino: sores under his 
 sisters' thin skins ; his satires upon society 
 and society's darlings caused his parents to 
 experience several degrees less satisfaction in 
 the reflected honour of Captain Lyndon's 
 acquaintaince with the Earl of Longacres 
 and Sir Wallace Monk. 
 
 Altogether they preferred his absence. Late 
 in life, since he had been grown up, his father 
 and mother certainly tried, now and again, to 
 take a parental interest in his outgoings and 
 incomings, hoping to discover where he went 
 and what he did. It was too late : as a child 
 they had cared nothing about him — what
 
 A TANTALdS CUP. 75 
 
 was there to interest intellio^ent beino^s in the 
 wanderings of a morose and ill-tempered boy ? 
 — as a man he refused to give any reply to 
 their solicitations on behalf of his out-of-doors 
 pursuits. So at last they gave up asking. 
 
 Enid still visited Gladys, was still her 
 dearest friend ; but she shrank from men- 
 tioning her love for Ellis to Ellis's sister, 
 or showing it before his family ; he and she 
 might be strangers still, for any change that 
 was visible to others ha\dng place in their 
 conduct. The general impression was that 
 they rather dishked each other : it was a 
 satisfaction to the family. Roscoe liked Enid ; 
 she would make him a first-rate wife some 
 day. Her father was a rising man. * He 
 would probably be Sir Horace Osborn before 
 he died ' — every one said so, at least ; it was 
 worth encourarino:. 
 
 And the doctor had not mentioned the afiair. 
 They were so young, the prospect of marriage
 
 76 ' A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 was SO very far off, it could scarcely be called 
 an engagement : it would be ridiculous to 
 speak of it to Ellis's family. It would appear 
 like a boast on his part, like pride at having 
 caught the son of one of the richest men in 
 the county for his penniless daughter. Time 
 enough to talk about it when some prospect 
 of their marriage should present itself. 
 
 And so, as usual, his family knew nothing 
 of the life of Ellis Lyndon. They only knew 
 that he was idle, that he was obstinate, that 
 he was good for nothing — nothing which, in 
 their estimation, was anything — and since 
 their estimation could not possibly be at fault, 
 there remains an indispensable logical con- 
 clusion that they must be right. 
 
 Who dare gainsay it ?
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 77 
 
 CHAPTEE Y. 
 
 Those were the first and last happy days of 
 Ellis Lyndon's life. A new interest had 
 opened for him in the development of Enid 
 Osbom's mind. She was so ready to grasp 
 every idea which he held out to her, so quick 
 to receive an impression from every touch of 
 his hand, so easy to mould, so grateful. He 
 might be wiser than she, but he could not 
 quite understand the depths of her love ; he/ 
 might be more learned, but his philosophy 
 was not more perfect than her simple faith. 
 
 Every evening he came to her at eight 
 o'clock, and remained by her side till ten.
 
 78 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 Sometimes they were all together in the 
 pretty chintz-furnished parlour — he, and she, 
 and Dr. Osborn; sometimes they wandered 
 out, leaving her father absorbed in his duties ; 
 sometimes, but rarely, the doctor would walk 
 with them, and pour out for their benefit 
 some of the noble ambition which made his 
 life so perfect. Peace and tranquillity lay 
 around and about him ; there was no discord 
 in the quiet cottage home, nothing of the 
 jarring and disputing, nothing of the ill-tem- 
 pered petty jealousies, nothing of the bigoted 
 self-sanctification, which made Ellis hate his 
 own home and despise himself for being a 
 part of them. One debt he owed his parents, 
 and only one : thanks for the tyranny which 
 had driven him from amongst them, for the 
 want of sympathy which had set a barrier 
 between his life and theirs, gratitude for the 
 distance to which they had removed him 
 from themselves and from their religion. He
 
 A TANTALUS CJJ \ 79 
 
 had found a purer atmosphere now, one in 
 which he could breathe freely, where the hfe- 
 giving oxygen was not polluted by the acids 
 of narrow-minded prejudice. He felt himself 
 rising into a healthier and nobler state of 
 being, one less impregnated with a cynical 
 scepticism as to the existence of truth or 
 goodness in man or woman. 
 
 Who could doubt of either in the presence 
 of Enid Osborn and her father ? 
 
 EUis made a list of all the books he wished 
 her to read, and procured a great many for 
 her. She delighted in working to please him ; 
 and yet he never praised her, seldom gave 
 her any encouragement even. It was in his 
 nature to demand everything and give nothing 
 in return ; softness had not been fostered in 
 him, the poor seeds of human tenderness had 
 been destroyed long ago. When passion 
 moved him, he could display a depth of feel- 
 ing, a power of loving, before which the weak
 
 80 A TANTALUS CUP. * 
 
 affections of most men would become pale as 
 the moon in the mid-day sunlight. Some- 
 times Enid had the power to arouse this 
 passion, but not often. Once or twice he 
 had kissed her as on the first night, when she 
 mistook the expression of a passing sentiment, 
 the gratification of a momentary desire, for 
 love; but she could reckon the number of 
 such kisses by reason of the incompre- 
 hensible delight with which they filled her. 
 She supposed it was his nature to be cold and 
 hard, and she loved him only the more. Often 
 he scolded her as if she were a naughty child, 
 often he launched at her some of his most 
 cutting satires ; the former she liked, but the 
 latter frightened her : she trembled before 
 them, and cowered down as if he had thrown 
 a knife at her. But she would not have had 
 him alter this, any more than any other fail- 
 ing which made a part of himself as he was 
 — as she loved him.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 81 
 
 Sometimes he painted her under different 
 forms, but they were none of them beautified 
 by the radiance of poetical passion, or shrouded 
 in the mystic halo of imaginative romance ; 
 none of them expressive of the power, the soul, 
 the essence of the artist's beingf. 
 
 Enid was always a Ruth, a Jean d'Arc, an 
 Ophelia, a Zulica, but he could do no justice 
 even to these subjects. He gave up trying. 
 Nevertheless he liked her to sit by his side, and 
 help him weave strange fancies, or watch him 
 give form and substance to the shadows of wan- 
 dering thoughts. But Enid's presence never 
 inspired him to greater efforts, never gave him 
 the strength which Lizzie Grey had the j)ower 
 of imparting to him. Lizzie influenced the 
 sentimental part of his nature, Enid the 
 practical. Sentiment is an important item in 
 the mental composition of an artist ; it is the 
 melody which flows from every touch of his 
 hand, the full rich chords which vibrate from 
 
 VOL. L 6
 
 82 A TANTALUS CUP 
 
 soul to soul, the sensible poetry which, un- 
 spoken, still rises and falls in harmonious 
 rhythm, speaking to us in language of infinite 
 sweetness. 
 
 Sentiment was the great charm of Ellis 
 Lyndon's pictures ; it made them living, 
 speaking beings ; instead of mere soulless 
 forms, tuneless colourings, or lifeless images. 
 
 Enid had not much soul for art : but be- 
 cause he loved it, because he had sworn to 
 dedicate his life to it, to become one of its 
 most impassioned votaries, she tried to 
 master something of the history of its pro- 
 gress. She would fain understand him when 
 he spoke to her of the desires and the 
 struggles, the power and the influence of the 
 old masters. But he could not imbue her 
 with any of his own devotion for art as the 
 high altar before which all men on earth must 
 bow the knee in worshipping reverence ; he 
 could not teach her to feel that even nature
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 83 
 
 must confess herself inferior, since it is the 
 province of art to esialt nature. Xo ! even to 
 please him Enid would not place God's work 
 lower than man's. ' Nature is infallible, art 
 is fallible ; how can you place what is perfect 
 below w^hat is imperfect ?' she asked in her 
 childish enthusiasm. He only smiled and 
 answered : 
 
 ' Art is the soul of nature, child ; her pro- 
 gressive and immortal soul. Why talk of 
 first or last, of the greater or the less 1 They 
 are inseparable, your nature and my art ; one 
 is but the perfection of the other. Man is 
 nature, his mind is art. You will not tell me 
 that the savage natural instinct is greater than 
 an enhghtened, expanded, educated mind, yet 
 this mind, this work of art, sprung from the 
 natural imperfect man ; it is greater than the 
 man, and yet a part of himself, inseparable 
 from himself, yet reaching beyond himself. 
 So it is with nature and art.' 
 
 6—2
 
 84 
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 She did not reply. His reasoning was 
 soiDhistical, but it seemed to her inadequate. 
 She beheved still that nature would endure 
 for ever, but art might perish with the perish- 
 able beings on whom its existence depends. 
 She was not converted, but as usual she 
 could not argiie against him, even to herself. 
 
 Enid was not slow to maintain her own 
 opinion generally ; indeed. Dr. Osborn often 
 said to his friends, 'Don't attempt to argue 
 with my inconvincible daughter ; she'll prove 
 herself right if she can, but anyhow she'll 
 prove you wrong. She ought to be a 
 barrister; she has a wonderful talent for 
 maintaining her point, I can assure you.' 
 
 And what he said of her was true ; but not 
 with regard to Ellis Lyndon. She had no 
 power to oppose even a thought of his ; her 
 whole being had become but a reflection of 
 his, she was as much a part of himself as if 
 ♦she had been the wife she hoped to be.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 8 3^ 
 
 And so the mouths wore on^ and the old 
 year crept away, and the new year took its 
 place, and wore its cast-off clothes, and reigned 
 in its stead. Nobody cared ; one year was 
 as good as another, so long as it brought equal 
 sunshine and equal rains, so long as no one 
 found himself worse off than he had been, 
 so long as his crops grew and his trade flour- 
 ished. What matter if it be called 1876 
 or 1877? How are we affected by *the 
 €oming on of time '? who will say to us 
 ^ Hail ! kino' that shalt be '? Such honour is 
 
 o 
 
 only for a select few. 'Not you, not me,' 
 we say, and turning our faces to the wall, 
 we go to sleep again. The new year calls 
 for nothing from us. 
 
 But with Enid it was an era for new efforts, 
 fresh hopes, perfected love. Nothing seemed 
 wanting in her life so long as Ellis Lyndon 
 was her master and her guide ; the hours 
 were all too short for the enjoyment of
 
 8G A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 the bliss they brought her. The days 
 and the nights were to her the fulness of 
 
 joy. 
 
 Poor child ! it was well for her that she 
 knew their worth ; they were fleeting as the 
 sun-illumined prisms of the rain drops, which 
 like a gold and purple and rose-hued arch 
 glow on the face of the cloud-covered sky. 
 The colour is not there, or the bow either ; 
 they are but our impressions from the trem- 
 bling ether, and the outline of the reflected 
 rays. So was Enid's love. A beautiful 
 glowing thing, real and substantial to her 
 senses, yet non-existent, because nothing was 
 as she believed it. He was a mortal, with a 
 mortal's fallibility ; he was a man, with more 
 than the faults of some men ; he was a boy^ 
 with a boy's theoretical pride, a boy's ima- 
 ginary strength. Twenty years in Littlefield 
 had not taught him much of necessities or 
 temptations ; he had read of them, and scofled
 
 A TANTALUS CUP, 87 
 
 at them, and echoed Dr Osborn's belief that 
 man is master of his fate. 
 
 Ah'eady, by giving way to a passionate im- 
 pulse he had involuntarily bound himself to 
 Enid Osborn, he had forced upon himself 
 the keeping of a life's secret — the secret of 
 her mistake, which he swore that she should 
 never know. He would marry her, and 
 love her, and be thankful to her for all the 
 blessings she brought him ; but that love 
 would not be the love of the poets, or those 
 blessings the realization of his young 
 passionate dreams. 
 
 Had Lizzie Grey loved him as he her, 
 he might have tasted this Tantalus cup of 
 imaginary bliss just for a moment, before it 
 was snatched from him by the hand of stern 
 reality. But she did not love him, and he 
 knew it; nevertheless, he believed it was 
 the streno^th of his own honour towards her 
 which kept her sacred. He forgot that it is
 
 88 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 only when two maddened loves burst their 
 bounds and rush forth with resistless violence 
 towards each other that, sweeping down all 
 obstacles, they meet, and merging into one 
 another, carry honour and principle away with 
 them to the great ocean of death. 
 
 It is so easy to set honour against a single 
 unmet, half-imaginary love — so easy to fancy 
 yourself a moral hero. Ellis Lyndon might 
 be strong, but assuredly his strength had not 
 yet been tried. 
 
 Enid believed him capable of mastering the 
 world by reason of his unbending will, and he 
 fancied himself gifted with more than or- 
 dinary determination. He would not have 
 been afraid to go forth even then to fight the 
 battle of life single-handed ; he intended to 
 do so in a year or two, and, coming back 
 laurel-crowned, to bid Enid share his tri- 
 umphs. 
 
 Yes ; those w^ere peaceful days, in which
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 89 
 
 he could sleep and dream, and wake to an 
 untroubled reality. He forgot the contempt 
 of his family — his sister s sneers, his father's 
 petty tyranny, his mother's lovelessness, 
 they were of no account now : he simply 
 ignored their existence as they ignoi*ed his ; 
 he never spoke to them now. And whilst he 
 was happy in Doctor Osborn's cottage with 
 Enid, they believed him poring over his books 
 alone in the old washhouse. 
 
 Once or twice they heard of his visiting 
 the cottage. 
 
 They were not afraid ; they had always 
 known that the good-natured, eccentric doctor 
 had taken a kind interest in the boy. But 
 that Enid might do so likewise never entered 
 their thoughts ; she was for Roscoe some day ; 
 they had arranged it all ; their forethought 
 and wisdom w^as as infallible as everything 
 else they did. Ellis never entered into 
 any of their calculations.
 
 90 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 In the meantime 
 
 ' Art is long, and time is fleeting, 
 And our hearts, tho' strong and brave, 
 Still like muffled drums are beating 
 Funeral marches to the grave.' 
 
 Ellis Lyndon worked unceasingly at hi& 
 
 pictures. He had just begun a new one ; his 
 
 genius was taking a higher flight than any it 
 
 had hitherto attempted. He passed much of 
 
 his time studying the writings of Goethe, 
 
 glorying in the right to let his mind wander 
 
 unrestrained over the boundless fields of 
 
 metaphysical speculation ; it fascinated him. 
 
 No man could say to him, ^ You are wrong/ or
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 91 
 
 * You are right/ no one could prove his truths 
 a he. The undiscovered land lying without 
 the precincts of this world was to him a free 
 country ; it might prove to be a desert, a 
 waste ; the time spent in wandering over its 
 trackless surface might be but so much energy 
 throw^n away, so much force expended out of 
 the sum of his mind's power, with nothing 
 found to supply the deficiency, nothing to 
 compensate for the loss ; nothing except the 
 gratification of the moment, the delight in 
 exercising a limitless power, the belief that 
 truth is somewhere, if we only knew where 
 to look for it. * Faust ' w^as the one of all 
 Goethe's works which most charmed Ellis 
 Lyndon, and ^ Wilhelm Meister ' that which 
 most astonished him. How startling a proof 
 this of the versatility of the mind wliich 
 created it ! So poor a plot, so ill- arranged a 
 story, a scheme so vaguely, almost incom 
 prehensibly worked out, and yet an effort of
 
 ^2 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 genius almost unsurpassed, an inspiration a 
 mystery. 
 
 From a scene in this story Ellis Lyndon 
 had dreamt of a picture which was some day 
 to take form and being at his hands : it could 
 not be perfected yet, he knew, not till he had 
 learned something of the art of painting, 
 apart from the genius with which nature had 
 gifted him. His pictures were indeed mar- 
 vellous productions for an untaught hand, 
 but full of faults, he knew ; wanting in all 
 the perfections which modern artists would 
 call for ere they could receive him amongst 
 them or stoop to notice his work. 
 
 He was only waiting. 
 
 In the meantime he practised his subject, 
 that each effort might approach nearer to his 
 ideal of its sublimity. The young Avrite of 
 love, they think of love, they paint love, be- 
 cause love is the ruling passion of their exis- 
 tence. Ellis Lyndon was not different to the
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 93- 
 
 rest — love was the strongest element of his 
 nature, that which most absorbed him, and 
 had most power to call forth the full energies 
 of his mind, the full strength of his hand. 
 
 His picture, then, was of love. His subject,, 
 the child Mignon, whom Wilhelm Meister 
 had snatched from the hands of her cruel 
 taskmasters ; whom he had tended, caressed^ 
 petted, till before he knew it she had passed 
 into womanhood and learned to love him. A 
 silent, hopeless, passionate love, which, burn- 
 ing into her soul, seared and scorched the 
 young nature till the fountain of its life was 
 dried up. Too proud to speak, too certain of 
 his unresponsiveness, she chose death — but 
 she kept her secret. 
 
 The picture was of Mignon dying because 
 of her hopeless love ; tired with her long 
 struggle to keep the secret, weary of life, 
 calmly, contentedly waiting for her death,, 
 and clinging, with all the love she had felt
 
 94 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 for Wilhelm Meister, to kis child, who lay 
 sleeping, a picture of life and health, in her 
 arms. 
 
 ' She, in her white dress, with her rich 
 brown hair, partly knotted and partly stream- 
 ing in curls over her shoulder, sat with the 
 child Felix in her lap, and pressed him to her 
 heart. She seemed like a departed spirit ; 
 the boy was life itself It seemed as if 
 heaven and earth were embracing.' 
 
 So far Goethe himself drew the picture. 
 It only remained for the artist to portray the 
 strength and the purity of a love which, 
 failing to find sympathy in the object of its 
 life-long devotion, could in death cling to his 
 •child, because it luas his, a part of himself, a 
 thing he also caressed. In the love of the 
 child her tortured spirit had found rest at 
 last. There were no surroundings to the 
 picture ; nothing but the two figures, the 
 dying girl and the sleeping child. Ellis
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 95 
 
 Lyndon's desire was for perfect purity of con- 
 ception. He had seen a picture by Ary 
 Scheffer once, ' St. Augustin et St. Monique/ 
 the impression it made upon him was never 
 obhterated ; and to-day the standard at which 
 he aimed was the great French master's in- 
 tense, subhme simphcity. Representations 
 his, not of manifold forms or of gorgeous 
 colouring, but of the human soul in its 
 ■divinest purity of expression. From Lizzie 
 Grey Ellis borrowed the grace of form which 
 he gave to his Mignon ; from Lizzie's child 
 the round limbs and healthy beauty of the 
 boy Felix. 
 
 It was the last time they ever sat to him. 
 
 She was leaving his studio once, when the 
 grey streaks of dawn were seen creeping up 
 over the hills ; she had gone late, and left 
 late ; the Avork had been interesting to both ; 
 she was proud of all he accomplished, proud 
 tirst of her power to be of use in the world
 
 96 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 for he had made her understand perfectly 
 how great a thing it was she did for him. 
 
 She had not walked ten paces from the 
 door of his room when she felt herself caught 
 hold of by the arm, and addressed in a voice 
 which tried to maintain civility, but failed. 
 
 ' Who are you, girl ? and what are you 
 doing here V 
 
 ' I am Lizzie Grey, sir, please,' she said, 
 dropping a curtsey. 
 
 She knew by the manner of his. speech 
 that it was not one of her own class who 
 addressed her. 
 
 He still held her so tightly that his fingers 
 hurt her arm ; she had no wish to run away. 
 Why need he be so rough ? she thought. 
 
 ' Lizzie Grey !' he sneered and she felt the 
 implication of his unexpressed disgust ; ifc was 
 only another stone cast at her as she stood 
 there defenceless — she did not complain. 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' she answered humbly.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 97 
 
 ' And may I ask^ Miss Lizzie Grey, what 
 right you have in my son's room at so 
 respectable an hour ? Don't attempt to deny 
 it. I saw you come out at the door just 
 now.' 
 
 She was not going to deny it, neither was 
 she going to imphcate Ellis ; she knew that 
 his painting must be kept a secret from the 
 family, and for herself, she had no reputation 
 to lose. What mattered it how this stranger 
 might sentence her ? — his judgment had been 
 pronounced already, years ago ; nothing 
 would recall it. There was a certain pride 
 of independence about her as she replied : 
 
 ' What I am doing here is my own look- 
 out. I cannot answer you, sir ; let me go, 
 please.' 
 
 She wrenched her arm from his grasp and 
 ran away — quickly as the hunted animal runs 
 to escape its pursuers — away towards the 
 hills, to the shelter of her lonely hut, to the 
 
 VOL. L / 7
 
 98 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 bedside of her child, whose Ups, pure as the 
 wild rosebuds, would rest themselves trust- 
 ingly upon hers, whose little arms, strong as 
 the tendrils of the young ivy-shoots, would 
 cling to her for support, whose eyes, soft 
 and clear as the night-star of the glowworm, 
 would shine down love upon her, even now, 
 in the half-unfolded dawn. 
 
 Who dare tell her she had no claim to this 
 affection ? Who dare impugn its purity 1 
 Let them say what they would of her, they 
 could not cast a stone at him. His beauty 
 was perfect ; for had not the artist found him 
 growing flower-like amongst the hills, and 
 stooping to gather, had conferred on him 
 that immortality other men would fain deny 
 him. 
 
 Mr. Lyndon stopped a moment to consider. 
 He would not act too hastily ; he prided him- 
 self on being a just man, and lenient towards 
 human frailty. He had always been so in his
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 99 
 
 own case ; accordingly, he would give Ellis an 
 opening for self-defence, he would not begin 
 with an accusation. But he could never pass 
 the affair over; he should be failing in his 
 duty if he shut his eyes and his senses to this 
 evenino-'s ' accidental ' meetinor. He chose to 
 call it accidental ; for the moment, perhaps, he 
 forgot that people had told him some such 
 discovery could be made if he exerted him- 
 self t<5 make it ; possibly he ignored the fact 
 that he was not in the habit of rising and 
 wandering round the precincts of the house 
 before daybreak. He persuaded himself that 
 chance alone had discovered to him Ellis' evil 
 ways. He should be worse than sinning if 
 he lost the present opportunity of offering 
 fatherly counsel to his erring son. Besides, 
 * The disgrace it reflects on the family is not 
 to be countenanced/ he said in his just wrath. 
 Of course, he would speak mildly about it, 
 would reason with Ellis ; but if kindness 
 
 7—2
 
 100 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 failed to move the fellow's obstinacy, why, 
 he must take the consequences. 
 
 Mr. Lyndon pushed open the washhouse 
 door and walked into the room. Ellis was 
 standing before a large easel, brushes and 
 palette in hand, considering the work he had 
 done ; two oil lamps burned on small tables 
 at either side of the half-finished picture. 
 
 Ellis did not move when he saw his father ; 
 that it was an intentional intrusion he knew, 
 a pre-arranged plan to become acquainted 
 with the nature of his, Ellis's pursuits, where 
 questioning had failed to satisfy parental 
 curiosity. Let him gratify himself to his 
 soul's content now. Ellis went on painting. 
 Mr. Lyndon approached the easel and took a 
 critical survey of the picture through his 
 gold-rimmed eye-glasses. He had not spoken 
 yet. In all serious matters it is so much 
 better to be deliberate. 
 
 ' And what may that be meant for V he
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 101 
 
 asked presently, waving his hand with the 
 still open glasses somewhere in the direction 
 of the picture. 
 
 ' Whatever you think it most like/ Ellis 
 replied morosely. 
 
 ' It doesn't strike me as bearing much re- 
 semblance to anything. I see some arms 
 and legs sprawhng about in a purposeless 
 sort of way, and a face which looks as if the 
 young lady were contemplating suicide. T 
 was not aware that a son of mine aspired to 
 be an artist — well ! well ! it's better than 
 nothing, an amusement pour passer le tempsy 
 you know; harmless, so long as you don't 
 waste too much time over it. I have not 
 come to criticise your — hum — works of art, I 
 suppose I'm expected to call them.' 
 
 ' Art would not thank you for naming me 
 one of her votaries.' 
 
 ' All that's very high-flown sentiment, my 
 good boy; if you didn't think yourself a
 
 102 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 sucking artist, you wouldn't waste your time 
 covering that important-looking canvass. I 
 don't say you are not, mind ; I only hope you 
 will do something, anything, rather than con- 
 tinue to lead the idle life you have been 
 doing for the last two years. Why, Koscoe 
 was a lieutenant before he had reached your 
 age. But that's neither here nor there now.' 
 
 He paused, changed his manner, assumed a 
 grave tone of voice, and continued impres- 
 sively : 
 
 * Look here, Ellis, I want you to tell 
 me all about that girl who left your room 
 just now.' Another pause ; no answer from 
 Ellis, who worked industriously at his picture. 
 ' Come, now, don't do the innocent ; Lizzie 
 Grey, I mean — is that plain enough V 
 
 ' So far from being plain, I don't under- 
 stand you in the least ; what do you intend 
 to ask me V 
 
 ' I ask you, sir, for that confidence, that
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 103 
 
 honesty, which is due to a father from his 
 
 son.' 
 
 * I was never taught the meaning of 
 honesty, and as to confidence, I have none to 
 give. You luatched for the going of the girl, 
 and you saw her go. You left nothing for 
 me to confide to you.' 
 
 ' Perhaps you'll tell me what she was doing 
 here ; I insist upon an answer.' 
 
 * Were it not for her sake, I should refuse 
 to give you one ; you couldn't thrash me for 
 being silent noiu. But I will tell you. 
 Lizzie Grey is my model ; she is sitting to 
 me for my picture of Mignon. Long ago you 
 and my mother laid your veto on my painting 
 by day; I did it at night instead. I have 
 continued to do it at nio^ht, and I shall still 
 continue.' 
 
 His father burst out lauofhingf — a coarse 
 mocking laugh, a laugh which imputed 
 everything his refined tongue dared not utter.
 
 104 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 Ellis's temper was rising, 
 
 * If you have come here to insult me, you 
 or I had better leave the room ; we are 
 neither of us good-tempered, or over-gifted 
 with patience ; we may regret this interview.' 
 
 * You may regret it — you shall regret it, 
 young sir. I come to you for confidence, I 
 receive insults. Now look you here, my 
 dear fellow, I won't stand it ; you think too 
 much of yourself You think that you 
 have only to stand there and lie to me, and 
 that I shall be fool enough to believe you. 
 You fan ' 
 
 * Stop !' Ellis stood before his father, face 
 to face with him, white with passion, his 
 hands so tightly clenched that the nails 
 pierced into the skin. ' Stop ! you have 
 spoken of lies — that puts an end to all conver- 
 sation between us now or ever. I am not a 
 child, you can no longer call me a liar with 
 impunity ; one thing you gave me which
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 105 
 
 you could not take away, physical strength. 
 Leave this room or I shall use it ; I inherit 
 your temper, you know what that means — 
 take care how you goad me too far ; there 
 are Hmits to all human endurance, even to 
 what a child is bound to bear at the hands of 
 a parent. I refuse to answer you another 
 question.' 
 
 Mr. Lyndon was no coward ; if his son's 
 temper were bad, so was his own ; if his son 
 were physically strong, so was he ; if his son 
 were self-willed, obstinate, so was he ; if 
 they fought, it would be to the death ; neither 
 would yield, neither would confess himself 
 wrong. Mr. Lyndon had fired the first shot, 
 it was to be followed by another and another 
 so long as these two men should stand to- 
 gether on the battle-field of Hfe. 
 
 * Very well,' he said, as calmly as he could 
 master himself to speak ; ' you have made 
 you own bed^ he upon it. I came to
 
 106 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 you in a fatherly spirit of peace ; had you 
 behaved honestly towards me, and confessed 
 your faults, I would have forgiven you, and 
 done my best to get you out of this mess.' 
 
 'Thank you,' sneered Ellis, wdth his bit- 
 terest sarcasm. 
 
 Mr. Lyndon feigned not to have heard it. 
 
 'But, since you have chosen the other 
 course, I bid you leave this house to-morrow. 
 I will not see disgrace brought upon your 
 mother and your sisters ; I will not feel 
 myself disgraced by your conduct. If you 
 choose to go to the devil, go there by your- 
 self; you shan't drag your family down with 
 you. A nice scandal for our neighbours, 
 this ! You might at least have shown more 
 sense of decency. In your own house ! 
 amongst your own people ! side by side with 
 yours sisters, your mother! It shall not be, 
 I tell you. To-morrow morning the dogcart 
 will call at this door to take you to the
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 107 
 
 station, you must leave my house for ever. 
 Go where you like. As you are a minor, I 
 am, of course, bound to support you ; I will 
 do my duty. You will find a hundred 
 pounds a year at your disposal — I will place 
 the money with Glyn ; not a penny more in 
 the present or in the future, remember; if 
 you choose to run into debt, you must take 
 the consequences. Do you understand me ? 
 What I say is final.' 
 
 ' Your meaning is clear enough this time ; 
 I will go. I shall not require the assistance 
 of the dogcart, or of your hundred pounds 
 either. Have you anything else to offer 
 me?' 
 
 ' You talk like a child or a fool ; it would 
 serve you right if I took you at your word, 
 and withdrew my promise of support — where 
 would your pride be then ? But I am willing 
 to make allowance for your inexperience, and 
 to bear vnth. your impertinence in this^ our
 
 108 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 last meeting. The money will be deposited 
 regularly at Glyn's ; you are not bound to 
 make use of it, you know/ with something 
 of Ellis's satire in his tone. ' 1 have said my 
 say ; I will go now. We shall not expect to 
 see you at breakfast to-morrow morning. 
 Good-bye ! when you are disposed to have 
 more confidence in your father, more respect 
 for your mother, more love for your sisters, 
 you may write and tell us so. I will bear no 
 malice against you, I will receive you back 
 again with open arms, I will kill the fatted 
 calf for you ; but until the change comes you 
 are an alien from my house and heart. 
 Again, good-bye, Ellis.* 
 
 He was gone, the door was shut behind 
 him, his footsteps grew more and more 
 distant as he wended his way towards the 
 house; the dead hush of night reigned around. 
 Ellis was as one stunned. He had known 
 that this would come to pass some day, but
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 109 
 
 he had not expected it so soon ; he was 
 scarcely prepared to meet it. And Enid, 
 what would she say ? He could not keep 
 her bound to him now. He was to be 
 dependent on the sweat of his brow for a 
 livelihood, for he would rather starve than 
 touch the hundred pounds his father had 
 offered him as a compensation for gross in- 
 justice, life-long neglect, burning insult. It 
 was all to be paid for in so much silver, so 
 much gold, and the debt v/iped out between 
 them. Ellis could not talk of marriaofe now ; 
 it would be as impossible to him as to cry 
 * Peccavi ' for sins he had not committed, to 
 lick the dust at his father's feet in the hope 
 of a future share in his worldly goods. 
 
 Ellis knew that unless he stooped thus low, 
 he would remain as his father had said^ an 
 alien. 
 
 Mr. Lyndon had never been known to 
 retract a sentence, and his fiat had gone
 
 110 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 forth. Ellis Lyndon had never been known 
 to change, and his resolution was taken. But 
 all the world seemed altered around and about 
 him ; nothing was as it had been yesterday. 
 His life must begin afresh, in new places, 
 amongst strange people ; whither would it 
 lead him '? Upwards towards the day-star of 
 fame, or down into the valley of the shadow 
 of death ? 
 
 He wondered much, and answered; ^ Who 
 can tell V
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. Ill 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 They were too^ether ao^ain, he and Enid, 
 walking up and down on the same straight 
 path in front of Dr. Osborn's house. The 
 same place, the same persons, but nothing 
 else the same. The blackness of night 
 wrapped them in perfect gloom; no moon, 
 no stars, nothing but the spectre-like forms of 
 the leafless trees, and the bleak March wind 
 moaning amongst the branches. They were 
 young and strong, so they preferred being out 
 of doors even on a night like this, to sitting 
 in the cottage parlour in the company of Dr. 
 Osborn, poring over his books and papers.
 
 112 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 Here they could talk without restraint — they 
 were alone ; here Enid might show him all 
 the depth of her love, and the force of its 
 intensity : she rather preferred the perfect 
 darkness, for even the moonlight was an 
 intrusion upon the secret of her devotion, 
 which he alone might be allowed to per- 
 ceive. 
 
 He had been telling her of his father's 
 decision, telling her that to-morrow he must 
 leave her ; he must go up to London, and 
 alone, without one helping hand, one cheer- 
 ing voice, start out upon the broad highway 
 on which so many thousands of men were 
 pushing forward : jostling one another, 
 fighting, slaying one another in their de- 
 sperate struggle to be first at the gold-paved 
 goal. 
 
 She listened to it all unmoved : what 
 difference did it make to their love ? and he 
 was sure to conquer. She could bear to be
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 113 
 
 separated from him for a little time, if she 
 knew he was moving onwards towards the 
 hill-top of fame, which she was so sure he 
 could reach by the power of that genius she 
 believed so mighty in him. 
 
 She was a child still, you see. 
 
 * But, Enid,' he said, pressing her warm 
 young hand very tightly in his — he felt 
 almost sure he loved her now^ ' I cannot let 
 you be bound to me, darling ; do you know 
 that T shall never have a penny of my 
 father's money ? — that consequently I shall 
 never be able to marry. I may make a name, 
 but not a fortune. Minerva crowns her 
 votaries with the olive branch, and bids them 
 turn away from the golden sceptre. I can 
 bear poverty alone, I cannot ask a wife to 
 share it with me. 
 
 ' And therefore I am supposed to say : 
 *' Very well, I will cease to love you 
 from this moment, my dear Ellis/' ' she 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 laughed merrily ; * and forthwith we become 
 strangers ; all that has been, between us, 
 ceases to be, and we are neither of us the 
 worse for our little love affair — So that is the 
 received style, is it ? and what you would Uke 
 me to do ? Now, hear my side of the ques- 
 tion ' — Then her voice changed, sinking to a 
 low musical whisper, and pressing his hand, 
 which she held in hers, to her lips, she con- 
 tinued : ^ Were I to know I should never be 
 your wife, it would not make me cease to 
 love you, Ellis, for one single hour of my 
 life : it were not love if it could. So long as 
 you and I live, my soul is yours, my life is 
 yours, my thoughts, hopes, wishes, centred in 
 you alone ; when you laid your first kiss upon 
 m}^ lips, I felt that it must be so, and since 
 it is, I cannot change. You are free, indeed, 
 but whether you love me, or another, or do 
 not love at all, I am yours to do with me as 
 you will. Ellis, I love you.*
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 115 
 
 Her voice died away into a sweet murmur I 
 he bent down and kissed her. 
 
 ^ You will change, little one/ he said, but 
 so tenderly that it did not pain her. ^ All 
 women believe in the truth of their love, 
 none prove it ; your sex is inconstant, Enid. 
 Nevertheless, so long as I possess your love 
 I will hold it my dearest prize ; but you 
 are free to forget me, darling — remember 
 that — free to marry another if you wish.' 
 
 ' Ellis, stop ! you pain me. How is it 
 possible that my whole nature could alter ? 
 I cannot believe you right in saying that 
 women are inconstant. If they are so, it 
 must be only a proof that they did not really 
 love, that it was an imagination, a dream. 
 But perhaps it is — generally.' 
 
 ' And why should yours be an exception ? 
 they all believe their love a reahty, so long 
 as it lasts.' 
 
 ' You may be right ; I may hate you by 
 
 8—2
 
 116 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 this time next year. The moon may cease 
 to give her light, or the stars may fall upon us 
 and crush us, you know ; we have no proof of 
 our own safety.' 
 
 She never asked for a pledge of his truth, she 
 never Avondered whether he would love her 
 always as she him; she took it for granted 
 that insomuch as he was nobler, wiser, better 
 than she, his love would be stronger and more 
 lasting than her own, if such a thing were 
 possible. But if it should fail, if he should 
 not prove so perfect as she imagined him, 
 what mattered it ? — she should love him still. 
 If she saw him sinking downwards day by 
 day, falling lower and lower instead of rising 
 towards the glory of the sunlight of fame, it 
 mattered not — she loved him, she would try to 
 save him, and die in the struggle if need be. 
 
 This was her ardent dream. She was a 
 child; he said so, and he thought so. He 
 smiled at her innocent faith, but he wished
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 117 
 
 to make himself wortliy of her love. She 
 encouraged him by her trusting hopeful- 
 ness, saying he was sure to succeed by 
 reason of his talent. London was not so 
 very far away ; he could come and see 
 them as soon as he should have collected 
 money enough by the sale of his pictures 
 to pay for his journey. The little chintz- 
 furnished spare bedroom, with the lattice 
 window overlookinof his favourite orchard, 
 w^onld always be ready to receive him. They 
 could write to each other daily ; she could 
 follow his life step by step as it unfolded 
 itself Better than all this too, her father 
 w^as himself going to live in London wdien he 
 could discover a promising opening for a new 
 practice ; she and Ellis would always be to- 
 gether then, as they were now, as they had 
 been for nearly a year, as they would remain 
 for ever and for ever. 
 
 Such was the vision of happiness on which
 
 118 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 Enid looked, and looking, smiled, and smiling, 
 bade him hope. 
 
 She was so young, and the spirit of life 
 and hope and truth so strong within her. 
 But she knew nothing of the world into which 
 he was going. 
 
 Presently they went indoors again, and 
 Ellis bade good-bye to Dr. Osborn. He 
 felt a pang of unutterable pain at leaving 
 this first, this only friend of his own sex, 
 the one man who had held forth the hand 
 of encouragement to a lonely boy ; the man 
 who out of the vastness of his own know- 
 ledge, the largeness of his own mind, had 
 turned aside to pour a drop of precious heal- 
 ing balm upon smarting wounds inflicted by 
 a mother's tongue. 
 
 It was hard to part from him. 
 
 Ellis told the doctor that Enid was free, 
 but that he could not bid her cease to love 
 him ; such affection as hers would bear him
 
 A TANTALUS CU?. 
 
 119 
 
 across even the poisoned waters of La 
 Mauranoria "" ; for let them break every 
 other thing they touched, they could not 
 sever the hearts which love had bound 
 together ; he would keep faith Avith her till 
 her own hand should unhnk the chain which 
 bound them together. 
 
 Then the doctor bade him God-speed, say- 
 ing : ' Eemember, Ellis, what I told you 
 once before — Man is master of his fate.' 
 
 ' Unless fate masters him,' replied Elhs 
 sarcastically. 
 
 * The issue lies in your own hands.' 
 
 * If fate has made my hands strong 
 enough to grasp it, and clever enough to 
 mould it.' 
 
 * You can train them.' 
 
 * Provided my constitution, physical and 
 mental, will support me ; but if fate, or 
 nature, or providence, or whatever power 
 
 * Identical with the Styx of mythology.
 
 120 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 governs this complex existence of ours, has 
 denied me the necessary elements for enabling 
 me to control my destiny, I am helpless — 
 ergoy I am only master of fate if fate has 
 not already mastered me ; the demonstration 
 lies in my future.' 
 
 ' Of which your present is a prophecy.' 
 ' And you the merciful interpreter, who, 
 pointing eastward towards the place of the 
 sunrise, says, even while the skies are yet 
 dark, *' Look yonder at the glory which is 
 coming." So we stop, and lift our faces 
 heavenwards ; and even as we are wondering, 
 the light breaks upon us in all its majesty ; 
 then, turning earthward again, we fall at the 
 feet of him who, as we were passing into the 
 valley of the shadow of death, bade us stop 
 and turn to see the gold and red of the 
 morning glow. It would never have been 
 perceived by the weary soul dragging its 
 burden hellwards, had not the hand of mercy
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 121 
 
 held it back, and the voice of human fellow- 
 ship bade it look up to the heaven of human 
 love.' 
 
 Ellis held out his hand towards the 
 doctor. He understood him, understood 
 the depths of the young man's gratitude 
 for a few kind words spoken in his loveless 
 boyhood. Dr. Osborn had nothing but 
 words to give — words of encouragement, of 
 hope, of belief; but they were precious as 
 jewels of silver, and jewels of gold from him, 
 the outpouring of that divinest gift from man 
 to man, the gift of perfect sympathy. 
 
 Ellis Lyndon was not quite friendless 
 now. 
 
 Afterwards he went to bid good-bye to 
 Lizzie Grey in the little hut amongst the 
 hills. Lizzie was not sony to lose him ; she 
 was only sorry to give up the occupation 
 by which she had earned greater comforts 
 for her aged father, better food for her child.
 
 122 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 But he felt as if he were closing the 
 shutters and blocking out the clear moon- 
 light which had smiled in upon him pure and 
 €old, but beautiful always, for so many peace- 
 ful nights. He yearned more than ever now 
 for a touch of one of those forbidden beams, 
 but it could not be — they were sacred 
 still. 
 
 Lizzie was glad he was going away into 
 the great wonderful London world, where 
 men would know how to value the art she 
 in her innocence looked upon as so marvellous 
 a gift, so rare a possession that it must needs 
 make him famous at once. He psiid her for 
 her servic.es, and she only asked one thing 
 of him : a small picture of her child which 
 he had finished as a study — her boy as 
 nature made him, sitting amongst the 
 corn and the poppies, with the field-mouse 
 and the brow^n lizard staring at him, wonder- 
 ing stupidly what huge hideous monster had
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 123 
 
 come amongst them. Ellis had borrowed 
 the idea from the German * Marchen 
 ohne ende,' a poem in prose, the voice of 
 philosophy in the dress of a nursery tale. 
 EUis Lyndon could repeat the simple story 
 from beofinnino: to end : he loved it at each 
 repetition better than at the one that went 
 before. In its pages he saw but a succession 
 of delicately painted pictures, of which purity 
 is the soul and nature the artist. From 
 such a source he felt no shame in borrow- 
 ing. 
 
 Ellis Lyndon gave Lizzie the picture ; his 
 heart beat, his voice faltered, his hand 
 trembled as he looked for the last time upon 
 the gold waves of her hair and the round 
 beauty of her bare arms, and on the perfect 
 curves of her neck. Even the plain blue 
 serge dress she wore seemed to him to hang 
 in classic folds around her. She certainly 
 was a thing of faultless loveliness, and the
 
 124 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 artist's soul found itself constrained to bow 
 down and worship, not Lizzie Grey the 
 sinner, but the pure garments in which 
 nature had clad her — * which made her all 
 the worse/ so people said. And man is of 
 course a better judge than God. 
 
 She was only an ignorant cottage girl — she 
 could not even interpret the signs of his 
 scarcely hidden passion ; she knew that he 
 admired her, as he admired the sunrise over 
 the hills, because of the rich colour and the 
 warm glow which lay about her. He was 
 an artist, and he had told her that art is 
 incorruptible ; she did not believe him 
 possessed of the grosser passions which had 
 swayed the only other man she ever knew. 
 And she was passionless also now, living 
 upon the remembrance only of one glorious 
 sunrise, one burning midsummer day, one 
 stormy sunset, and then dark night; a long 
 starless, moonless night, a feverish, sleepless
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 125 
 
 watching, a stupid dreamless slumber, and 
 then a sudden awakening to the chill grey 
 dawn of a new day — a day which had no 
 more resemblance to that which was gone, 
 than the life of the blind mole undero^round 
 resembles the life of the swallows in the 
 sunshine. The mole, indeed, may find 
 pleasure of some kind in struo-o'linof to turn 
 up the black earth, and to force a j)athway 
 through it by the strength of its muscles and 
 the labour of its life ; but such pleasure is not 
 what the swallows find in severino- the 
 sunbeams with their winofs, in res tin cr on the 
 bosom of the earth for awhile, then soaring 
 fearlessly skywards, secure in the strength of 
 their own flight. Lizzie had been a swallow, 
 she was now a mole ; but even the mole is 
 beautifLd, even the mole's life has some good 
 in it, if you cast your eye down low enough 
 to examine the wonderful chambers it makes^ 
 throuQ^h whose unseen channels the life-
 
 126 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 giving Tcain reaches the roots of the thirsty 
 corn, and forthwith it shoots up, and bears 
 fruit for the good of all mankind. 
 
 They do not know that the mole has worked 
 for them. 
 
 Ellis Lyndon left her, and he knew it 
 would be for ever; her world w^as not his 
 world, her people not his people, or her life 
 his, to interest himself in ; and yet she had 
 been so much to him, done so much for him, 
 sat so patiently through the long weary hours 
 of the night, whilst he painted and repainted 
 the beauty in her to which his young art could 
 not yet reach. She had never complained, feel- 
 ing thankful that she was even so far worthy 
 of the notice of honourable men — she, who 
 had fallen so low and suffered so cruelly ; she, 
 towards whom no fellow-creature in all the 
 country would stretch out a hand if they saw 
 her sinking under the burden of her poverty, 
 starving in the bitter winter, thirsting in the
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 127 
 
 summer drought, or dying with the autumn 
 leaves. God was more merciful ; He had 
 given her strength to bear, courage to fight, 
 and the blessedest gift of all — her child to 
 love and tend. ' In the course of justice, 
 none of us should see salvation.' It is true : 
 but Lizzie believed in the mercy which 
 seasons Divine justice ; not human — no, not 
 human, not for her, never so long as this 
 world should endure. Mrs. Lyndon had told 
 her so lono; ao^o, when she came on a mission 
 of charity to bring food and drink at the time 
 Lizzie's child was born, when, in Christian 
 dut}', she hoped to call the young sinner 
 to repentance, and to a due sense of her 
 shame. 
 
 Mrs. Lyndon had tried her best to snatch a 
 brand from the burning, while she could yet 
 hold it so far off that it would not scorch 
 her dehcate fino^ers, but the brand had re- 
 fused to smoulder at her feet^ it would burst
 
 128 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 into flame ; it frightened her, and so she 
 flung it aside. 
 
 It did quite as well without her. 
 
 So Ellis Lyndon's life and the life of Lizzie 
 Grey drifted apart ; his towards the restless, 
 ever-changing sea of human desires, hers into a 
 small streamlet, branching away amongst the 
 hills, lost to sight, unknown, but for all that 
 working its way into the same ocean-bed on 
 which his and hers and ours will meet to- 
 gether at last — the fathomless ocean of Eter- 
 nity.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 129 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 He was journeying towards London, the 
 city of his dreams. London — the nucleus of 
 our hopes, the focus of our ambition, the 
 arena of all our struggles, in which we can 
 conquer and live, or die gloriously before a 
 cheering multitude. London — the main 
 spring of England's power, the nursery of 
 England's art, the battlefield of her literature, 
 the tombstone of her heroes ; an indestructable 
 mausoleum, containing not the ashes but the 
 substance of their mighty deeds, covered all 
 over with inscriptions to their honour, which 
 need no interpretation, so plainly are they 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 130 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 Avritten. Huge, dirty, magnificent London ; 
 at once our pride and our shame, our glory 
 and our dishonour, but our strength always, 
 the shrine of our nation's treasures — our 
 home. 
 
 EUis Lyndon was going to London ; there 
 lived hut one person in all the city of whom 
 he even Knew the name. Ellis had never 
 seen him, but he was a relation ; he was 
 young, he was strugghng for literary distinc- 
 tion, he was poor. Ellis had heard his 
 mother and his sisters handling this cousin's 
 name in their Christian charity with a delicacy 
 of touch, of which only women, and righteous 
 women, are capable. They stooped to pity 
 him sometimes, and they always called him 
 ' Poor Fred,' in sympathy for his repeated 
 failures. ^ It Avas all his own fault/ but that 
 did not alter their title to look down upon 
 him pityingly from their superior moral eleva- 
 tion of wealth and prosperity.
 
 A TA^'TAL^S CUP. 131 
 
 Ellis always fancied he should like this 
 black sheep, that they might be congenial 
 spirits. He was going straightway to him. 
 
 If there be such a thing as destiny, it meets 
 us when we least expect the manifestation of 
 its presence : it stands before us in the 
 crowded ball-room, and holds us back even in 
 the first delicious round of the waltz ; it comes 
 to us in the o-as-lit theatre, raisinor the curtain 
 upon a reality instead of the meaningless 
 romance we had looked for ; it chases us 
 across the seas, over the deserts, in the king's 
 palaces. We cannot escape it. EUis 
 Lyndon sat face to face with his destiny in 
 the railway-carriage between Bristol and 
 Exeter. 
 
 It was a woman ; the most startlingly 
 beautiful woman he had ever seen. She had 
 indeed none of Lizzie Grey's purity of expres- 
 sion, yet more than her perfection of feature ; 
 nothing of the soft repose of loveliness which 
 
 9—2
 
 132 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 lay around the young country girl, yet more 
 than her delicate moulding. This woman 
 was a marvellous, brilliantly coloured exotic, 
 which made you turn, and start, and stand 
 before it in wondering amazement ; she was 
 a picture of the modern French school, all 
 colour and warmth and passion. He did not 
 know whether the glow of her chestnut hair 
 were real or borrowed ; he did not care. He 
 could scarcely tell whether the flash of her 
 eyes from under their dark circled lids were 
 due to lead-pencil or to nature's shadowing 
 lashes. He did not care. If art had aided 
 nature, she had done it skilfully ; she had not 
 blundered or blurred or soiled the first great 
 sculptor's work : she had touched it up per- 
 haps, tinted it, but no eye could detect the 
 presence of spurious lines or alien colours. She 
 was a grand, thrilling chord of music, perfectly 
 harmonious, but startling in the intensity of its 
 power over your spirit. Ellis felt constrained
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 133 
 
 to look at her. She was not young, not in 
 the first bkish of her girlhood. She might 
 be thirty, or even more. He did not care, 
 he did not question ; she exercised a strange 
 power over him, fascinating him as the 
 snake is said to fascinate the animal round 
 which it intends to coil its subtle body, which 
 it hopes to pierce with its poisoned fang. But 
 there was nothino: snake-like in her, remember. 
 She resembled rather a grand fiery-eyed tiger 
 — a creature that you know could harm you, 
 but a creature you must admire, nay, one you 
 would fain caress if it would let you; you long 
 to touch and fondle it, yet you dare not even 
 approach it, frightened by its huge magnifi- 
 cence. Her dress was all of the richest dark 
 brown velvet, with nothing but broad bands 
 of sable fur to destroy its perfect plainness. 
 Every other item of her costume was of the 
 same costly material, with the same severe 
 trimming ; nothing had been omitted, nothing
 
 134 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 seemed superfluous, nothing in disagreement 
 with the rest. Her hair was a rich glowing 
 auburn, her eyes the deep blue of an Italian 
 lake, her skin white and soft, her lips full and 
 red. But it was her mouth which enslaved 
 him by the expression it gave to her face. 
 And there was more than this. Intellect, 
 power, passion, were written on her features — 
 a sublime intellect, a limitless power, an over- 
 mastering passion. 
 
 Ellis Lyndon read it all, as he leant back in the 
 seat of the railway- carriage, self communing. 
 
 He saw that she had noticed him ; he 
 believed she would speak to him presently, 
 and he was not WTong. But her first remark 
 puzzled him. 
 
 ' You are an artist f she said, without pre- 
 liminary or introduction. 
 
 Her voice was rich and low, her eyes soft 
 but intense ; eyes which spoke in burning 
 words as she raised them to his face.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 135 
 
 ' I hope to be one,' he answered, scarcely 
 looking up from the book he was reading. 
 
 The old satirical smile came and went 
 across his firm-set lips. There was no mis- 
 taking this man's character ; such at least as 
 his bringing-up had made it, it was stamped 
 upon every feature ; an indomitable will, an 
 uncontrollable temper, the cynic's manner 
 a,nd the stoic's mind. 
 
 His companion continued her cross-ques- 
 tioning. It appeared neither an intrusion^ nor 
 an impertinence in her — there was a proud 
 assumption of right in all she said which 
 seemed to dare objection. 
 
 ' Your school V she questioned, referring 
 to his art, and looking straight into his eyes. 
 
 ' None,' he answered, absently. 
 
 ' Your style, then V 
 
 ' Unformed, as yet.' 
 
 ' Your favourite master, your ideal, your 
 high priest ?' — with merciless persistency.
 
 136 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 ' The only one whose works I have as yet 
 seen, Ary Scheffer.' 
 
 She smiled, a beautiful smile, which could 
 be cruel or merciful, mocking or encouraging^ 
 according to her mood. 
 
 ' Truly your choice is confined, and your 
 experience narrow. Ary Scheffer ! He has- 
 some merits, yes ; intrinsic, but limited. He 
 can pourtray one set of thoughts, one phase 
 of feeling ; and he has only one tone, one 
 mode of expression.' 
 
 Ellis was angry ; he could not bear to hear 
 his ideal of perfection maligned. 
 
 * And, if that tone be pure and true, that 
 expression divine, what more do you ask 
 of him? 
 
 'Personally I may wish for nothing 
 beyond what pleases my eye, what responds 
 to my oivn sentiments. Modern taste, how- 
 ever, as expressed by an enlightened public, 
 demands variety — amusement combined with
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 137 
 
 sentiment, sentiment drawn out into tragedy, 
 tragedy exaggerated till it becomes comedy, 
 comedy lowered to burlesque/ 
 
 ' And you would fix the standard of merit 
 on public opinion V with a sneer. 
 
 ' Where else shall we fix it '? If the public 
 Avill not appreciate our talents, how are we 
 to become known? If not known, how 
 attain celebrity ? If we are not celebrated 
 we are nothing.' 
 
 *Such celebrity as you speak of is un- 
 worthy of an effort to gain it, unworthy of 
 art.' 
 
 ' Then how will you attain to that spiritual 
 fame which you suppose is the soul of art ; 
 and where V 
 
 ' At the hands of a select few ; men who, 
 by the power of their minds, have subdued 
 the many; men at whose feet an ignorant 
 million lie waiting to pick up every stray 
 word which falls from their lips, to echa
 
 138 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 •every sentiment which they breathe ; to 
 carry it all away with them (carefully con- 
 cealed of course) to be brought forward 
 again a short time afterwards, crushed, dis- 
 torted, changed. So profaned your million 
 claims it as their own. They are welcome 
 to their gleanings.' 
 
 ^ And this is the source of public opinion V 
 raising her eyebrows incredulously. 
 
 ' Yes, the source is pure, but the channels 
 through which it runs are so muddy and 
 slimy, there remains not a drop of clear water 
 for the thirsty explorer to drink — no single 
 drop which wdll not poison him in the tasting. 
 Let him leave it alone.' 
 
 And die of thirst f she said, with a 
 mocking smile. 
 
 ' Yes, if need be.' 
 
 ' Since you are willing to be a martyr, / 
 have no objection to offer. It is a failing of 
 youth, you are all independent up to a certain
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 13D 
 
 point/ Then, after a pause: 'you have friends 
 in London, of course ?■ every one has friends; 
 they are lying thick as dust on the earth's 
 surface, they chng about one's shoes till one 
 longs to kick them off, they are so adhesive, 
 these friends' 
 
 Ellis had never seen a woman like this 
 before ; she seemed so unreal, she spoke as if 
 she did not beheve a word she uttered, but 
 only said what she had taught herself to say ; 
 moreover, the saying of it seemed fraught 
 with pain ; but this only lent her an extra 
 charm. He replied : 
 
 ' You agree with Aristotle, evidently, that 
 *' The man who has friends has no friend." 
 Luckily for me I have none, I do not know 
 a single soul in all London.' 
 
 ' Patronage is to be bought : you will soon 
 find that out.' 
 
 ' If people have money enough to purchase 
 it. Money is not to be houghtj I presume V
 
 140 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 ' I am not so sure of that ; many a man^ 
 and many a woman, have bartered a soul 
 for money — you will do the same/ 
 
 ' Possibly, if I find a buyer of irreproachable 
 principle, who will lend me a helping hand in 
 the transaction.' 
 
 He fancied she would be the kind of person 
 to do this, but he did not know. 
 
 * You are poor ?' she questioned. * 
 
 ' Absolutely penniless.' 
 
 ' A man of refined feeling and educated 
 tastes ; a clever man and ambitious V 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ^ You are quite sure to fail! 
 
 ' Indeed I you encourage me,' he said^ 
 amused now. 
 
 Her deprecation of his powers had not 
 the same chilling efiect those of his mother 
 and sisters had upon him; she only said ' you 
 will fail,' she seemed to mean 'you will 
 succeed.'
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 141 
 
 ' I suppose I may ask the nature of my 
 stumbling-block V he asked, smiling. 
 
 ' Your poverty.' 
 
 ' How so V 
 
 ' You have talent ? Well, you must exercise 
 it to put bread and cheese, not to mention 
 beer, on your clothless deal table. You have 
 patience, you have self-control 1 It must be 
 brought into play to enable you to eat the 
 stale crust in the dirty plate. You have per- 
 severance ? You must use it day after day, 
 night after night, or even the crust will dis- 
 appear, and only the dirt remain. Poor 
 nourishment that, for a body which has 
 worked hard all day ; for work you must, 
 hand and brain and body, to keep that 
 body in existence. We will say nothing of 
 health and clothing. Where are you going 
 to look for that repose which is necessary to 
 enable your mind to struggle towards the
 
 142 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 surface, and there expand in the sunshine of 
 its own aspirations ?' 
 
 ' Would you tell me that no mind has ever 
 risen superior to circumstances, without the 
 prop of money to keep it afloat V 
 
 ' I will tell you that thousands have sunk, 
 whilst the waters of Lethe closed over their 
 heads, and no man knew how hard they had 
 struggled to live.' 
 
 ' If one swam to shore, I too may swim. 
 You Avill grant the possibility.' 
 
 ' And the improbability ; however, I for 
 one will throw out a line to which you can 
 cling for a time in case of need.' She drew 
 from her pocket a wonderfully jewelled card 
 case of wrought gold and strange moulding, 
 fashioned after some old-world relic. It at 
 once attracted Ellis Lyndon's eye, and excited 
 his admiration. She did not, however, give 
 him time to remark upon it ; giving a card 
 into his hand, she continued —
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 143 
 
 ' My name and address. I am well enough 
 known in the world of art, and better still in 
 the salons of soulless vanity. My education 
 opens the former to me, my purse the latter. 
 There is scarcely a great artist in London, in 
 Paris, in Rome, who has not sat at my 
 table. The}' call me one of themselves — 
 gross flattery this, but pardonable in a man 
 towards a woman. If you pay me a 
 visit, mv doors will not be closed as^ainst 
 you.' 
 
 ^ Thank you ; but I hope to be indepen- 
 dent/ he answered, putting the card in his 
 pocket from mere politeness. She was not 
 annoyed at his ungracious reception of her 
 offer ; she only laughed, and said, in her 
 unreal way : 
 
 'Dick Whittinofton believed that London 
 was paved ^vith gold ; I thought railways 
 had exploded that notion.' 
 
 ' And Arachne challenged Pallas to a trial
 
 144 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 of skill/ he retaliated in defence of his own 
 principle — ' a mortal against a God ; the 
 mistress of the arts, their defender, their 
 protector, against a desecrator, an imitator. 
 Pallas was triumphant, Arachne crawled in 
 the dust at her feet, a worthless spider.' 
 
 *And no one believes that Minerva ever 
 existed in heaven or on earth ; modern art 
 must fight for itself, its weapon a golden 
 sword, its field the gaslit salons of Europe's 
 palaces. You will find it so.' 
 
 ' If that be the case, I shall never find it. 
 Pardon me, but I no more believe your asser- 
 tion than I believe that the earth stopped 
 in its revolution until a handful of half- 
 savage Israelites had revenged themselves 
 upon their enemies.' 
 
 ' You are a philosopher,' she said, seeming 
 to branch off into another subject. 
 
 ^Yes.' 
 
 ' And a sceptic V
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 145 
 
 ^ Define your term, before I can attempt 
 to answer you.' 
 
 * Well, let me try. You will not believe 
 because other men tell jou a thing is true ; 
 you require personal demonstration before 
 you acknowledge a fact ; you use your birth- 
 right of independent thought ; you refuse to 
 accept dogmas on the faith of a fellow man's 
 assurance that they are proven truths.' 
 
 ' Thanks ! I am a sceptic, then, according 
 to your definition.' 
 
 ' And your philosophy ? on what school is 
 it founded V 
 
 ' I try to be Stoic : I find myself Epi- 
 curean.' 
 
 ' And I find you neither one nor the 
 other. You have a great deal to learn, my 
 young friend, and the sooner you get through 
 your ABC, with all its accompanying tears 
 and groans, the better for your future pro- 
 gress.' 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 She spoke to him as if he were a child, she 
 an experienced teacher ; and yet she did not 
 seem to feel a contempt for him ; on the 
 contrary, her questioning appeared to spring 
 from an intense interest, her raillery from a 
 desire not to let this interest be too apparent. 
 
 After that she was silent for a long time. 
 
 Ellis went on reading, but he felt her -eyes 
 upon him ; if he looked up from his book, he 
 met her gaze — and he could not help looking 
 up — some power compelled his eye to meet 
 hers ; she was not afraid, but smiled encourag- 
 ingly when he tried to make her or himself 
 believe he had not been staring at her. 
 
 They were a strange couple travelling 
 together Londonwards. How different their 
 destinies at this journey's end, he thought ; 
 how far apart, how impassably divided, his 
 world and hers ! ' But not for ever ; I will 
 pass the barrier,' he said to himself, ' and 
 without help from her, or such as she.'
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 147 
 
 He thought of Enid : hers were the hands, 
 pure and clean, at which he would accept a 
 gift or receive a benefit could she offer it ; 
 but Enid had nothing to bestow except her 
 love. That seemed to him of priceless value 
 now, and yet he would rather that Lizzie 
 Grey had loved him ! Lizzie, who had no 
 intellect, no mind, no education ; nothing but 
 physical beauty. But it was of Lizzie he 
 thought during the silences of that long rail- 
 way journey. 
 
 The stranger did not talk much ; she never 
 spoke foolishly or at random ; her words were 
 diamonds, finely cut, highly polished, glowing 
 with brilhant colours, and reflecting the 
 many-hued lights which surrounded them ; 
 they called forth his admiration, they grati- 
 fied him, but nothing beyond — nothing then. 
 The old idol of the hill-side hut maintained 
 undivided sway over his merely sentimental 
 affection. He knew he should forget even 
 
 10—2
 
 148 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 her in a week, in a month, according to 
 chance, but Enid was his for ever ; his ideal 
 of perfect womanhood. The difference be- 
 tween the two affections being this : there 
 was no passion in his love for Enid. 
 
 When they arrived in London the stranger 
 — standing on the platform, side by side with 
 a footman, powdered, plushed, and laced — 
 turned once more to Ellis : 
 
 ' I advise you not to lose my card,' she 
 said ; ^ it may be useful to you yet. I am 
 Zare Landrelle, French by parentage, Italian 
 by birth, cosmopolitan by education. You 
 can get my character in the parks, in the 
 Opera-house, in the Vatican, in the courts ; 
 you would have no difficulty in finding me, 
 unless indeed I were fool enough to marry 
 again, and so sink my individuality ; an 
 unlikely event that. Experience makes one 
 wise, a freed slave dreads recapture. Re- 
 member, my door is open to you — good-bye.'
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 149 
 
 She did not offer her hand^ she only bowed 
 — a magnificent haughty bow — and smiled 
 a smile which Ellis Lyndon never forgot. 
 Then she stepped into her showy landau and 
 was quickly carried out of his sight. 
 
 He knew not where, he cared not where ; 
 she was nothing to him. 
 
 He had a few pounds left after his journey. 
 He travelled first-class, with a sort of stupid 
 feehng that he would not sink in the social 
 scale one day before he need ; it was absurd, 
 he knew, but he did it. Afterwards he took 
 a hansom, gave the address of his cousin, 
 " West Street, Piccadilly," and was driven off 
 to the first landing-place of his life's long 
 journey.
 
 150 A TANTxVLUS CUP. 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 He was not at home when Elhs called, this 
 cousin, of whose disreputable life the young 
 artist had heard so much, even in the far-off 
 Devonshire village. 
 
 ^ If the gentleman would Avalk up and take 
 a seat,' they said, ' no doubt Mr. Galway 
 w^ould be in directly.' 
 
 So the gentleman walked up and took a 
 seat, and looked around him. 
 
 There was nothing disreputable in the 
 visible aspect of Fred Galway's dwelling. 
 He had at least made clean the outside of 
 his cup and of his platter.
 
 A TA^ TALUS CUP. 151 
 
 What sort of fellow was he ? 
 
 ElKs walked round and round the room. 
 Books were the most conspicuous objects ; 
 he opened a foAV of them, read a page or two, 
 and flung them away in disgust. New novels 
 \vitli their new morality, and their new 
 English ; words he had never seen written 
 or heard spoken before, words that made 
 him fancy he could not be acquainted with 
 his own lanofuaofe if these were Eno^lish. 
 Phases of life of which he knew nothing as 
 yet, pictures painted by women's hands w^hich 
 must surely defile them in the execution ; 
 thouo^hts issuing^ from women's brains which 
 are a disgrace to women's nature ; scenes 
 which, if they know them from experience, 
 it were a shame to confess to such know- 
 ledge, but if they only imagine them, a, 
 ofreater shame to state them as truths. 
 They mislead innocent minds, they be- 
 wilder iomorant brains with a g^lamour that
 
 152 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 never existed, with an exaggerated entice- 
 ment which has its birth-place in a dream, 
 which is all an imagination ; something that 
 has never been, that can never be so lono* as 
 vice stands up in all its hideous deformity, 
 and robs its surroundings of any possible 
 beauty. 
 
 Ellis gave the writers of those books credit 
 for having imagined it all, or surely, he 
 argued, they could not be so far wrong in 
 their interpretation of a little colour, of a ray 
 or two of dazzling light ; a single strain of ex- 
 citing music, dying away even before it is 
 fully heard; they would not think these 
 things a type of happiness, .something to be 
 grasped at, if possible ; if not, something to 
 admire from a safe distance. 
 
 ^ They must be dreaming,' Ellis Lyndon 
 said, ' romancing ; they cannot hiow all this 
 — they are women.' 
 
 But he felt sad at heart, and opened no
 
 A TANTALuS CUP. 153 
 
 more of the works of fiction which lay in 
 profusion about Fred Galway's room. 
 
 Other things amused him better. 
 
 There were j^iles of newspapers, all cut 
 about and marked, ranged in orderly disorder 
 on a shelf ; and above them reference-books, 
 concordances, and dictionaries on every sub- 
 ject that the mind of man has ever tried to 
 grasp. 
 
 There were, too, his cousin's sacred penates 
 enshrined over the hearth ; likenesses of 
 actresses and singers, not all beautiful, but 
 respected evidently, for no speck of dirt or 
 dust lay on any of them. There were some 
 growing plants in pots, but they, poor souls, 
 had been allowed to wither for want of 
 water. Various coloured neckties lay about, 
 all of the brilliant order, with false backs ; a 
 soiled paper-collar or two was carefully hidden 
 away under the books ; a variety of pipes on 
 the chimney-piece, several boxes of quill pens
 
 154 A TANTALUS CU?. 
 
 on the table, and paper weights without 
 number. A nicely furnished room, with 
 arm - chair, sofa, pier - glass, book - shelves, 
 and a gorgeous Turkey carpet ; nothing 
 superfluous in the knick-knack line ; nothing 
 wanting for bachelor comfort. 
 
 Ellis sat down again. 
 
 Presently a heavy step lounged up the 
 staircase to the music of a very lively whistle ; 
 a high-heeled boot kicked the door open in a 
 contemptuous Avay, and Fred Gal way stood 
 staring at his unknown cousin. 
 
 ' Who the devil are you V he asked, in a 
 serio-comic tone. 
 
 ' I am Ellis Lyndon.' 
 
 ' And who the deuce is he V 
 
 ^ Your cousin.* 
 
 'My worthy cousin, I have not the re- 
 motest notion who you are ; but it doesn't 
 matter ; delighted to see you, old fellow. 
 Have a weed V
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 100- 
 
 He approached Ellis with dramatic ges- 
 tures, grasped his hand, turned it palm upper- 
 most, brought his o^Yn down with a crash 
 upon it, and shook it violently; whilst he 
 forced Ellis into the arm-chair, and stood 
 looking at him with both hands deep in his 
 trousers pockets. 
 
 The trousers were the most conspicuous 
 part of his body. Huge checks with a green 
 line in them. Fred Galway was tall and 
 thin, with great black circles round his eyes,. 
 sunken cheeks, thin compressed lips, a hand- 
 some moustache, no-coloured hair, and no- 
 coloured eyes ; he was neutral-tinted, of a 
 general greyish-brown hue. 
 
 * And where does my worthy cousin hang 
 out V he asked, after a long scrutiny. 
 
 ' At Littlefield once ; I have left it.' 
 
 ' And to what do I owe the honour of a 
 visit from His Grace Lord Lyndon of Little- 
 field V
 
 15G A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 *To the necessity of lodging somewhere 
 for the night, and to the fact that yours was 
 the only name he knew in all London/ j 
 
 ^ One of the right sort, by jingo ! Binks 
 shall put you up a small shake dowji in my 
 room. We'll live like fighting cocks ;' sup- 
 plimented by a slap on Ellis's shoulder 
 which was more reassuring, perhaps, than 
 welcome. 
 
 Then Ellis told his cousin some of his 
 ambition, some of his hopes — not all — he 
 doubted how far they would be understood ; 
 but his plea for the protection of a roof to 
 cover him, and a friend to speak Avith till 
 he should be able to discover means of self- 
 support, found immediate comprehension and 
 a hearty response. 
 
 Ellis was not favourably impressed with 
 his cousin, but the cousin had a heart, though 
 he pretended to be minus that organ. He 
 received Elhs with open-handed generosity ;
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 157 
 
 ordered an oyster supper and a bottle of ^ fiz '^ 
 in honour of his coming. Ellis cared for none 
 of these things ; but Galway did not know 
 this^ how could he ? Why should one man 
 be different from another ? — all his friends 
 would have felt honoured by champagne and 
 oysters. ^ Why should a country booby, or 
 an embryo artist either, be different from 
 other felloAYS V argued the new Mentor. 
 
 ' You're not such a fool as you look, 
 though,' said Fred Galway. 'Didn't know 
 so much sense could come out of pig-styes 
 and cucumber frames. Let's see your pictures. 
 I'll give you a puff in the Racer if 
 they're good for anything : ^^ rising genius ; 
 young, crude, extraordinary natural talent t 
 only wants a little practice to become the 
 founder of a new school, the leader of a new 
 phase of the progress of art !" That's the 
 sort of thing, prepare the way for you. 
 Wake up old fellow ; never say die !'
 
 158 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 Galway slapped his cousin between the 
 shoulders. He started out of a reverie. 
 
 ' Yes/ he answered, but he had no notion 
 what Galway had been talking about. His 
 thoughts were w^andering over the past, and 
 trying to grasp a future. Everything seemed 
 so different, now he was actually in the great 
 metropolis of his dreams ; he looked around 
 for some expected light, but darkness covered 
 him ; he wished to put his shoulder to the 
 wheel, but he could not find out Avhere the 
 wheel was, or decide whether the right or the 
 left shoulder were the fittest to prepare for 
 the work. He consulted his cousin — Galway 
 could not help him. Had his turn of mind 
 been literary now, he could have given him a 
 hundred wrinkles ; but art was a poor thing : 
 there w^as no making money out of it, except 
 in the received way ; your picture has to bear 
 inspection, but your weekly article need only 
 sound mighty, be incomprehensible, look
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 159 
 
 learned, and you will be called a clever fellow. 
 * Hang it all,' Gal way concluded, ^ chuck 
 down the brush, take up the pen, man, and 
 fire away.' 
 
 But Ellis was not disposed to follow his 
 cousin's advice. 
 
 Fred Galway was a literary broom ; he 
 swept up the shavings and parings which 
 other men had dropped about ; a cutting of 
 ebony from this workshop, a scrap of 
 mahogany from that, a rare bit of sandal- 
 wood from the other. All these he put to- 
 gether with no little ingenuity into some 
 kind of pattern, attractive to the eye, agree- 
 able to every kind of taste, according with 
 none, useful for nothing, but amusing, yes, 
 very amusing always. Whether he dissected 
 roughly or carved neatly, whether his tools 
 were sharp or blunt, it was always amusing 
 to ' take up ' Fred Galway 's work. ' It is so 
 clever,' people said. And he was quite content.
 
 160 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 He found it a hard matter to pay his way 
 sometimes ; but if so, he did not pay his way^ 
 he only changed his lodging. Above all, he 
 was particular that that lodging should be in 
 a respectable quarter. 
 
 ' A fellow is judged by his surroundings/ 
 my innocent cousin/ he said, when Ellis 
 asked him why he lived in such expensive 
 rooms if he was so poor. ^ Never cry small 
 beer ! you'll find that out, too, my boy, before 
 you've been in London a year.' 
 
 It might be so, Ellis did not know ; all the 
 knowledge he possessed seemed to be of no 
 use to him in the strange life people of the 
 great city led, according to Fred Galway's 
 showing. One thing was certain. Ellis 
 Lyndon learned more in a single hour now 
 than he had known in all the years which went 
 before ; more of craft, and wile, and hollow 
 mockery. 
 
 Fred Gal way was not all bad ; he had a
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 161 
 
 generous disposition, a warm heart, high 
 courage, and natural talent in great variety. 
 He could play on several instruments, all 
 fairly well ; he could caricature anything. He 
 was an actor and a comic singer, he would 
 write you a leader upon any and every sub- 
 ject under the sun, with the help of his 
 encyclopedias, and the journals of the day. 
 In short, he lived by his wits. 
 
 Ellis Lyndon counted his money. Five 
 pounds ! it would last him about five days 
 at the rate his cousin lived. He must not 
 stay here, he must find something to do, any- 
 thing to support himself for the moment ; 
 there must be some employment in London, 
 he reasoned. With his classical education, 
 his range of scientific knowledge, it could not 
 surely be so hard a matter to live. To live, 
 yes — but where would his art be all this time ? 
 on the ground, at his feet, helpless, dying — 
 No, not dying, he argued, only sleeping for a 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 short time ; it would rise all the stronger for 
 its rest. He could rouse it up at any 
 moment, he could waken it into fresh life and 
 viofour so soon as the first streaks of mornino^ 
 light, the first prospect of day's dawn should 
 pierce through the fog and the smoke of the 
 city, and streaming in at his bed-room window, 
 beckon him out to follow them eastwards, 
 that he might stand face to face with the sun 
 at last. 
 
 Ellis Lyndon locked his pictures away in a 
 box — and went to sleep.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 163 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 To-morrow came, and he went forth, clad, 
 Achilles-Hke, in armour which was to be 
 impervious to the poisoned darts of opposition 
 and rebuff. He did not remember that one 
 poor vulnerable heel, his pride ; he fancied 
 that the Thetis of his own strong: will had 
 plunged him head and foot into the Styx of 
 unimpressionability, so that his whole body 
 would in future be proof against the assaults 
 of his new enemy, the world. 
 
 He had looked through the Times, and 
 taken note of every school which required a 
 teacher, or every student who wanted a 
 
 11—2
 
 164 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 master. Teaching Avas the first resource 
 which presented itself to his mind. He was 
 not different to other men ; because he pos- 
 sessed knowledge, he believed himself capable 
 of imparting it ; he thought that people 
 would be only too anxious to grasp the 
 opportunity for mental improvement which 
 he held out to them. He had well-founded 
 theories for the combination of pleasure and 
 instruction ; well-planned methods of cram- 
 ming Greek and Latin down closed mouths ; 
 ingenious notions for the demonstration of 
 Euclid to the deaf and blind. 
 
 He had always rather wished to be a 
 teacher. 
 
 So, in the early morning, Fred Galway 
 went off to the office of the Racer, of which 
 he was sub-editor, and Ellis Lyndon plunged 
 himself into the Charybdis of London streets, 
 which whirled him round and round, and 
 tossed him hither and thither, and well nigh
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 165 
 
 sucked him down into the vortex of their be- 
 wildering endlessness. 
 
 He travelled east and west, north and 
 south, he visited aU the schools and all the 
 private houses whose printed demand for a 
 teacher he carried in his pocket. They all 
 asked him the same question, ' Where had he 
 last given instruction V * Never before ; he 
 had not been brought up to it, sudden re- 
 verses had driven him to self-maintenance, he 
 had received a first-class private education.' 
 No one doubted him, only they doubted his 
 knowledge of school routine, of class manage- 
 ment, of everything which was indispensable 
 in a master. ' He might succeed as a private 
 tutor,' some of them said encouragingly. 
 
 So he went to the houses wherein tutors 
 were wanted. It was the same thing over 
 ao^ain. If he had not tauo;;ht he could not 
 teach, not their sons, at least; some he might, 
 oh, yes ! but not theirs ; they required system.
 
 166 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 experience, everything except the acquire- 
 ments he possessed ; they were always 
 secondary considerations. He went away 
 again ; he visited another and another. It 
 was the same story, with variations ; no one 
 would be the first to try a novice, no parent 
 would risk a failure with his particular child, 
 ' Some one else would be delighted to give 
 Mr. Lyndon a chance, no doubt.' No one 
 disputed his capability. 
 
 The day was gone, a great part of his 
 money was spent. He had not been able to 
 Avalk much ; knowing nothing of the direc- 
 tions in which the houses lay, he had taken 
 cabs, and cabs had ruined him ; he should be 
 wiser next time. He reached West Street at 
 six o'clock, and threw himself into the arm- 
 chair, more tired than he had ever been in 
 his life before. 
 
 He could walk twenty miles over the hills 
 at Littleton, twenty miles across the moor
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 167 
 
 which stretched beyond them, and he had 
 never known fatio'ue. He had not walked 
 five in all this day's journey, and he was 
 weary unto death. 
 
 But hope had not gone from him, there 
 were many other things to be done besides 
 teaching. He would try a new line. 
 
 So he spent the evening finishing off one 
 or two of what he considered the best 
 amongst his pictures. He would sell them ; 
 asking little, and expecting less. Bona fide 
 dealers would never buy of him, he knew 
 they must see at once that he had not 
 learnt the science of art, that his pictures 
 were only the aspirations of an untaught 
 genius. He would lay on a little bright 
 colouring, take them to small retail shops, 
 bazaars, private sellers, and be content with 
 what they might give him. It Avould not be 
 easy to do this thing ; it seemed profanity, 
 galled his pride, made him feel guilty of a
 
 168 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 crime ; but he must live, he could not be 
 dependent upon his cousin, he must pa}'* his 
 share of the daily board. The money he 
 brought with him was nearly expended, and 
 more should be earned somehow. 
 
 He could sell his watch, he told Fred 
 Galway one day, hopefully. 
 
 * Happy thought, my ingenious cousin !' 
 Galway replied, opening ifc, examining it, and 
 tossing it contemptuously back. ' They'll 
 offer you twopence three farthings for it. A 
 fellow must be a fool who cannot live for a 
 year or two on twopence three farthings ! ! !' 
 
 Another to-morrow, and a fresh struggle ; 
 new courage, revived hopes. With the help 
 of Fred Galway and his various newspapers, 
 Ellis found the names of several persons who 
 dealt, or would be likely to deal, in second- 
 rate works of art. He visited them one 
 after the other ; they threw aside his pictures 
 with undisguised contempt — What can the
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 169 
 
 ignorant know of innate genius ? they might 
 have purchased a brightly-coloured sen- 
 sational subject in a striking frame; there 
 would be a sale for something cheap and rich 
 -amongst people too poor to afford better 
 things ; but who would hang up in their 
 rooms meaningless figures, with a general 
 greyish tint, and no background ? 
 
 ' Nothing to show for the money, sir, I 
 assure you,' said the more civil patrons of the 
 startling school, and Elhs left them, sick at 
 heart : feelino: himself deo^raded in his own 
 sight by the mere contact with such grossness 
 of taste. 
 
 He knew nothing of the lower orders in 
 London. 
 
 One dealer indeed, a degree better edu- 
 cated than the others — a man who had some 
 natural artistic taste, seemed struck with one 
 of the pictures, and lavished a great deal 
 of well-intentioned, ignorant praise upon it.
 
 170 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 * Would he purchase it V Ellis asked 
 eagerly. 
 
 ' Well, he didn't know that he wouldn't.' 
 If the gentleman cared to leave it with him, 
 he would show it to an artist of great 
 celebrity, whose opinion he accepted in 
 everything. 'A man of the highest refine- 
 ment, sir, an artist born and bred, a man 
 without whose sanction Mr. Agnew himself 
 would not risk a purchase ! A man whose 
 decision sways the choice of pictures for the 
 National Gallery ! A man whose name is 
 known all over the world, sir !' Name ? 
 * Oh ! that is a secret of the trade, sir, 
 couldn't possibly betray it. But we shall 
 pay you the full value of your most striking 
 picture, sir, you may be sure ; ours is not the 
 cheap and nasty system ; we only accept real 
 works of art, and we pay accordingly ; we 
 are the great supporters of rising genius, and 
 we never look too closely into little faults,
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 17 1 
 
 sir ; we take the tout ensemble, and w& 
 judge of it as it is. Good morning, sir, you 
 shall hear from us shortly.' 
 
 EUis left his address and went away 
 rejoicing ; he returned home full of hope, and 
 told his cousin that he had succeeded at last 
 in being noticed ; notice was something, one 
 step gained, even if purchase did not 
 follow. 
 
 * Ah ! yes,' said Galway, shutting one eye, 
 ' it certainly is a great consolation to think 
 that your eggs have been sat upon, even if 
 they don't produce any chickens.' 
 
 The next day Ellis's picture was returned 
 to him, with the following delicate criticism 
 upon it : 
 
 ' We have much pleasure m return- 
 ing your picture, which you so kindly sub- 
 mitted to our inspection. It has undoubted
 
 172 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 merits, and shows promise of great future 
 success ; but its execution is faulty, its design 
 meaningless, and its colouring untrue. We 
 have no doubt that a little study and further 
 practice will remedy these insignificant faults. 
 We shall have much pleasure in considering 
 some other work which you shall do us 
 the honour of submitting to our judg- 
 ment. 
 
 ' Your obedient servants, 
 
 * KOYSTONE, KOYSTONE & Co.' 
 
 Ellis tore the letter in passionate disgust. 
 He took his pictures upstairs, laid them once 
 more in his box, turned the key upon them, 
 and in his rage threw it out of window — It 
 rattled down amongst the chimney-pots, and 
 lay in a gutter. 
 
 ^ Never again,' he swore, ' never again 
 shall you be exposed to such pollution ; never 
 shall the light fall upon you till you can go
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 173" 
 
 forth to meet it in the pride of your own 
 power.' 
 
 He threw himself upon his bed, for his- 
 head was aching cruelly. 
 
 Again to-morrow, and Ellis Lyndon wa& 
 unable to get up ; his temples throbbed, 
 his hands burned, he trembled all over. 
 
 * Bile, my country cousin,' said Galway, 
 ' bile. Take a blue pill.' 
 
 He took a blue pill, and felt better. 
 
 But his recovery was only temporary : for 
 a few days more he struggled through the 
 streets, now growing so familiar to him ; he 
 bore a few more disappointments ; he hoped 
 again and failed again. The constant anxiety 
 overtaxed his brain and undermined his ner- 
 vous system. The air of London disagreed 
 with him ; it was so great a change from the 
 breath of the moors and the breezes of the sea 
 sweeping across the coast of Devon. Even 
 the noise confused him, after the dead silence
 
 174 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 of the old wash-house at Littlefield. He 
 broke down altogether. 
 
 Fred Galway nursed him for a week ; 
 tended him with almost a woman's softness ; 
 kept away from his own work for Ellis's 
 sake ; paid some one else to do it for him ; 
 spent money on dainty things for Ellis to eat 
 and drink ; found himself penniless, and said 
 * He'd be hanged if he knew where the 
 money went to. He shouldn't be able to 
 pay his rent, that was very certain ; but he 
 hadn't the least doubt of his power to soft 
 sawder the landlady and cajole her into 
 giving him credit for a week or two. Some- 
 thing would turn up by that time ; it always 
 •did — he was such a lucky beggar.' 
 
 Ellis recovered : he found himself deeply 
 in debt to his cousin ; without resources ; 
 with no prospect of employment ; his health 
 shaken ; his hopes dropping, one by one, into 
 substanceless chimeras. For an hour or two
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 175 
 
 lie thought of crushing down his poor worth- 
 less pride, and taking, as a right, the money 
 his father had placed at his disposal. A 
 hundred pounds a year ! it would save him, 
 it was his due ; it could not lay him under 
 an obligation to that father any more than 
 the fact of his birth and parentage laid him 
 under an oblisfation to them for havino* borne 
 him. 
 
 Thus he argued as he lay on his bed, 
 shaken with the effects of his late illness. 
 Bodily depression is the great cause of 
 mental weakness. So long as EUis Lyndon 
 was physically strong, he had ignored the 
 possibility of succumbing to circumstances ; 
 he had said that he would rather die than 
 touch the money. So he would then, die 
 fighting, and glorying in the excitement of a 
 struggle ; but there was no satisfaction in 
 doing nothing and dying all the same ; dying 
 by inches, a mental death in life harder to
 
 176 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 bear than the dissokition of the bodily 
 tissues. 
 
 Ellis decided on takino^ as a riorht the 
 money he had so indignantly refused. He 
 bowed his proud neck in self-abasement to 
 the yoke of necessity. 
 
 He fell asleep. 
 
 In his sleep the whole scene in the old 
 washhouse was re-enacted. His father's 
 jeers at the poor defenceless art ; his sarcastic 
 pity for his son's worthlessness ; his sneers at 
 Ellis's pride of independence, and then the 
 words, ^ Suppose I took you at your own 
 valuation, and withdrew my promise of sup- 
 port, where would your pride be then ? But 
 I am willing to make allowance for your in- 
 experience, and to bear with your imperti- 
 nence ; the money will be deposited regularly; 
 you are not bound to make use of it, you 
 know.' 
 
 Word for word, this interview repeated it-
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 177 
 
 self to Ellis's brain, excited even in his 
 sleep. 
 
 He started up with a cry. 
 
 * No ! I take my oath no ! Never, if I beg, 
 steal, die for want of it !' 
 
 ' Easy all, my violent cousin,' said Fred 
 Galway, laying hold of him to prevent his 
 faUing out of the bed; ^on whose premises do 
 you contemplate scientific burglary, and who 
 is to be employed as your hangman ? Take 
 it easy, man, you're all right.' 
 
 Ellis was awake by this time. Gahvay 
 stood over him, laughing, but the firm, kind 
 pressure of the hand which rested on Ellis's 
 shoulder had no mockery in it. The bitter- 
 ness was only a dream ; the solace, a sweet 
 reality. Ehis laughed too, but his oath had 
 been taken. He would die, but his father 
 should not triumph. 
 
 This was the opportunity for which Galway 
 had waited. 
 
 VOL. L 12
 
 178 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 ' Now look here, old man, it's no good hum- 
 bugging ; I told you once before that I can 
 l^ut you in the way of earning an honest 
 livelihood ; you elevated your classical 
 feature at me, I shut up. With my natural 
 persistency I open fire once more ; here goes ! 
 The editor of the scientific department of the 
 Racer had the bad taste to cut his own throat 
 last week; we have no one fit to put in. 
 Suit you to a T, just in your line. Say the 
 word, and I get the post for you. A hundred 
 a year down, and plenty of odd ways of 
 making more. I can put you up to a dodge 
 or two.' 
 
 A hundred a year ! Employment ! A 
 foothold at last ! Against it — the having his 
 name mixed with that of Fred Galway and 
 his friends ; becoming one of them, living 
 as they lived. Against both — helplessness, 
 debt, friendlessness. He would not be bound 
 to do as they did, he argued ; he could work
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 179 
 
 honestly, and live honourably. He could 
 continue his painting after office hours, instead 
 of what Galway termed ' going out on the 
 spree.' He could spend all his spare money 
 in taking the lessons necessary to his success 
 as a painter, in learning the science of art. 
 Nothing seemed impossible with a hundred 
 a year at his command. 
 
 His decision was taken. 
 
 * All right, old fellow ; if I can't do what I 
 like, I will do what I can. Man must live, 
 you know\ I accept your offer ; thanks for 
 your interest in me.' 
 
 But a presentiment of evil followed the 
 acceptance, and his heart sank within him. 
 
 ' Necessitas non habet leges,' he said, in 
 reckless desperation, ' if one must fall, what 
 matter how V 
 
 ^ Hang it all, my lugubrious cousin,' said 
 Galway, slapping him between the shoulders, 
 * one would think you w^ere going to be buried 
 
 12 2
 
 180 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 alive instead of that delusive old paint-box. 
 The Racer is a most flourishing paper, con- 
 scientious, I assure you ; we do our best for 
 society in the way society best likes to be 
 done by. Who can complain ? We pay our 
 way, what more do you want V 
 
 But Ellis knew they did not pay their way. 
 He believed the Avhole thing a swindle. 
 
 ^ But/ he argued, ' I am not bound to be 
 dishonest because my employers are.' 
 
 And he accepted the post of editor of 
 ^ Science ' in the respectable columns of the 
 Racer. 
 
 So low had his pride fallen already ! 
 Early every morning he went to the office 
 of the Racer ; all day long he worked in close 
 rooms, in an atmosphere Avhich would have 
 killed him a month ago, before he had grown 
 acclimatised to London. Every evening he 
 came home fagged and worn, with tired brain 
 and trembling hand. The life was so new to
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 181 
 
 him. The want of exercise, the confinement, 
 afiected his general health. He should grow 
 used to it in time, no doubt, this daily 
 drudgery of business ; thousands of other 
 men knew no thin 2: different, and cared for 
 nothing beyond ; why not he also, after a 
 little training ? He had no time for aspira- 
 tions now, none for regrets. To live he must 
 work ; to "work he must devote all his mental 
 energy ; to render energy possible in an 
 undertaking utterly distasteful to him, he 
 must undergo the severest self-discipline. 
 He must crush each young desire as it 
 struggled to find a pathway towards the light 
 for which it thirsted ; he must bind down 
 with chains of iron every thought which 
 dared expand itself beyond the consideration 
 of how to eat, how to drink, wherewithal to 
 be clothed — yea, though the iron entered into 
 his soul, and eat and cankered there, or, if it 
 were possible, changed the whole nature of
 
 182 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 that soul^ making it hard and cold as the iron 
 itself. 
 
 But not yet ; such changes cannot be 
 wrought in a day, they require months or 
 years for their accomplishment. And thus, 
 whilst necessity was taking her time with 
 merciless leisure to mould him according to 
 her design, Ellis Lyndon's genius lay rotting 
 under the sod of daily drudgery. 
 
 He had neither the power nor the desire 
 to paint now.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 183 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 One day he wrote to Enid in answer to a 
 loving, childish letter she sent him ; a letter 
 full of sweet encouragement given in innocent, 
 trusting hopefulness. She thought so much 
 of his scarcely-formed mind ; she expected 
 such great things of his half-taught intellect ; 
 she was so sure of his success in ' the world's 
 broad field of battle/ so confident that he 
 would come out ^ a hero in the fight.' 
 
 ' Poor little girl !' he said, with an ironical 
 smile, which had even more bitterness in it 
 than of old. 
 
 He had almost forgotten her in the struggle
 
 184 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 to live. But in the midst of his office- work 
 he pushed aside the piles of manuscript, the 
 long strips of proofs, the pencil and the 
 scissors ; and he took a precious half-hour for 
 the answering of Enid's letter. 
 
 Thus he wrote to her, racing time with his 
 pen : 
 
 'My Darling, 
 
 * A man would be hardened indeed 
 who could not find consolation in your loving 
 lettei* ; hope in the promise of a future such 
 as you hold out to him. Your faithful love 
 deserves a worthier object, Enid. But for 
 your sake I will struggle on stilly for your 
 sake I will strive to be what you in your 
 sweet innocence believe I am. At least, you 
 shall not blush for your love. I Avill do 
 nothing unworthy of it, now or ever. You 
 talk of '^ when we are married ;" my darling, 
 put that thought away from you, it will never
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 185 
 
 be ; you would be tired of waiting, you will 
 find other objects to fill your life, I must fight 
 alone. You ask me what new pictures I 
 have painted 1 None ! every hour of my life 
 is passed in the struggle to maintain that life 
 only ; to eat, drink, clothe myself I cannot 
 waste time in mental relaxation or mental 
 training. The body demands my whole 
 thought, or I should lie down and starve like 
 a dog in the gutter ; no one would turn out 
 of his way to lift me up. I should bite them 
 if, they did, do you see, Enid ? I am such an 
 ill-tempered brute. And circumstances are' 
 not combining to better me. How could you 
 think of trusting your tender life in such 
 hands? — Blind idolater ! But I need not fear, 
 your eyes will be opened soon enough ; you 
 will see me as I am, an ordinary mortal after 
 all ; you will cease to love such a common 
 piece of clay. Yet I could almost pray you 
 to be true, Enid ; because, whilst I have
 
 186 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 your good opinion to keep, I shall not sink too 
 low. 
 
 ' You ask me about Fred Galway. He is 
 an open-hearted, extravagant, thoughtless, 
 olever fellow ; a conglomeration of incongrui- 
 ties badly patched together ; each separate 
 particle good enough in itself, but spoiled by 
 being in disagreement with the other. I 
 shall not stay in this house longer than 
 necessity forces me to do so, but having just 
 accepted a post under him, I cannot free 
 myself yet. He insists upon teaching me, as 
 he calls it. 
 
 ' Besides, we are in debt for our rent, which 
 I must pay with my first quarter's earnings — 
 <jralway's money floats down every channel 
 but the right one ; — ^this debt once discharged, 
 however, I shall part company with my 
 •cousin ; not without regret I confess, he has 
 been a kind friend to me. Without his care, 
 I should probably have lain rotting in the
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 187 
 
 churchyard at this moment. After all, life 
 is a mistake, Enid : what is the use of 
 struggling on for no better end than that 
 the struggle may not cease for so many years 
 more? Is it not like wasting fuel to keep 
 the wheels of a machine turning when 
 the machine works on nothing and produces 
 nothino- ? Of the thousand human machines 
 which are whirling round, and buzzing and 
 wearing themselves out all day, and all night, 
 how many do leave any work completed, any 
 result adequate to the labour expended ; after 
 the great wheels have ceased turning from 
 sheer inability to go on longer ? The poor 
 machine is only worn out, and cast away as a 
 useless encumbrance upon the earth. One 
 in a thousand has produced something per- 
 haps — why ? — because it was better con- 
 structed, or better worked, or better attended 
 than the rest. The success was not its own, 
 the failure of the others not their own.
 
 188 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 * I am beofinninsr to doubt the existence of 
 individual merit ; what seems such is a mere 
 combination of favourable circumstances ; or, 
 granting the innate virtue, it can only 
 develop under favourable conditions. Plant 
 a good seed in the wrong soil, will it ever 
 flourish ? Try to feed a young animal on 
 what it was never created to eat, will it 
 thrive ? — no ; it is a law of nature, animate 
 and inanimate, that certain external con- 
 ditions are necessary to perfection. 
 
 * Why should man be an exception *? Is 
 he ? Kob his body of its necessary amount 
 of oxygen, and he dies ; rob his mind of 
 space in which to expand, of opportunity, 
 of freedom, and its strength must decay — 
 slowly, perhaps, but surely. Your father 
 would say it is in man's power to make the 
 opportunity, to dear the space ; granted — if 
 he have nothing else on which to work. But 
 can he do two things at one and the same
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 189 
 
 moment ? Can he slave night and day for 
 physical maintenance, under the sordid soul- 
 less slavery of business, and yet prepare for 
 his mind an open pathway, to which the 
 light, the pure air, the sunshine may have 
 free access ? The greater force destroys the 
 lesser ; the irresistible necessity to live 
 absorbs the resistible desire to be worthy of 
 immortality. The one is a present, the other 
 a prospective good. We are creatures of the 
 moment. 
 
 ^ You will say I am losing courage, Enid, 
 to embrace this new doctrine of the fallibility 
 of our mental power, when I had so arro- 
 gantly asserted its infallibility. Experience 
 teaches more than argument, demonstration 
 more than logic. 
 
 ^ My case is not hopeless, darling. Clothe 
 has already given me the support of her 
 hand, Lachesis may yet be induced to disen- 
 tangle the threads of my life before Atropos
 
 190 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 cuts them asunder for ever. Especially if a 
 new Pandora, in the shape of my little Enid^ 
 will stand on the hill-top with her magic box^ 
 and scattering to the four winds all the evil 
 things it contains, leave only hope at the 
 bottom — hope, which she shall hold forth to 
 one struggling wearily towards her; hope, 
 which shall soothe his pains, and turn all his 
 labours into sweetness. 
 
 * This is your task, darling ; fulfil it faith- 
 fully, and save a human soul. 
 
 * Yours ever, 
 
 ' Ellis Lyndon.' 
 
 A strange letter, showing how unformed 
 the mind of the writer, how susceptible of 
 every new controlling influence ; but Enid 
 thought it exceeded the wisdom of Solomon, 
 and for the depths of its philosophy might 
 have been written by Aristotle himself 
 
 She was only a child, ignorant, but striving
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 191 
 
 to be wise for his sake, seeking to make her 
 life worthy of his, treading conscientiously in 
 the path he had pointed out to her. Present 
 or absent, his influence was upon her, mould- 
 ing her character into what he had intended 
 to make it, had he been her teacher still. He 
 did not know it, but every word he had ever 
 spoken, every wish he had ever expressed, 
 became unto her a law. Not by any will of 
 her own — she was indeed scarcely aware of his 
 power over her. She did not know why she- 
 studied, and read, and thought, as she had never 
 done before — she supposed it her own natural 
 desire to be less ignorant ; and so thinking, 
 she toiled unceasingly. Early in the morn- 
 ing and late at night she read ; strange works 
 which he had advised to her ; she borrowed 
 them from the library, or bought them out of 
 her savings, caring rather to clothe her mind 
 than to decorate her body. She had wan- 
 dered through Hume and Locke, fancying
 
 192 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 she understood them ; and in part she did so. 
 They influenced her belief, they directed the 
 bent of her mind^ even though she could not 
 thoroughly comprehend their meaning. She felt 
 herself growing liker unto him, and rejoicing 
 said she would stand by his side fearlessly" yet. 
 
 Her father encouraged this new mental 
 life. He had always believed a woman would 
 be the better for the less narrowness of her 
 mind ; that amongst greater things, the 
 petty vanities and jealousies natural to her 
 sex must become subordinate or be alto- 
 gether displaced. It had been the case with 
 Enid's mother, why not with herself? And 
 the guiding power had been one and the 
 same— love. Dr. Osborn knew it was Enid's 
 love for Elhs Lyndon which had wrought 
 the change in her. 
 
 Yes ; she was changed. 
 
 She no longer believed in Gladys Lyndon ; 
 no lono-er cared for her companionship. The
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 193 
 
 soulless superficiality of the beautiful girl 
 seemed to rob her of all charm. 
 
 Enid had not noticed it before. 
 
 The self-sanctified narrow-mindedness of 
 Mrs. Lyndon and Esther was repellent to her 
 broader views of human nature, which must 
 surely, she argued now, take more forms 
 than one ; and they could not all be wrong — 
 all except those whose rights were granted to 
 them by Mrs. Lyndon. 
 
 Above all, their bigotry inclined her to 
 think there may be no truth in Christianity. 
 That such injustice, such pitiful prejudice, 
 such sweeping condemnation, could be God's 
 pleasure, she dared not allow ; it were insult- 
 ing Almighty truth. Omnipotent justice^ to 
 attribute as His teaching the meanness of 
 human cowardice. If they were Christians, 
 Heaven save her from falling into their 
 hands ! 
 
 Her father had taught her a purer faith — a 
 
 VOL. I. 1.3
 
 194 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 faith unsullied by scepticism, a trusting, loving 
 faith ; a belief in Infinite mercy, Infinite 
 wisdom. Science had not made him doubt ; it 
 only established his religion, proved its truth 
 beyond all human controversy. Dr. Osborn 
 was a Christian too, but not like those others ; 
 he walked uprightly in the simple faith 
 taught him by Jesus of Nazareth. There was 
 no condemnation here, no merciless accusa- 
 tion ; it was all love, and pity, and endless- 
 forbearance which He taught. 
 
 Dr. Osborn strove to go forth and do like- 
 wise. But, for Enid, even this simple per- 
 fect religion was changing into a substanceless 
 mist, which seemed to roll further and further 
 away from her. 
 
 This was not Ellis Lyndon's doing — not at 
 least intentionally; he had never spoken a 
 word which could shake the pretty faith of 
 her childhood ; he did not wish to see it 
 overthrown, he respected it for its purity.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 195 
 
 But he could set no limit to the absolute 
 influence of his mind over hers. 
 
 She answered his letter. There was no 
 affectation of learning in the simple womanly 
 words she wrote, no sign of what she was 
 doinof for his sake : time enoucfh to let him 
 know of the endeavour when somethinof real 
 should be achieved, when she should feel her- 
 self nearer to his level. 
 
 ' My own Ellis, — 
 
 ' You are not happy, I see ; how can I 
 comfort you ? If you were here, I would rest 
 your head upon my knees, and laying my 
 hand upon your forehead, would calm you as 
 of old ; but you are away, and words are 
 a poor expression of sympathy. I will always 
 be true to you. Why do you pain me by 
 referring to the impossibihty of marriage ? 
 What does it matter ? T can live loving you, 
 and die loving you, with no ulterior object 
 
 13—2
 
 196 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 to induce constancy. Now I see you smile ! 
 I see your lip curling in incredulous pity at 
 my simplicity ! I know you do not believe 
 it possible that any woman could love once 
 and for ever ; your mythologies do not lead 
 you to such a faith, or your philosophy 
 either. Well, I may be wrong. I may not 
 know myself; and yet I feel confident in my 
 own truth. Be strong and brave, ElHs ; do 
 not succumb under the pressure of the first 
 burden which is laid upon you ; prove your- 
 self worthy of yourself, of your own manly 
 nature ; show yourself strong to resist, and 
 mighty to overcome — as who could doubt 
 that you are, knowing you as does your 
 loving ' Enid.' 
 
 ' God bless you child, for your faith in me !' 
 Ellis exclaimed, putting her letter into his 
 pocket ; ' almost you persuade me to believe 
 in myself.'
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 197 
 
 This was said as a substitute for any 
 response to her passionate love. 
 
 But more than ever he determined that 
 she should never know the mistake which 
 had bound him to her as to a future wife ; 
 more than ever he respected her, and wished 
 to prove himself worthy of her love, of the 
 high estimation in which she held him. ' Only 
 circumstances were so dead against him,' he 
 argued in the bitterness of his spirit. 
 
 Dr. Osborn enclosed a few lines in his 
 daughter's letter. 
 
 ' ElUs, you are stooping to lift the coward's 
 weapon of self-defence. Enid showed me what 
 you wrote. You are putting off upon fate, 
 chance, circumstances, your own inability to pro- 
 tect yourself — the result of your own weakness. 
 Boldly lay hold of these seemingly opposing 
 circumstances, shape them according to your 
 own will, mould them gradually to your own
 
 198 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 ultimate advantage. It can be done, it has 
 been done ; what other men have achieved, 
 why not you ? or, if not, lay the fault upon 
 yourself alone. But rather stand up and 
 fight, determined to conquer, determined to 
 cast the lie back into the teeth of all scoffers 
 at the strength of a man's will, and at his 
 ability to use every circumstance for the end 
 he has in view. They are cowards who 
 would check ambition in others because they 
 have none themselves ; liars who would 
 preach that man has no greater object to 
 accomplish than the satisfaction of the lusts 
 of the flesh ; opposers of progress, and dis- 
 provers of immortality. Let us go forth and 
 meet them, Ellis Lyndon, and dare them to 
 mortal conflict ; they are cowards, I say, one 
 and all; they cannot sustain a prolonged fight ; 
 we shall conquer. 
 
 * Yours, 
 
 'Horace Osborn/
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 199 
 
 ' He is severe,' said Ellis, pressing his lips 
 together in anger ; * experience teaches other- 
 wise ; what can he have gone through in 
 struggles or disappointments ? None.' 
 
 Ellis was wrong ; he did not know that 
 Dr. Osborn, whose name was even now 
 spreading far and wide over his own county, 
 had been born in a workhouse, educated in a 
 €harity-school, was a foundling, a bastard, a 
 wanderer on the face of the earth, a blot on 
 the pages of society. Yet this man had 
 found for himself a home and a resting-place, 
 and no person questioned his right to a name 
 and a voice amongst them. His present 
 object, however, was to get to London. 
 There was no scope for the advancement of 
 his professional ability in Littlefield, no 
 hospitals in which he could show his won- 
 derful surgical skill, no kings or princes to set 
 him on the last step of the ladder of popu- 
 larity which he was climbing so persistently.
 
 200 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 But nothing of his ambition was known 
 
 to any one in the sleepy Devonshire 
 
 village. 
 
 They would only have laughed at him pity- 
 ingly.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP 201 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 Twelve months passed away, and there was 
 no change. Elhs Lyndon worked day and 
 night for the advancement of the Racei\ 
 but he only saw it dechne. It had struggled 
 to float on the surface of second-class London 
 society, but it w^as sinking gradually and 
 surely. Soon the waves would close over it,, 
 and it would be seen no more. 
 
 For his own sake, for Fred Galway's sake, 
 Ellis put forth his utmost energies on behalf 
 of the paper. He had been found a capable 
 man, and from editing 'Science' only, he had 
 gradually slipped into managing the w^hole
 
 ^02 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 disorderly business. He had hoped to work 
 it into something like order, something like 
 honesty in its dealings, but its bad name 
 hanged it. As to being paid a hundred a 
 year for his work, he had never received 
 fifty pounds; but the opening had enabled 
 him to earn an uncertain and scanty liveli- 
 hood by writing on his own account for other 
 papers. He found himself not without 
 literary talent. Sometimes, when the Racer 
 seemed to be ' looking vip ' as Galway ex- 
 pressed it, Ellis Lyndon received a fair sum 
 for his efforts, but he knew that other people 
 were not so honestly dealt by. He was 
 necessary to the Racer, and it tried to keep 
 him, so long as its poor life lasted. It could 
 not survive for more than a month or two, 
 ^nd what would become of him then ? 
 thrown back once more on the mercies of 
 London employers, with a name not over 
 •clean from his association with the Racer,
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 203 
 
 Fred Galway was not disheartened. 
 
 * Bless you, my good cousin, we always 
 keep several irons in the fire ; when one 
 cools, we use another. After we have 
 buried the Racer decently, we shall give 
 birth to something else ; our creative power 
 is unlimited. Stick to us like a leech, old 
 fellow, and we'll have another suck at the 
 blood of popular credulity.' 
 
 Ellis Lyndon saw nothing else to be done, 
 and yet he knew quite well now what these 
 men were amongst whom he had voluntarily 
 cast his lot. He was falling very low. Dr. 
 Osborn had been right to call him a coward ; 
 it would be a nobler thing to die striving for 
 something better, than to live another year 
 like unto this last. But how strive ? How 
 fight when he could not find even a foothold 
 from which to take the first stroke, when th^ 
 ground slipped away from under him, even 
 before he had time to raise a hand ao^ainst
 
 204 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 the enemy. Two or three tmies lately he 
 had looked at the card given him by that 
 strange beautiful woman in the train, won- 
 dering what she would do for him if he 
 called and threw himself upon her mercy. 
 It was only wondering and speculation ; he 
 would not have gone near her then for untold 
 gold. He feared her, feeling that she had 
 some strange power over him. She would 
 probably only entangle him in meshes from 
 which there would be no escape. 
 
 Lest he should be tempted, he tore up her 
 card and threw it away. 
 
 But he remembered her name — Zare Lah.- 
 drelle — he remembered the tones of her 
 voice, and the expression of her eyes. Since 
 he had not taken note of her address he 
 was safe, he argued. Safe ! When are we 
 ever safe from the pursuit of the blind son 
 of Chaos and Nox ? how escape his notice 
 when, opening the great brass-leaved volume^
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 205 
 
 he sets his trembhusf fiiio-er on our name, 
 graven there from time eternal ? In what 
 secret corners of the earth shall we hide our- 
 selves from the executioners of his unalterable 
 decrees? When shall we say we are safe 
 from our destiny ? 
 
 Ellis Lyndon had said it once — he never 
 repeated it. 
 
 He was walkino- down Res^ent Street one 
 day ; it was four o'clock. Gaily-dressed idlers 
 passed and repassed him ; the season was at 
 its height, he saw nothing, heard nothing. 
 What were they to him, shabbily-dressed, 
 careworn ? He was only passing through 
 the street on a business errand ; he was 
 going to make a bargain for the sale of the 
 Racer, if perchance some oue could be found 
 credulous enouoh to take it. The some one 
 seemed to have presented himself, and Ellis 
 Lyndon, as the most gentlemanly represen- 
 tative of the firm, was sent to negotiate for
 
 20G A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 them. He did not like the work, but he was 
 to be paid for it, and ^ Beggars cannot be 
 choosers/ he said, sneering at his own weak- 
 ness, and thinking, in the bitterness of his 
 spirit, that it httle mattered what he did 
 now ; the primary object of hfe, after all, was 
 to be as comfortable as you could at the 
 moment, with never a retrospect, never a 
 prospect, to disturb your peace. 
 
 If Dr. Osborn saw him now ! 
 
 He stopped a moment on his way, to look 
 at a picture offered for sale in one of the 
 shop-windows. It was a poor production, a 
 soulless mass of brilliant colouring, but it had 
 a name on the frame. ' It must be a work 
 of art r so he heard a passer-by exclaim, who 
 immediately went in to purchase it. There 
 was another, a smaller picture, away in a 
 corner, which no one noticed, an exquisite 
 breath of pure poetry, but it was nameless, 
 so no one looked at it.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 207 
 
 Ellis Lyndon was wishing lie could pur 
 chase it, calculating whether, out of his 
 scanty store of money, he could save enough 
 to pay for the little gem ; wondering for how 
 long they would give him credit, how many 
 meals he could do without to redeem this 
 soul-touching picture from its ignominious 
 banishment. But no ! such deeds of mercy 
 were not for him ; he was poor, a poor 
 man cannot even do good to his fellow 
 creatures. 
 
 He was turning away, when a hand rested 
 upon his shoulder, and a voice said, almost 
 in a whisper : 
 
 ' So you have not sought me out — you 
 have not yet experienced the necessity for 
 help. Fate has dealt gently with you ; you 
 are one of the favoured few.' 
 
 Zare Landrelle stood by his side, more 
 beautiful than before ; a creature for whom 
 art and nature had combined to make her
 
 ^08 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 perfect. In all her person there was nothing" 
 inharmonious, nothing jarring against the 
 soft seductive charm, which, like an en- 
 trancing strain of music forced you to stand 
 still and listen. The chords did not appear 
 to be struck for your benefit ; they seemed 
 but the rise and fall of some inspired cadence, 
 which startled you with its soul-piercing 
 melody. When she spoke, that spell was 
 broken, but only to lay you under another 
 — the power of her incomprehensible mental 
 strength, the wonderful forms it took, the 
 lights and shadows of its reflected rays. 
 
 Ellis Lyndon was strong, mentally and 
 physically, but he trembled under the touch 
 of her hand, and the tones of her voice creep- 
 ing so softly into his ear. He found no 
 answer to make to her greeting ; she, 
 noticing his embarrassment, said, almost 
 without pause : 
 
 ^ And what have you done since I saw you V
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 209 
 
 ' Lived,' he answered sarcastically. 
 
 ^ Lived !' she repeated, raising her eye- 
 brows incredulously ; ^ would not " existed " 
 express your meaning better V 
 
 ^ Surely you only substitute one term for 
 another.' 
 
 ' I substitute for some positive and cal- 
 culable quality, a negative and incalculable 
 term. Life is the result of an active force — 
 existence the absence of all motive power.' 
 A pause. Then in another tone, ' And your 
 pictures V 
 
 ' Dead/ he answered ; but seeing an ex- 
 pression of pain in her eyes, he added, 
 with a derisive laugh, ' Oh ! don't fret 
 about them ; they have received Christian 
 burial, I assure you, and are as much the 
 better for it as you or I shall be when 
 the worms are the only issue of our 
 brains.' 
 
 'You must not think like this/ she said, 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 with a strange intensity. ' You shall 
 not/ 
 
 ' Ours is a free country — who will prevent 
 mer 
 
 ' I will/ decisively. 
 
 ' And how shall you begin ? Give me fair 
 warning, please.' 
 
 ' I will show you the lie of every dastard 
 belief which has rooted itself in your mind. 
 Is the sum of human intellect nothing? 
 Good heavens ! you shall see — Is life the 
 beginning and end of everything ? You shall 
 answer for yourself — Is fame immortal ? I 
 will prove to you that it is so. Come with 
 me.' 
 
 He hesitated, but she put her arm in his, 
 grasping it so tightly that he could not have 
 released himself without an unseemly struggle 
 in the street. He might not have wished to 
 be free ; he did not know ; he was only sure 
 that she could do with him as she would.
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 211 
 
 He had felt it when he sat face to face with 
 her in the railway carriage on that long ago 
 journey from Devon. 
 
 Zare Landrelle led him up to her carriage 
 and bade him get into it. He moved me- 
 chanically, the force which impelled him — 
 What? 
 
 They drove through the streets and across 
 the park, making their way slowly where the 
 treble line of carriages blocked the road. 
 She talked to him all the time, asked his 
 name and his birthplace, and told him about 
 herself People bowed to her out of their 
 carriages, from the backs of their horses ; she 
 heeded them not, her absorption in Ellis 
 Lyndon was complete. She sketched her 
 Hfe quickly and simply for his benefit. 
 
 ' I am, as I told you before, an Italian by 
 birth, French by parentage, and cosmopolitan 
 by education ; my home is everywhere, my 
 country wherever intellect gathers itself 
 
 14—2
 
 212 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 together ; my religion, Progress ; my God, 
 Art. 
 
 * I married at sixteen, a Boman, one of 
 the greatest art- collectors of his country — 
 Leonardo Landrelle. If you know anything 
 of your profession, his name will be familiar 
 to you. He died, leaving me the produce 
 of his labours, his money, and his friends. 
 The greater part of the first lie in the 
 museum of my castello in La Viola, the 
 place of my birth ; the second I fling away 
 broadcast with reckless extravagance ; the 
 last follow me wherever I go, fawn upon 
 me, flatter me, disgust me. I did not love 
 Leonardo, and I was glad at his death ; I 
 married him to realise the dreams of my 
 life, to satisfy my ambition : both are 
 accomplished. I have only one wish unful- 
 filled.' 
 
 ' And that V 
 
 ' To be loved as I could love.'
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 213 
 
 ' You ! you must be the last person to 
 have such a wish ungratified,' he said 
 wonderingly, for there was a ring of real 
 feeling in her cry of desolation. 
 
 ' I am neither the first nor the last : I 
 have admirers, adorers — lovers, if you like 
 to call them so — but not one who can make 
 me feel that there is any truth in his nature, 
 not one who exercises the smallest degree 
 of power over me, not one to whom I could 
 willingly sell myself soul and body. When 
 I come face to face with that man, when I 
 love him, he or I shall fall a victim to my 
 one unaccomplished desire.' 
 
 She spoke with a fervour of which Ellis 
 Lyndon could not then fathom the meaning ; 
 long afterwards he understood it, understood 
 himself too, which, at this moment, seemed 
 more incomprehensible than all the rest. 
 
 What was the nature of this woman's 
 influence over him 1
 
 214 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 By the time they reached her house she 
 knew as much about him as any one had 
 ever known — more, for he had told her of 
 his failures and his disappointments, he had 
 confessed to her his weakness, his utter in- 
 abiHty to cope with circumstance. She 
 knew that he had fallen down from the 
 pinnacle of his great desires, and that he 
 was lying helplessly on the ground at its> 
 base, scarcely struggling now to stand on 
 his feet again, crying like a frightened child 
 that his leg was broken and he could not 
 move. She had seen him take the first 
 false step and she knew what must follow ; 
 she could have prevented the fall then, but 
 he had turned away from her in the arro- 
 gance of his pride and spurned her help. 
 
 , ' I can wait,' she had said ; and she waited. 
 To-day she found him again — helpless, 
 purposeless. She did not even ask his 
 permission now, but put forth her hand and
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 215 
 
 dragged him out of his dark hiding-place. 
 She had determined to save him, and having 
 determined, Zare Landrelle would have died 
 rather than prove herself infirm of purpose. 
 Besides — she loved him ! Yes, from the first 
 moment she had raised her eyes to his, that 
 morning in the railway carriage, her strange 
 nature went out in passionate love for him. 
 She did not try to overcome it; she had 
 known that it would be so with her some 
 <lay, that her love would be instantaneous, 
 reasonless, resistless. The time had come, 
 and she almost pitied Ellis Lyndon, because 
 he was to be her victim ; she knew herself 
 so well. 
 
 Zare Landrelle was perhaps thirty, and 
 Elhs scarcely twenty-three. She was a 
 woman who had studied all arts for the 
 exercise of her power over the other sex. 
 Ellis, a boy who had only known a boyish 
 romance for a pretty wild flower which grew
 
 216 A TANTiSLUS CUP. 
 
 amongst the hills of Devon : a common plant 
 enough; but he m his ignorance had cherished 
 it as some rare and unappreciated blossom, 
 of which he alone knew the worth. It was 
 forgotten now, and he had learnt nothing by 
 experience — nothing of a woman's power to 
 do what she will with a man, nothing of the 
 way she would set about it, nothing of his 
 own weakness. He had a supreme contempt 
 for the female sex, all except Enid, and he 
 believed in his own ability to bring them 
 into servile obedience to his desires. He 
 had never failed in winning love where he 
 had tried to do so, neither had he bowed 
 to any tender yoke which he had cared to 
 resist. 
 
 This was all Ellis Lyndon had learnt at 
 Littlefield. How could he be expected to 
 escape from such a woman as Zare Landrelle ? 
 she who, Calypso-like, was even now throwing 
 her spell over him. He had not wished to
 
 A TANTALUS CUP. 217 
 
 follow her to the enchanted island in which 
 she abode, he did not intend to remain there, 
 he would escape as soon as flight were 
 possible. 
 
 But he followed her still. 
 
 Inside the portals of the marble -pillared 
 •door, across the high oak-raftered hall, svhere 
 there was no echo from their footfall on the 
 rich hued Indian carpet, into a room which, 
 •as he crossed the threshold, EUis Lyndon 
 felt to be a new and entrancing world open- 
 ino* before him ; a world cono^enial to his 
 spirit, a world of beauty, of refinement, of 
 peace. It seemed to him a temple, and 
 Zare Landrelle some God- inspired Pythia, 
 prophesying his own destruction. 
 
 EUis Lyndon bowed his head under the 
 influence of the, to him, sacred surroundings. 
 He had forgotten the ugly business outside 
 which had called him forth from the office of 
 the Racer, forgotten Fred Galway and Enid. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 218 A TANTALUS CUP. 
 
 He only knew that the curtain was lifted 
 upon some marvellous scene of beauty, such 
 as he had imagined in the dreams of his 
 boyhood. He only felt that warmth and 
 colour and an exquisite delight were creeping 
 into his senses and, spell-like, entrancing 
 him. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 / 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SURREY.