“Come, don’t be foolish,” she said; “a picture has fallen, that is all.”
He advanced to look at it, and then benefited his companions with a further assortment of curses. The picture, on examination, proved to be a large one that he had, some years previously, had painted of Isleworth, with the Bellamys and himself in the foreground. The frame was shattered, and all the centre of the canvass torn out by the weight of its fall on to a life-sized and beautiful statue of Andromeda chained to a rock, awaiting her fate with a staring look of agonized terror in her eyes.
“An omen, a very palpable omen,” said Lady Bellamy, with one of her dark smiles. “Isleworth and ourselves destroyed by being smashed against a marble girl, who rises uninjured from the wreck. Eh, John?”
“Don’t touch me, you sorceress,” replied Sir John, who was shaking with fear. “I believe that you are Satan in person.”
“You are strangely complimentary, even for a husband.”
“Perhaps I am, but I know your dark ways, and your dealings with your master, and I tell you both what it is; I have done with the job. I will have nothing more to do with it. I will know nothing more about it.”
“You hear what he says,” said Lady Bellamy to George. “John does not like omens. For the last time, will you give it up, or will you go on?”
“I can’t give her up—I can’t indeed; it would kill me,” answered George, wringing his hands. “There is a fiend driving me along this path.”
“Not a doubt of it,” said Sir John, who was staring at the broken picture with chattering teeth, and his eyes almost starting out of his head; “but if I were you, I should get him to drive me a little straighter, that’s all.”
“You are poor creatures, both of you,” said Lady Bellamy; “but we will, then, decide to go on.”