The room contained two beds. In one lay a haggard elderly man with closed eyes and lips drawn back from his clenched teeth. His legs stirred restlessly, and one of his arms was in a lifted sling attached to a horrible kind of gallows above the bed. It reminded Campton of Juan de Borgoña’s pictures of the Inquisition, in the Prado.
“Oh, he’s all right; he’ll get well. It’s the other....”
The other lay quietly in his bed. No gallows overhung him, no visible bandaging showed his wound. There was a flush on his young cheeks and his eyes looked out, large and steady, from their hollow brows. But he was the one who would not get well.
Mrs. Talkett bent over him: her voice was sweet when it was lowered.
“I’ve kept my promise. Here he is.”
The eyes turned in the lad’s immovable head, and he and Campton looked at each other. The painter had never seen the face before him: a sharp irregular face, prematurely hollowed by pain, with thick chestnut hair tumbled above the forehead.
“It’s you, Master!” the boy said.
Campton sat down beside him. “How did you know? Have you seen me before?”
“Once—at one of your exhibitions.” He paused and drew a hard breath. “But the first thing was the portrait at the Luxembourg ... your son....”
“Ah, you look like him!” Campton broke out.