"It is the face of the dead man"—Lord Harry turned away. "I don't want to see it. I cannot bear to see it. You forget—I was actually present when—"
"Not when he died. Come, don't be a fool. What I was going to say was this: The face is no longer in the least like you. Nobody who ever saw you once even would believe that this is your face. The creature—he has given us an unconscionable quantity of trouble—was a little like you when he first came. I was wrong in supposing that this likeness was permanent. Now he is dead, he is not in the least like you. I ought to have remembered that the resemblance would fade away and disappear in death. Come and look at him."
"No, no."
"Weakness! Death restores to every man his individuality. No two men are like in death, though they may be like in life. Well. It comes to this. We are going to bury Lord Harry Norland to-morrow, and we must have a photograph of him as he lay on his deathbed."
"Well?"
"Well, my friend, go upstairs to your own room, and I will follow with the camera."
In a quarter of an hour he was holding the glass against his sleeve.
"Admirable!" he said. "The cheek a little sunken—that was the effect of the chalk and the adjustment of the shadows—the eyes closed, the face white, the hands composed. It is admirable! Who says that we cannot make the sun tell lies?"
As soon as he could get a print of the portrait, he gave it to Lord Harry.
"There," he said, "we shall get a better print to-morrow. This is the first copy."