He closed the door, tossed his stick into a corner, and, taking both the girl's hands, drew her into the little dining-room.
"Miss Allonby," he said, in tones whose affectionate warmth was in itself a comfort—"Miss Allonby, if you are in trouble, I must help you. I have come at the right moment. Now, what is it? Do you feel able to tell me?"
She sank upon a chair, turning her quivering face away out of his sight.
"Oh!" she said, "how can I tell you? How can I? It is all so miserable, so.... What a way to receive you!... You must have thought me mad."
"I thought nothing of the kind. I could see that you were utterly over-wrought. For pity's sake, don't make apologies—don't treat me as if I were a stranger. Tell me what the trouble is."
She lifted her eyes, the lashes drowned in tears that could not fall.
"I will show you, I think," said she. "Come."
Rising, she hastily went out, he following, expecting he knew not what. She led him into the studio.
It was a fair-sized room, built out behind the small house. Usually it was a charming place. Girlish fingers had arranged quaint pottery and artistic draperies—placing lamps in dark corners, flowers in vases, and tinting the shabby furniture with color. The piano stood there, and near the fire a well-worn sofa, and two or three capacious wicker chairs.
To-day a nameless desolation overspread the very air. Mr. Fowler entered, and looked straight before him. An enormous canvas was mounted on a screw easel in the best light the room afforded. The landscape had been put in with masterly freedom, and was almost finished. But a hole a foot square gaped in the centre of the picture, and the canvas was hacked and torn away in strips, some lying on the floor beneath. Near this ruin was a gilt frame, the portrait from which had been slit clean out, torn across and across, and left in fragments. So all round the room. Picture after picture had been torn from the wall, and dashed to the ground as if by a frenzied hand. A pile of delicate water-color studies on paper lay in the grate half charred, wholly destroyed. The whole scene was one of utter and hopeless wreckage. The mischief was irremediable.