She turned to an alcove in the far end of the room and stretching her arms high above her head in agonized supplication, she added:
“And thou Angelo Cornwallis! Beautiful spirit! be with me! Help me undo the dreadful deeds that have been done in our midst; and when I have done all I can at home, lead me on and on; for as it is here so it is elsewhere all over God’s great world. The good and beautiful are being battered and slain, that the coffers of the bad and beastly may be filled to overflowing with gold!”
The picture before which she stood was an artist’s realization of what Laurens Angelo Cornwallis would have looked like, if he had lived to reach man’s estate. It was a life-sized portrait of rare beauty and nobility thrown out in strong relief from a bluish-black background of peculiar make-up. Was it the work of Vassili Verestchagin and had her wish to see him been granted, or failing to be granted had she taken him for her spiritual teacher and inspirator and painted it herself?
Alfonso Bombs looked in her direction and recognized both the portrait and the significance of its setting—the marvelous whiteness, brightness and angelic beauty of the one, and the mysterious darkness, luridity and startling suggestiveness of the other—as though the artist had at the last moment dipped his brushes in the paint pots of the Inferno for characteristic colors with which to portray the dread and nameless shapes that had threatened to destroy his fair creation.
Feelings of jealousy, rage and resentment overwhelmed the spirit of Alfonso Bombs as he looked at his unconscious paint and canvas rival and detected in that hellish background unmistakable shadowings of himself; but for the first time in his life he had no specious plea to make. He had received his answer and the proof of its finality. He turned away with the swift and subtle movement habitual to him and left the house and the town.
The End.