"For me a secret," answered Guido. "The master worked on it with closed door—embellished it with his own hands, and locked it in the box. It stood long so, ready for departure. Cremato would entrust it only to me, and said to me, on his dying-bed, that only your majesty knew what that picture designated."
The king's countenance cleared, and he allowed that Guido should bring the box, in which the picture was locked, into the room. With a kind of grim horror, he refused to have it opened.
"Some other time," he said abruptly, "I will see if you are the student of your teacher. Did Cremato leave relatives to whom I can return the price of this masterpiece?"
"A mother and two daughters," replied Guido. "It is true, they are not pressed by want, but from a painter's inheritance is seldom left a surplus. Yet, do not pay for this gift in gold. Weighty grounds compel them to remain in a foreign land, and they wished to find a refuge in the kingdom that your majesty's wisdom makes happy."
"To take care of Cremato's daughters shall be my work, but perhaps his student has found his way to the heart of one of them?"
Guido bowed blushingly and denied.
"I am already bound," said he, "but to take to them the hope of your majesty's grace will be my first duty. They will soon thank you in person." The king bowed and said:
"Let yourself be presented to the queen and look at the drawings of my two young daughters. Cremato's pupil has certainly inherited quickness in art from him. His spirit is in your eyes. You please me."
He dismissed the joyful painter and turned toward the secret picture. "It seems to me," he said to himself, "as if Albo's eyes looked through the wood in order to wound me. Angry friend! On thy death-bed, hast thou after so many years kept thy pledge and made the shade of the murdered one at home in my court? When will I obtain the strength to look at thy earnest work? To look at it! Never! I think I should die from the glance. I will never see it. I know it already too well. Away with it!"