Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.

THE WEIRD PICTURE

THE
WEIRD PICTURE

By

JOHN R. CARLING

Author of "The Shadow of the Czar,"
"The Viking's Skull," etc.

Illustrated by Cyrus Cuneo

Boston
Little, Brown, and Company
1905

Copyright, 1905,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
——
All rights reserved.

Published May, 1905.

Printers
S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U. S. A.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Weird Picture

CHAPTER I THE RED STAIN

"Belgrave Square, November 28th.

"Dear Frank,—Surely you are not going to spend a third Christmas at Heidelberg! We want you with us in good old England. My marriage with Daphne is fixed for Christmas Day, and I shall not regard the ceremony as valid unless you are my best man. So come—come—COME! No time to say more. You can guess how busy I am. Write or wire by return.— Yours,

"George."

Such was the letter received by me, Frank Willard, student in Odenwald College, Heidelberg, on the first day of the last month of the year. The writer of the letter was my brother, a captain in the—something. I take a pride in not remembering the number of the regiment, for I am a man of peace and hate war and all connected therewith, excepting, of course, my soldier-brother, though my affection for him had somewhat waned of late years, for a reason that will soon appear.

The letter was accompanied by a portrait of George, an exquisite little painting in oils, representing him in full-dress uniform. A glance at the mirror showed how much I suffered by comparison. He looked every inch a hero. I looked—well, no matter. In the lottery of love the prizes are not always drawn by the handsome. The Daphne referred to was our cousin, a maiden with raven hair, dark blue eyes, and a face as lovely as a Naiad's.

Her father, Gerald Leslie, was a wealthy city merchant, who, after the death of our parents, became the guardian of George and myself, bestowing on us a warmth of affection and a wealth of pocket-money that made the transference to his roof seem rather desirable than otherwise, my own father having been of a somewhat cold and undemonstrative temperament. However, de mortuis nil nisi bonum.

My first impulse on reading the above letter was to pen a refusal to the invitation.

"What!" it may be said. "Refuse to be present at your brother's wedding? Refuse to return home to old England at Christmas-tide?—a season dear to every Englishman from its sacred and festive associations. 'Breathes there the man with soul so dead,' etc."

Exactly. My soul was dead, both to the joys of Christmas and of Daphne's wedding. Four words will explain the reason: I myself loved Daphne. And I had told her so, only to find that she had given her heart to my brother George.

I am not going to fill this chapter with the ravings of disappointed love. Suffice it to say that in my despair I left England, determined to see Daphne no more, and betook myself to the university of Heidelberg with the hope of finding oblivion in study.

Greek choruses, strophes, antistrophes, and epodes, are, however, all very well in their way, but they are a sorry substitute for love. At any rate, they did not make me forget Daphne. Her sweet face continued to haunt me, and, in the despairing and romantic mood of a Manfred, I spent many a night on the mountains around Heidelberg, watching the stars rise, and brooding over my unrequited love.

Thus my brother's letter was far from being a source of pleasure to me, though it was kindly meant on his part (for he was ignorant, so I subsequently learned, of my own love for Daphne). His invitation, translated into the language of my thoughts simply meant, "Come and be more unhappy than you are!"

Deep down in my heart I had cherished the belief that something unforeseen would happen to break off George's engagement. The sands of that hope were now fast running out. The 25th of the month would remove Daphne from me forever.

For several days I fought with my despair, but at last I resolved to be present at the wedding.

"I may as well play the stoic," I muttered, "and accept the inevitable. Perhaps the fact of seeing Daphne actually married to another will cure me of this folly."

Curiosity, also, to see how Daphne would behave on the occasion was an additional motive for going; and, poor fool that I was, I thought of the trembling handclasp, the blush, and the sweet glance that a woman seldom fails to bestow on the man who has once expressed his love for her.

Christmas Eve, midnight, found me on board the packet-boat steaming out of Calais Harbour. The sea was singularly smooth, and there was in the air that which gave promise of a heavy fall of snow ere long. Wrapped in my cloak, I leaned over the side of the vessel, listening to the silver carillon of the church-bells pealing forth from every steeple and belfry in the town the glad tidings that the sweet and solemn morn of the Nativity had dawned. Faintly and more faintly the chimes sounded over the wide expanse of glimmering sea, till they were finally lost in the distance.

At first my thoughts were gloomy. To play the stoic is never a very pleasant task. Yet I was not totally abandoned to despair. A ray of hope played over my mind, and, as the distance that separated me from Daphne diminished, this hope gradually became stronger and stronger. Nil desperandum should be my motto. The wedding had not taken place yet; weddings have been broken off at the very altar: why should not hers be? Foolish though it may seem, I began to nurse the pleasing idea that Fate might yet transfer Daphne to my arms. As if my wish had become a certainty, I trod the deck of the Channel steamer with exultant step, refusing to go below, although the wintry flakes were falling now in steady earnest. Such is the power of hope over the human mind; or is it something more than a poetic fiction that coming events cast their shadows before?

I was roused at length from dreamland by the sight of Dover Harbour looming through the snow-dotted gloom of night.

At the pier-head a lantern shone, and among the persons assembled beneath its light a soldierly-looking figure in a long grey coat was visible. It was my brother George. His presence on the pier seemed, in my excited state of mind, a confirmation of the daring hope I had begun to entertain.

"The dear fellow!" I murmured. "He has come down expressly to meet me, and to resign Daphne to me."

As our vessel drew alongside the pier I waved my hand to him, but at this greeting he instantly vanished. This was certainly a surprise. Why did he not await my landing?

I was the first to quit the steamer, and, emerging from the inspection of the Revenue officials, I looked eagerly around for my brother. He was not to be seen on any part of the pier.

Was I mistaken as to the identity? The figure, the face, the very carriage—all seemed to be his. Stay! Was this an ocular illusion! Had my mind been dwelling so earnestly on my brother as to stamp on the retina of my eye an image that had no corresponding objective reality outside myself? Would this account for the peculiar manner in which the figure had vanished?

I would soon put this theory to the test. If George had come by train from London, the servants at the station would surely retain some remembrance of him. If others had seen the figure in the grey cloak, it would be a proof that my sense of sight had not deceived me. I entered the station and sought knowledge from the first porter I met, a tired-looking youth, with a sprig of holly stuck in his buttonhole, who gaped vacantly at my questions till the glitter of a silver coin imparted a certain degree of briskness to his faculties.

"A military-looking gent, sir? Yes, there was one on the platform a few minutes ago."

"Describe him," said I bluntly, as my fellow passengers from the boat began to crowd into the station. "What was he like?"

I was desirous of drawing a description of the "military-looking gent" from the porter's unassisted memory rather than of suggesting personal details, to which, in his half-sleepy state and in his desire to get rid of me, he would doubtless subscribe assent.

"Well, sir, he wasn't very tall—at least, not for a soldier; but then Bonaparte wasn't——"

"Oh, hang Bonaparte! Go on," I said snappishly, for I was cold, hungry, and tired—conditions that do not tend to improve one's temper.

"He was wearing a long grey cloak and had a travelling-bag with him, marked with the letters "G.W." I noticed the bag particularly, because it came open as he was stepping from the carriage. My! didn't he shut it sharp! quick as lightning, as if he didn't want any one to see what was inside. I offered to carry it for him, and he told me——"

"What?"

"To go to the devil!"

"You didn't go, I see," said I, attempting to be facetious. "Well, go on. What about the man's face?"

"Face? He looked rather white and excited; perhaps because he was in a passion with the carriage-door; it didn't open easily. He had a dark scar on his temple, and——"

"Left or right temple?"

"Left."

George had a dark scar on his left temple, the relic of a fall from a cliff at Upsala. His initials too were "G.W." Good! The figure on the pier was not an illusion, then. The porter's words convinced me that the man he had seen was my brother.

"How long is it since he was here?" I inquired.

"How long?" repeated the official, jerking his head backwards to get a glimpse of the Station clock. "Only ten minutes since. He came down by the express from Charing Cross. It was a few minutes late owing to the snow."

"Do you know if he had a return ticket?"

"That I can't say."

"What's the next train to London?"

"One just on the move now, sir. The next in two hours' time. Better travel by this one. The next is sure to be a slow one, this snowstorm is so heavy. Going by this one, sir?" he continued, swinging open a carriage-door as he saw my hesitation. "Only a minute to spare."

"I—I don't know yet. Hold my portmanteau for a moment."

I quickly ran the whole length of the departing train, but the grey coat was not in any of the carriages. This train was the one I should have travelled by, its departure being timed for the arrival of the Continental boat; but I now resolved to delay my journey till the next, in order to travel in company with my brother, for George must return by the latter train, otherwise he would be barely in time to meet the wedding-party in the Church at half-past nine. I returned to the porter, who was surveying me with a curiosity, the reason of which soon became evident, and said:

"I shall travel by the next train. Take charge of my portmanteau until then."

"Right you are, guv'nor! What's he done? Forgery? Murder? He looks quite capable of it."

"Done? Who?" I said, astounded at this sudden familiarity.

"Why, the military cove!" returned the youth. "It's no go; I can see you're a 'tec with half an eye."

I suppose the half-eye that had discovered so much was his right one, for he proceeded to diminish it by screwing it up into a wink expressive of the penetration of its owner.

"The gentleman whom you think capable of forgery and murder is my brother, Captain Willard, of the—the never you mind; and if you give me any of your insolence, I'll report you to the authorities," I said, wrathfully.

The porter, who had evidently been drinking, was a little taken aback, to judge by his ejaculation of "Oh lor!" and as I walked off with my grandest air, I heard him mutter:

"His brother! yes, and like him, too! The one sends me to the devil, and the other threatens to report me to the station-master. Oh, they're brothers, sure enough! By your leave, there!"

A multitude of questions came surging over my mind. What was George doing at Dover only a few hours before his wedding? Obviously his purpose was not to meet me, since he had avoided me. Why? Could it be that for some strange reason he was deserting Daphne on her bridal morning?—a thought that caused my pulses to throb quickly. Was it shame, or guilt, that had kept him from facing me? Oh, if I could but find him, and learn the truth from his lips!

"On the platform ten minutes ago."

Absurd as the idea may seem, I resolved to walk the streets of Dover during the next two hours, on the chance of meeting him.

The weather was of the character that popular fancy rather than historic fact has ascribed to the Yuletides of bygone days under the name of "an old-fashioned Christmas." The snow was lying several inches deep in the streets, deadening the sound of my footfalls. The big flakes, still falling, blinded my vision with their whirling eddies. Not a soul was to be seen out of doors. Not a sound was to be heard save the sea splashing faintly against the harbour walls. The town lay draped in white, a city of the dead. Not knowing in what direction to proceed, I walked on as chance directed, without seeing the person I was in quest of. Presently, as I was turning a corner, a figure, white as a ghost from head to foot, came into sight, startling me for the moment. It was a constable, and I questioned him.

"I saw a man in a grey cloak go by just three minutes ago."

"Carrying bag marked 'G.W.'?"

"Carrying a bag, sir," he replied, with marked emphasis on what the grammarians were wont to call the indefinite article. "I didn't notice any letters on it. If you hurry you'll catch him up. He went that way," pointing with his hand. "Is anything the matter? Can I be of assistance?"

"I don't understand you," I returned sharply, wondering whether he, too, like the railway-porter, thought that my brother was a fugitive from justice.

"No offence, sir, but your friend seems to need looking after. He is either mad or dying. His eyes burned like live coals, and his face was as white as this snow here. I called out 'A rough night, sir!' but he glided on, looking neither to right nor left, and taking no notice of me."

These words increased my misgivings. I thanked the constable and, declining his proffered services, rushed on in the direction indicated by him. A line of footprints in the snow served to guide me, and following their course, I presently found myself in a street whose semi-detached villas were fronted with quiet unpretentious gardens separated from the pavement by stone balustrades.

There he was! Half-way down the street, standing beneath the light of a gas-lamp, was a cloaked man apparently taking a survey of a house facing the lamp, while shaking the snow from himself. I hurried forward to greet him, my feet making no sound on the soft snow.

"George!" I cried eagerly and breathlessly when within a few paces of him. "George!"

The figure turned to meet, but not to greet me. It was my brother's face I saw, but so haggard and disfigured by lines of pain as to be scarcely recognisable. His eyes frightened me as they gleamed in the lamplight; so glassy, so unnatural was their stare.

With dread at my heart I tried to clasp his hand, but he waved me back with a gesture suggestive of surprise, despair, terror, shame, grief—any or all of these might have prompted the singular motion of his arm. If I had come upon him in the very act of murder, he could not have shown greater agitation. The fingers of his left hand relaxed their grip, and the valise they were holding dropped silently upon the snow. His action said more plainly than words: "Go back! go back! There is that happening of which you must know nothing."

To my mind there could be but one cause of his emotion, a cause as awful to me as to him, and it burst from my lips in a hoarse cry.

"Good heavens, George! Surely—surely Daphne isn't dead?"

There was no reply. The laxity of his limbs and his reclining attitude against the iron column showed that he had scarcely strength to stand. Then a sudden gust of wind blew aside both his cloak and his coat, exposing his white vest to view. And there upon that vest, plain to be seen, was a red stain large and round! For one moment only was it visible in the fitful light of the gas-lamp; the next, the folds of his cloak enveloping him again, concealed it from view.

"What is the matter? Why don't you speak?" I cried, and overcoming the vague terror that had possessed me, I stepped forward.

But before I could touch him, he gave a swift glance around, apparently seeking some way of escape, and suddenly snatching up the valise, he darted through the gate-way opposite him. Hurrying up the garden-path, he ascended a flight of steps, and while I was still gazing after him in amazement, he disappeared within the portico that gave entrance to the house.

Here was a strange affair. George, on his wedding-morn in a town far distant from his bride, trying to avoid me, his brother, after having invited me to be his best man! A second explanation of his conduct occurred to me and found its way to my tongue.

"He is mad!" and I hesitated to follow. It is not an infrequent thing for the insane to think their dearest friends their foes. And this thought begot another, more fearful still to me;

To be wroth with one we love

Doth work like madness in the brain.

His wild air and the red stain on his breast might well be testimony to some tragedy; in a fit of insane jealousy he had killed Daphne! Paralyzed by the idea I leaned, as he had leaned before me, against the lamp-post, with the words, "Daphne dead!" ringing in my ears.

I broke from the spell of terror imposed on me by my own fancy, and prepared to follow my brother. Putting aside the fears for my own safety with the thought that in case of an attack my cries would summon the inmates of the neighbouring houses to my aid, I cautiously groped my way to the dark portico, not without a dread that his wild figure might spring out upon me; but, on mounting the snowy steps I discovered that the portico was empty, and the front door of the house securely shut.

I had heard no noise of knocking—no sound of the opening or closing of a door; and yet, if George had not passed the threshold, where was he? This was the second time the figure had eluded me. Was it after all an apparition?

The improbability of seeing my brother in such a place and at such an hour, his obstinate silence to my appeals, his weird aspect, the mysterious manner in which he had vanished, seemed to favour this hypothesis. Was this his wraith sent to apprise me of his death? The next moment I was smiling at the idea. A being that is merely a figment of the brain cannot be credited with the power of making footprints in snow, yet deep footprints there were leading up the steps, and terminating at the threshold of the door; footprints newly-formed, whose shape and size assured me were not my own.

I drew back to take a survey of the house in which George had evidently taken refuge. A brief inspection of the dwelling failed to afford any clue as to the character of the occupants. The blinds were drawn at every window, and, as might be expected at so early an hour, no light was anywhere visible. I knocked at the door once, twice, thrice. There was no reply. Then, seizing the knocker with a vigorous grasp, I executed a cannonade with it, loud enough to rouse not the inmates of that house only, but those of the whole street. At length my summons met with recognition from within. The door slowly opened. Fully expecting to meet my brother, his eyes aglow with passion, I drew back with arms upraised to protect myself from his rush, but nothing more terrible met my gaze than a venerable old man with silver hair, who shivered visibly as the cold wind drifted the snow into the passage. The lamp that he carried in his left hand, while he shielded it from the draught with his right, shone full on his face, which had such an air of quiet dignity that I felt quite ashamed of myself for having knocked so loudly. The disorder of his dress told me that he had but just risen from his bed.

The contrast between his grave demeanour and my excited bearing would have amused the spectator, had any been present. It struck me as a reversal of positions. I had expected to see a madman; he certainly took me for one, standing there as I did, breathless and silent in the wild snowy night, with my arms extended in front of me.

Too surprised to speak, I looked along the length of the passage as far as the kitchen, and then glanced up the staircase, but could not see George, nor any trace of him.

"Well, sir, may I ask why you rouse me thus in the dead of night?"

My eager impatience gave me no time for apology.

"I want my brother," I cried brusquely. "He came in here, I think."

"Your brother!" exclaimed the old man in a tone of surprise, that, if not genuine, was certainly well feigned. "Young man, you have been too long at the taverns this morning. There is no one in this house but myself."

It was difficult to refuse belief to this statement, for the old man had so grave and reverend an air that he might have stood for an image of Truth—of Truth in these later days, I mean, when, as is well known, he has become a little old and antiquated.

"You are mistaken," I replied, after listening vainly for some sound to proceed from within that might disprove his words. "Some one entered here only a minute or two ago, unknown, it may be, to you. These footprints are not mine."

But on looking downwards I found that a snow-wreath had drifted over the pavement, effectually covering the footsteps of myself as well as those of the refugee.

The old man smiled at my perplexity—a smile that was annoying, for it implied that he regarded me as a sad wine-bibber.

"Who is your brother?"

"Captain George Willard, of the—the——"

And then I stopped. I could perhaps have given him the titles of Cæsar's ancient legions, but of the name of my brother's modern regiment I was totally ignorant.

"I really don't know the name of the regiment." The old man smiled again, as well he might. "He's in India now—that is to say, he is when he's there, you know," I stammered, conscious that I was blundering terribly.

"Captain Willard? I have never heard the name before. He is not here. You have mistaken the house."

"Would you allow me to search the place?" I asked. "It is a bold request for a stranger to make, especially at this unearthly hour, and nothing but the certainty that my brother has concealed himself within induces me to make it. You see, he's a madman, and might do you harm." I thought this last would move him, but it only made matters worse. "I am certain I saw him enter this house. I am willing to pay you for your trouble if—if——"

I paused diffidently, for his reverend air did not harmonise well with the taking of a bribe. The old man's voice now assumed a tone of asperity. He was evidently getting tired of shivering half-dressed in the cold night air, and no wonder.

"I shall certainly not allow you to search the house. Your brother is not here. This door was double-locked when I went to bed. You heard me unlock it. How could he enter without the key. I must bid you good-night, for I see it's no use arguing with you in your present state of mind."

And, without more ado, the door was closed and locked, and I could hear the footsteps of the old man receding along the passage and ascending the stairs.

CHAPTER II THE VEILED LADY

Completely mystified, I stood motionless for a few moments. I was certain that my brother had entered the house. Perhaps, despite the old man's assertion as to the door having been closed and locked, he had really left it ajar, and George, perceiving this, had, in a fit of desperation, seized the occasion to enter and hide, resolving to remain there till I had taken my departure. He might even now be stealing a look from one of the windows to see whether the coast were clear.

I looked at the time and found that I had an hour before the departure of the London train. I determined to watch the house for a short time, and then, if my brother did not appear, to betake myself to the station. The portico of the adjoining house was the spot I selected for my vigil, a place which, while concealing my own presence, gave me a full view of the strange dwelling.

"I like that old man's face," I muttered, as I shook off the snow from my cloak, preparatory to folding it closer around me. "It's a noble one and a truthful one, or I am no judge of faces. I believe he knows nothing of George's entering; but, for all that, I am certain George is within. Much good I do by stopping here! George can easily leave by the rear—perhaps has left already. No matter. If he is going to London he must travel by the same train as I shall, and therefore I am sure to see him on the platform. If he is not going to London—well, so much the better for my hopes. I wonder who the old man is, and why he is all alone? Perhaps he's butler to a family who are spending their Christmas from home."

The cold was intense. The wind blew keenly. The drops of perspiration caused by my violent run seemed slowly turning to icicles on my chilled skin. I took a deep draught of the brandy and water in my flask.

Taking a cigar from my case, I contrived to light it after some difficulty, and puffed away vigorously. Then I referred to my watch. "Only ten minutes elapsed? I thought it was half an hour. Time lags. Who was it that said 'Time flies?' If the ass were here to-night in my place I rather fancy he would revoke his saying. Am I really awake, I wonder? Can this be Daphne's wedding-morn, and am I here, at 3:30 A. M., in the snow at Dover, keeping watch on an absconding bridegroom? It must be a dream. I shall wake up presently at old Heidelberg, and hear the chapel-bell tinkling for matins."

Twenty minutes elapsed. "Nothing happening so far." I muttered "I'm a fool to stop here. This is growing ridiculous. I shall freeze if I remain much longer. I believe I am freezing—falling off into one of those sweet Russian slumbers that one reads of in books—or is it the brandy? Aha! what's that? Something is happening in the strange house, that's certain."

A light had appeared at an upper window, and was shining faintly out into the night. My curiosity was raised to a high pitch, and I stole from my hiding-place to get a nearer view. The old man had not been burning a light previously to my arrival, and if he had gone to bed, what did he want with one now? Excitement drove all the cold from my body, and a tingling warmth succeeded, as with a quickly-beating heart I waited for some development of this apparent mystery; and no words of mine can describe my feeling of surprise as I saw the shadow of a woman glide across the blind of the lighted window. The dark silhouette stood forth for a moment distinct on the illumined white, and then vanished.

Now there is nothing surprising in the shadow of a woman crossing a blind in the early hours of the morning; but when you have been assured a few minutes previously by the tenant of the house that there is no one within the building but himself, it does become a matter of surprise, and in the present case everything tended to invest the event with a mysterious air. The woman, to judge by the outline of her shadow, was habited as if for a journey, and this, added to the fact that the light was now extinguished, induced me to extend the duration of my watch. No one came out, however, and as the London train would be departing in fifteen minutes, I deliberated as to the wisdom of staying longer. If I missed the train I should not be in time for the wedding, using the word wedding in a provisional sense; for, from the strange proceedings of the last hour, doubts began to seize me as to whether it would ever come off.

I was loth to depart, but the desire of witnessing the scene that would take place at my uncle's house in the event of George's non-appearance decided my course of action. I determined to wait no longer, and, having applied both eye and ear to the keyhole of the strange house without learning anything thereby, I set off for the station at a running pace.

Having completely lost my bearings, and being a stranger to Dover, I knew not which way to turn, and would have fared ill but for the guidance of a friendly constable. I arrived two minutes before the departure of the train. On receiving my luggage from the porter, I said:

"You have not seen the gentleman?"

"No, sir. He's not in this train. Not been here since you left."

Having satisfied my curiosity by walking along the platform and scrutinising the occupants of every carriage, I returned, and said:

"Find me a first-class compartment, all to myself."

"One here, sir, with the brightest lamp in the whole train."

If mine were the brightest, I pity those who were cursed with the dullest.

"Put it in specially for you, sir."

The lies some people will tell for a few paltry pence! Taking a corner seat, and calling for a foot-warmer, I leaned out of the window, keeping a sharp look-out in case George should turn up on the platform at the last moment.

"I suppose my bro—the gentleman cannot now get to London before me?"

"Not unless he has gone by the other line."

"What other line?"

"The L. C. and D."

"What's that?"

"The L. C. and D.?" repeated the porter, apparently astounded that any one should be ignorant of the meaning of those initials. "Why, the London, Chatham and Dover Railway? Their last train left twenty minutes ago."

Here was a pretty piece of news! I could have written a long article on the numerous paved viæ that radiated from ancient Rome, but I knew next to nothing of the lines of railway that emanate from modern London, and the idea that there might be an iron road to the great city other than the one I was travelling by had never occurred to me.

"I have had my long watch for nothing," I muttered savagely. "While I was shivering in the cold, George, for all that I know to the contrary, may have left the house by a back door, and may now be bowling on his way to London. Well, anyhow, I am close on his heels. I shall arrive before the wedding, and you don't marry Daphne, George, till you have given an explanation of your strange conduct. Something wrong has been going on, else why should you avoid me?" And, with the usual sophistry employed by mortals when their self-interest is concerned, I tried to convince myself that in requiring an explanation from George I was actuated by a consideration for Daphne's welfare, and by no other motive.

The guard's whistle had sounded, and the locomotive in front had given a warning shriek, when the figure of a lady appearing within an archway just opposite the compartment I was in darted hurriedly across the platform.

"Ticket, if you please, miss. Thank you. Charing Cross—first-class. Jump in, please. Not a moment to lose."

The carriage-door was flung hastily open, and the lady, partly by her own exertions and partly aided by a gallant porter, entered, and seated herself at the other end of the compartment on the side opposite to me.

Now, although by no means so handsome a person as I could wish myself to be, I am nevertheless not quite so ugly as to inspire aversion in the mind of any dame, be she old or young; and yet the lady had no sooner set eyes upon me than she stared at me with terror, as if mine were the most repulsive countenance that had ever disgraced the Chamber of Horrors—conduct which somewhat nettled me, for, being a not ungallant youth, I was hoping for a charming tête-á-tête all the way to London.

She glanced at the door, as if desirous of quitting the compartment for another, but if such were her purpose it was baffled. The train was now fairly on the move, and we were steaming out of the station into the cold snow-dotted air of night. Willing or unwilling, the lady must submit to be my companion for the next two hours. Her obvious glances of distrust and alarm put me in a false position, and I at once determined to open a conversation for the purpose of showing what a good youth I was, and how little to be dreaded; but ere proceeding to this course I took, while pretending to read the newspaper, a steady view of my fair companion.

She was slender, graceful, lady-like, and tall, as a woman should be. With Byron, "I hate a dumpy woman." Her features seemed regular and handsome, but I could discern little of them through the thick veil she was wearing, save a pair of splendid dark eyes—the colour being a trifling deviation from my ideal of beauty, since Daphne's eyes were of a dark blue. A close-fitting bonnet covered her dark hair, and a fur boa was wrapped round her throat. A pair of little red leather shoes peeped out from beneath the skirts of a long fur-lined cloak. A muff contained her gloved hands.

"A handsome brunette," was my critique. "I shall be most happy to introduce myself. How shall I begin, and what shall I talk about? Ha! tell her I'm going to a wedding. Nothing unlocks a woman's tongue so easily as a wedding—barring, perhaps a sensational divorce."

Now, while I was casting about in my mind how to begin the conversation, my attention was suddenly attracted to something that she had thrust beneath the seat immediately on entering the compartment. Down from my hands dropped the newspaper at the sight I saw. That sight was nothing more than a valise partly hidden from view by her dress. But the portion that did display itself was marked by the letters "G.W.," thus corresponding exactly with the initials on the bag that my brother had carried! Was the bag, now peeping out at me from beneath the carriage-seat, the identical one that had disappeared with George into the mysterious house? My staring eyes were transferred from the lady's face to the valise, and from the valise to the lady's face, in swift alternation.

Then I suddenly recalled the silhouette on the blind, and, as I studied the lady's head-dress and figure, I thought if she were to pass between a light and the blind the contour of her shadow would not be very dissimilar from the one I had seen. Could she have issued from the strange house as soon as I had left it, and would that account for her haste and breathless state on entering the train? Her obvious mistrust of me, then, arose from a cause totally different from that of womanly timidity at being exposed alone to the company of a stranger. Yet, since we had never met each other before, how did she know I was a person to be avoided?

"Who are you," I muttered to myself, "and what relations do you hold with my brother? for some dealing you have with him, else—why that bag? Are you his first Daphne, I wonder, travelling to London to tell the second Daphne that you are an insurmountable obstacle to a certain wedding that's to come off this morning? A sort of sister-in-law to me, whose relationship has not been sanctioned by the Church? Has George been compromising himself? Let me try to find out."

I had a high idea of my own ability to "draw" people out. The sequel will show what a dexterous cross-examiner the law has lost in me.

"Do you object to smoking, madam?" I asked, by way of beginning a conversation.

In lieu of a verbal reply, the lady responded by a quick horizontal motion of her head, which sign presumably implied that she did not object.

Ours was not a smoking carriage. Perhaps it was this fact that suggested the idea of a cigar. Youth is defiant, and "Thou shalt not" is often the parent of "I will." So, with a sovereign contempt for the company's by-laws, I proceeded to light a cigar, remarking as I did so:

"It is a rough night for travelling."

Assent was given to this proposition by a vertical inclination of her head. No words as yet had passed her lips. This was certainly not very encouraging, but then perhaps I ought not to have spoken until after I had been addressed by her. It occurred to me that while courting the Muses at Heidelberg I had perhaps neglected the Graces, and had lost all notions of etiquette; and unlike the damsel in the opera of Ruddigore, I did not carry an etiquette-book about with me to consult in cases of doubt, or I might have referred to it, in the present instance, under the head of "Whether it be allowable for a gentleman travelling in company with an unknown lady to try to draw her into conversation?" Whether it be allowable or not, it is certainly the duty of every one to be considerate, so I pushed the foot-warmer to the feet of my fair companion, remarking:

"Your need is greater than mine."

I thought that this famous quotation from Elizabethan history would be sure to elicit some words. But no. Her thanks took the shape of a graceful inclination of her head, and at the same time the dark eyes sparkled through the veil, seeming to say: "You want to make me speak, but you shall not succeed." She had evidently recovered from her terror. Perseverance is an essential feature in my character. I determined to continue my crusade against her silence. I took from my portmanteau some English illustrated magazines that I had brought with me from Heidelberg to beguile the tedious hours of travelling, and, extending them to the stranger, said:

"May I offer you these?"

Now this proved a bad stroke of policy on my part, for the papers were accepted with a grave bow, and the lady at once immersed herself in their contents, and took no further notice of me.

"Well, if this doesn't beat all!" I muttered. "You're a cool one! Rude, too, for surely an act of courtesy is deserving of a few words of thanks?" It then occurred to me that perhaps she was aware I was suspicious of her, and had determined to baffle me by presenting a firm shield of silence to my conversational shafts, even when those shafts consisted of casual and trifling remarks.

In ordinary circumstances I should not, after so many rebuffs, have continued to press my attentions, but I regarded the singular events of the night as a justification for my persistency. I therefore seized the occasion when she chanced to look up from her reading to make another trial to elicit a word:

"Are you travelling far, madam?"

The magazine was laid aside, and, producing a card-case, she seemed to be making a selection from its contents. Presently she handed a card to me. It was inscribed with the following words, written evidently with a view to emergencies such as she was now in:

"Pardon me if I have seemed rude. I thank you for your kind attentions, but being dumb from birth, I am unable to carry on a conversation.—Dora Vane."

Dumb from birth! This, then, was the key to her extraordinary silence. But immediately the thought succeeded, "Perhaps she is only fooling me." The words on the card might describe the actual state of the case, or they might be but the resources of a woman determined not to yield an inch to my curiosity—an adroit device to ward off all further questions.

"You evidently heard my last remark," I thought, "even above the roar and rattle of this train, and yet I was always given to understand that people who are dumb from birth are likewise deaf. You must be an exception. If you are dumb, as this card states, you must know the dumb alphabet. I'll try an experiment, and put you through a few paces."

I was quite familiar with the finger alphabet, having been taught it by my school friend Tracey, who used to hold many a silent conversation with me when lessons grew tedious. So, after attracting the lady's attention again, I held up my fingers and proceeded to frame a sentence expressive of my sympathy for her affliction. But she stared at me with absolutely no appreciation of my meaning, and the only conclusion I could draw from my experiment was that my companion was no more dumb than myself, but that for reasons of her own she did not want to have any conversation with me, and had hit upon this device for rendering any impossible.

"Tracey's system of dumb language doesn't seem to work upon the South Eastern line," I muttered, ruefully relinquishing my efforts. "Perhaps Tracey's was one of his own invention. Not likely, though; he hadn't the brains to invent anything."

Thus do we libel the absent!

Manifestly it was out of the question to attempt to gain any knowledge of the lady by compelling her to lift her veil and to reveal the part played by her in the mysterious business, though I was more than once tempted to commit this rash act. Such a proceeding, besides being very ungallant, might have resulted in my transference from the train to a police-cell. It was equally out of the question to seize on the valise and examine its contents. To press her with further questions would be as little to the purpose; for if, accepting her plea of dumbness, I committed them to paper, she would doubtless refuse to answer. All I could do was to sit in silence, resolving in my own mind not to lose sight of her on reaching London, but to follow her and find out if possible the place of her abode.

So I whiled away the rest of the journey in reading, or in trying to read, some Christmas annuals. Dora Vane, to give the lady the name she had claimed, having glanced through the magazines, was now apparently asleep in her corner of the compartment. It was only a feigned sleep however, for whenever I moved, she would give a start, plainly showing that she was suspicious of me.

The train was delayed considerably by the adverse weather, and it was not till past seven o'clock that we entered Charing Cross Station. I opened the carriage-door, and, emerging first, assisted the veiled lady to alight. Two points were noticeable in her behaviour while stepping from the train—the care with which she guarded the bag, and the care she took to avert her face from me. As there was not a soul on the platform to welcome her, I was on the point of proffering my services to escort her to her destination, but with a friendly nod to me she flitted off without a moment's delay to the end of the station, and then hailing a cab, was driven off. And it seemed to me that, instead of handing the driver a card with an address on it, as a dumb lady might naturally be supposed to do, she had conveyed her orders to him by word of mouth; but I was too far off to be certain of this. However, the moment the vehicle had disappeared beneath the archway I flung my portmanteau and person into a hansom, calling out to the driver:

"Follow the cab that has just left. Don't lose sight of it for a moment. Don't get in front, but keep behind it. I want to see where the lady gets out. You understand?"

The man nodded with a grin and a mystical remark about being "up to snuff," then he touched his horse's flank lightly with the whip, and we bowled out of the station in gallant style, following in the wake of the cab.

London lay beneath the murky gaslights wrapped in a winding-sheet of snow, not sufficiently deep, however, to stop vehicular traffic, though it retarded it to a considerable extent. The snow was an advantage in one respect, since it deadened the sound of the wheels of my hansom, and the wintry flakes still falling served as a sort of veil to conceal the fact that the cab was being followed.

The destination of the veiled lady appeared to be some place in North London, for the vehicle she was in proceeded along St. Martin's Lane, and turned up Long Acre into Drury Lane. Thence its progress was across Oxford Street, and up Southampton Row, till it finally turned into the Euston Road.

"I have it!" I cried. "She is going to Euston Station!"

All hope of tracing the mysterious lady to her final destination must now be abandoned. If she were going by train to some distant part of the country it was out of the question to follow her. I must be at the wedding. But I was wrong in my hasty surmise. The cab did not proceed to the station, but turned to the left along the Euston Road, stopping at last in front of an obscure public-house; and the cabman, flinging down the reins, descended from the box and entered the building.

"She surely isn't going to get out there," I thought. "Go on slowly," I said to my driver, who, peeping through the lid in the roof, asked whether he should proceed. We drove past the cab, and one glance sufficed to show that the vehicle was empty. My surprise found vent in language which the most charitably disposed of my friends could not have construed into a doxology.

"You've followed the wrong cab!" I cried savagely to my driver.

"Not I, governor. That 'ere is the wehicle you told me to follow: No. 2071. It's my pal's—Bill Whippam's—cab. That's him as is in the pub now—he's a rare 'un for the booze."

In a moment I was inside the public-house. The "rare 'un for the booze" was ringing a golden coin on the counter of the bar, as if to test its genuineness.

"A good 'un!" he cried delightedly, "Blow me tight if I didn't think it was a duffer for the minute! She's something like a fare, she is! A glass of the usual, Jim, with a little lemon and——"

"Where is your fare, cabby?" I demanded brusquely.

"What's that got to do with you, governor?" was the immediate retort.

"A good deal, as you'll see," I returned pulling out a notebook, and feigning to write therein. "Your number, I see, is 2071. I shall want you at Bow Street, to-morrow. Perhaps you are not aware that I am a detective, and that the lady you have aided to escape was to have been arrested this morning?"

The man assumed a more respectful demeanour.

"Axes your pardon, governor, but how was I to know that the lady was 'wanted,' and that a 'tec was arter her? The lady she says to me, she says——"

"What?" I interrupted. "She spoke to you, then? She wasn't dumb?"

"Dumb? No more than you are, governor. She says to me: 'Coachman, there's a gentleman a-follerin' o' me——'"

"That's not a verbatim report, I suppose?" I said with a smile.

"Wot's that?"

"Those were not her exact words, I mean?"

"They wos her exact words, governor," replied the cabman, with a solemnity befitting the witness-box, "so help me! 'There's a gentleman a-follerin' o' me,' she says, 'an admirer of mine pestering me with his attentions, and I want to get rid of him. Will you help me?' 'If I can, miss,' I says. 'Well, then,' she says, 'drive fast, and the moment you have turned the corner of Long Acre, draw up sharp. I shall get out there and then you drive on at once to Euston. He'll follow you, thinking I am still in the cab. Will you do this, and I'll give you a sovereign?' Of course I says, 'Yes.' She give me the quid, and directly I turned the corner at Long Acre she was out like a shot, almost afore I'd time to draw up. She darted down a side-street like winking, and I drove on according to orders."

I could not refrain from smiling at my own discomfiture. She had guessed that I would follow her, and in the long interval occupied by our railway journey she had marked out her plan of action, and had devised a pretty little stratagem into which I had readily fallen. Why should she act thus? Could this lady really be George in disguise? This idea was inspired by the belief that she had come from the same house in which he had taken refuge.

"What sort of a voice had she?" I asked. "Was it at all masculine?"

"Oh, jest!"

"Just what?"

"Maskyline."

"Do you know what masculine means?"

"Frightened-like, I expex you mean."

"You're a f— Was it at all like a man's voice?"

Cabby seemed to think this was a question that required a good deal of consideration before answering.

"Well, it might ha' bin a man's voice," he replied, speaking slowly. "Similarly it might not. It was a trifle hoarse for a woman, but I put that down to fright."

"You wouldn't swear in a court of law that it was a man's voice?"

"No, I wouldn't, governor. I'm pretty certain it was a woman."

No more was to be learned from the cabman, so, thanking him for his information, I quitted the tavern. As I entered the hansom, the driver exclaimed with a grin:

"Given you the slip, sir? Reckon she's a cough-drop, and no blooming kid!"

I turned a withering frown on this vulgar familiarity.

"Drive to Belgrave Square," I exclaimed loftily, "and look sharp."

I flung myself back in the cab in a fever-heat. "The affair is growing exciting," I muttered. "Was it a man or a woman? If a woman—who? If a man—was it George? if not—who? Did George travel by the other line, I wonder, and will he come this morning to claim his bride, or will he not? Will the veiled lady turn up in my uncle's drawing-room or at the altar-rails, and create some melodramatic scene? Patience—patience! we shall see. Daphne, you may yet be mine."

CHAPTER III THE WEDDING MORNING

The snow was lying thick upon the streets, and as I noticed the driver's difficulty in keeping his horse up, and in getting the vehicle along, I wondered how it would fare with the wedding carriages if the storm should continue. At last we reached my destination, and running up the steps I found myself being warmly greeted by my uncle, whose beaming face showed that nothing had as yet occurred to mar the happiness of the day.

"This is a pleasure, Frank," he said heartily. "I was beginning to think you would disappoint us after all. But you look frozen. Come to the fireside and get some food within you."

I returned his greeting, and, having been assured that Daphne was in the best of health, inquired after the bridegroom.

"When did you see George last?"

"Last night. He was here till eleven."

"And where did he go when he left?"

"To his hotel, I suppose," my uncle said, looking, as was natural, a little surprised at my question. "He's staying at the Métropole, you know."

Evidently George, on parting with my uncle and Daphne the previous night, had given no hint of his intended visit to Dover, but meant it to be a secret. I was in a dilemma. I hesitated to tell my uncle all that had happened, for George might have very good reasons for his mysterious journey, and reasons requiring secrecy to be observed about it. On the other hand, there were plenty of things to make me think that he was not playing an honourable game, and I did not feel justified in allowing him to lead Daphne to the altar without satisfying me that my uneasiness was not warranted by the facts. However, we were not at the church yet. So I resolved to be silent about the night's happenings until I had seen him and heard his version of them, or until the course of events should make it necessary for me to speak out.

I went upstairs to change my travelling suit for a garb more becoming the office of best man, and then joined my uncle in the large drawing-room, where the guests staying with him for the wedding were gathered.

"I had better make my way to the hotel, and go with George to the church," I said to my uncle.

"Surely that is unnecessary," he suggested. "He knows you are not likely to fail him, doesn't he?"

"Oh, yes," I answered. "I telegraphed yesterday to say I was on the way, so he won't be afraid of my disappointing him."

"Then go to the church from here," my uncle said. "You must have had all the snow you want, and if you go in the first carriage you will be in plenty of time. Let me introduce you to some of the guests."

The most noticeable of these was a young man who had been watching me with a curiously attentive gaze. He was slender and had a graceful presence. From the profusion of his dark hair, and a certain air of detachment from his surroundings, I judged him to be a genius of some sort, an artist, a poet, or a musician. I looked inquiringly at my uncle who introduced this mortal to me by the name of Angelo Vasari.

"A gentleman," he remarked, "to whom you owe some thanks."

"Indeed?" I said with some surprise, for I had never heard of him before. "Well, that is a debt I am always ready to pay. But why am I in Mr. Vasari's debt?"

"Daphne sent you a portrait of George the other day."

"She did."

"It was Mr. Vasari who painted it."

"Really?" I said, grasping his hand. "Then you must accept my congratulations as well as my thanks. The picture is a gem of art. Are you an artist?"

It struck me afterwards that to call a man's work a gem of art and then ask if he were an artist was somewhat silly, but he took no notice of the absurdity.

"An artist? Pardon me, no. But I hope to become one."

"You are one," said my uncle warmly. "Your picture in the Academy last year was second to none."

"The critics did not think so," he replied with a gloomy air.

"Nil desperandum," my uncle said cheerily. "They will think differently some day. Every great man has had the world against him at first."

"True, true," said the artist thoughtfully. "No one ever becomes great but by sorrow, humiliation, toil. Dante did not attain Paradise until he had passed through Hell and Purgatory."

He had splendid eyes I noticed, and any reference to his art made them shine like stars. Many of the women in the room looked at him admiringly, and I have no doubt that his melancholy utterances on fame, united to the attractive beauty of his face, made him a hero in their eyes. He interested me too, but all the while I was conscious of an undercurrent of antagonism to him. Nevertheless, after a martyrdom of handshaking and formal conversation with the various persons to whom my uncle insisted on presenting me, I drifted back to the ottoman where the artist was sitting, surrounded by a small circle of admirers to whom he was showing a portfolio of sketches.

"Ah, here is Mr. Willard," he said, looking at me as if desirous of attracting my attention. "These sketches may perhaps interest him. They are views of Rhineland. I think there is one of Heidelberg among them."

There was no running away from this invitation without seeming rude, so I sat down by the ottoman and prepared myself to express an admiration that I did not feel for the artist's productions.

"Oh, Mr. Vasari, what place is this?" cried a young lady, holding forward a view representing a picturesque old town by the side of a lake, with Alpine mountains rising around it.

"That? Ah, that is—er—Rivoli, a town among the Alps." He spoke with such hesitation as to give the impression that he was reluctant to reveal the name of the town. "It is my birthplace," he added briefly.

"Your birthplace? What a pretty town it is! It reminds one of some quaint poem of Longfellow's. Is it very old?"

"Centuries old. The people are quite mediæval—live in the past. Quite an old-world town, I assure you."

"The very place for an artist to be born in, then."

Vasari smiled mechanically, and seemed to be searching in his portfolio for something he had a difficulty in finding.

"Ah, here they are! Twelve sketches—heads. Friends of mine. Some of them are artists, wild Bohemians; and others are students, two or three hailing from Heidelberg. I think Mr. Willard will recognise a college-friend among the number."

I took the papers, which were attached to each other by a piece of red tape. The sketches were in ink, carefully finished, and represented twelve different faces of men whose ages might vary from twenty to forty years. Some had both beard and moustache; others moustaches only; and one there was without either. I surveyed them all critically, but failed to identify any one of them. Looking up from my task, I was startled to see Angelo's eyes fixed on my face with an expression that could not have been more painful if he had been a prisoner waiting for the verdict of the jury.

"I don't see any one I know here."

The artist's face relaxed from its set expression. My answer had pleased him.

"No, really?" he exclaimed in a tone of evident delight. "And that is your sincere belief? You do not recognise one of these heads?"

"I do not. May I inquire——?"

"Whether I have a motive in asking? Mr. Willard," he continued, with a gay laugh, to those near him, "with that profound knowledge of human nature to be acquired only within the secluded cloisters of a university, knows that the wise man never acts without motive."

"But do I really know one of these persons?" I exclaimed, irritated at this mystification.

"Eh—well, you say not," replied the artist with a most provoking smile. "I will take your word for it you do not."

And with these words he proceeded to gather up his sketches with the air of a man who wishes to say no more on the subject.

I have seen players, elate with victory, start up from the gambling-table when by one last turn of the wheel on which all depended they have won some enormous stake, and I was strangely reminded of their manner by Angelo's air as he rose after replacing the sketches in his portfolio.

"If every action has its motive," I thought, "what was that fellow's motive in asking me to study those twelve heads? Was he trying an experiment, and, if so, for what purpose? I do not know those faces, and yet one of them seemed to have a familiar look."

I had no leisure then to consider the matter further, for more pressing matters came to the front. My uncle, who had been absent from the room, came in and sought me with a troubled look upon his face.

"Here's a pretty pass, Frank!" he cried. "Stephen"—Stephen was his head-coachman—"says it is impossible for the horses to make their way through this thick snow, and I suppose he's right, as it must be two feet deep. It's out of the question to walk. What are we to do?"

I was the last person in the world to be asked this question, for, supposing I had known a way out of the difficulty, I am afraid I should have kept it a secret. For reasons of my own I was not at all averse to a postponement of the marriage, if only for one day.

A friend of my uncle's—a wealthy banker—now spoke:

"Did you not say that Captain Willard had a special license for this marriage?"

"To be sure! Of course he has!" replied my uncle, his countenance brightening: "I had forgotten it. Ah! I remember now laughing at what I thought his folly in procuring one, and at his words: 'In case of contingencies we can be married at any time and in any place.' He was right now, I see."

"Just so," returned the banker. "Let us hope that he will always have the same happy foresight. Well, if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain: If we cannot go to the church, the church must come to us. Our sweet little bride, after looking forward to this day as the happiest of her life, must not be disappointed. The marriage can take place in this drawing-room just as well as within the walls of St. Cyprian's, unless indeed Miss Leslie attaches a peculiar sanctity to a marriage contracted within the church. Let us send to St. Cyprian's, and ask Captain Willard and the Vicar to come here.

"I suppose there is no alternative," my uncle said, "short of a definite postponement of the wedding. But I'll see Daphne. It's time we should have been starting, so she's sure to be dressed. I'll go and fetch her now."

He hurried off, and in a few moments came back with Daphne on his arm, looking in her dainty wedding dress more beautiful than I had ever seen her.

She greeted me with so radiant a smile that the spectators might have taken me for the bridegroom.

So deep was my emotion at seeing once more, and on so dramatic an occasion, the face whose image for so many months had haunted my dreams, that oblivious of all my surroundings, I could do nothing but gaze at her with an earnest and wistful (some might have called it stupid) look until her laugh—how sweet and familiar it sounded!—recalled me to myself.

"Why, Frank, have you been in Germany so long that you have forgotten your native language? Speak to him in German, papa, and ask him if he is glad to see me."

I stammered out a few words of greeting. I do not remember what. The happiness of seeing her again was too great to allow of conventional conversation and I drew back while the development of the situation was being explained to her.

She was, of course, terribly disappointed by the turn events were taking, but her courage was splendid. Although in her eyes a marriage in a drawing-room was a less sacred ceremony than one within consecrated walls, she seemed less cast down by the prospect than did her bridesmaids who were being deprived of the chance of displaying their toilettes to the fashionable congregation of St. Cyprian's, and thus, in the probable absence of reporters, they would have to forego the pleasure of reading in the society papers the description of their finery.

"Well, Daphne, what do you say?" her father asked.

"Let George be sent for," she replied. "I will do just as he wishes."

In my anxiety to see and question George I was on the point of starting for the church myself, but my uncle detained me.

"No, no," he said. "Why should you expose yourself unnecessarily to this storm? Hall can go," and I had no option but to submit, and my uncle's valet was despatched with orders to bring back both Captain Willard and a clergyman.

Meantime Daphne with fine courage went about among the guests, as if nothing unusual were happening. Presently she came up to me.

"Come and talk to me," she said. "It is so long since I saw you. I am sure you must have much to tell me."

One of the bridesmaids made room for her upon an ottoman, and I drew a chair near her.

The language of love was all but trembling on my lips as I gazed at her beautiful face—that face so associated with my life from very childhood that it seemed to belong to me by a sort of prescriptive right. It was well that others were by to check my ardour; but for their presence I believe I should have been kneeling once more at her feet. I had come back from Heidelberg with the intention of treating her with a frigid and distant courtesy—I would be an heroic martyr! But one glance of her gentle eyes had melted my icy armour, and here I was almost on the point of making love to her on the very morning of her intended marriage to another!

Daphne was her old sweet self, and chatted as freely as if we two were alone, and sitting once more at breakfast in my uncle's old home.

"You are looking very pale, Frank," she said. "When did you leave the Fatherland?"

"I left Heidelberg two days ago, and crossed the Channel last night. But tell me about George." It made me jealous to see how bright her eyes became at the mention of my brother's name. "I suppose the Indian sun hasn't made much difference in his appearance? How does he look?"

"He is very, very bronzed, and much handsomer, in my opinion, and—and—but there, you'll see him this morning in his uniform, and you'll confess he looks every inch a hero."

I had seen him that morning, though not in his uniform, with a red stain on his breast, trembling at sight of me, and I was very far from confessing that he looked every inch a hero; but, of course, I did not tell Daphne this.

"Where are you going to spend your honeymoon?"

"At Sydenham. A friend has lent us a pretty little villa there."

"And from there you are going——"

"To India? Yes. In February. Papa wants George to leave the army now, but I don't think he will."

"George is ambitious, you see," I returned, resenting in him that quality which was lacking in myself. "Medals, stars, titles, etc. Perhaps some day they'll make him a baronet—if he do but kill men enough, you know—and then you'll be Lady Willard. Ahem! I salute you Lady Willard, in futuro," I added with a low bow.

"Frank, don't be ridiculous! Mr. Vasari is watching you."

"Never mind Mr. Vasari! who's he! Let him watch. We are doing nothing wrong. Hang the fellow! How he stares! Vasari," I said, repeating the artist's patronymic—"an Italian evidently: and as an artist a dead failure, if I may judge by his own remarks."

"A dead failure?" returned Daphne, resenting the expression. "Well there's one of his pictures in the next room, and you can judge for yourself whether he's a failure or not. He isn't the equal of Doré or Alma Tadema yet, but he may be, for he has genius, and some day it will be recognised."

"Ah, let us hope it will," I replied drily, meaning, of course, the reverse. "Thou shalt have none other gods but me" is the language of every lover to his lady, and Daphne's interest in the artist moved my jealousy a little.

"I am not sure that Germany has improved you," Daphne said, looking at me critically, "but never mind that now. You haven't seen my wedding gifts. They are in the next room. Papa, I am going to show Frank my presents."

And holding her long train with one hand, Daphne rested the other on my arm, and conducted me beneath some heavy hangings to the next apartment. The gifts were arranged in tasteful order on a wide and spacious table.

"You see this picture? It is Mr. Vasari's gift—the work of his own hand. 'The Betrayal of Ariadne' he calls it. Don't you think she bears a resemblance to me?—her eyes and hair are just the colour of mine."

I was somewhat surprised to see a painting which, in my judgment, rose far above mediocrity. The composition was graceful and the colouring harmonious. This is what the canvas showed: Faint blue waves rippling over amber sands; a maiden kneeling thereby, with the teardrops falling from her eyes, her arms extended towards a distant galley on the sea; and a human figure advancing from a wood with a wreath in his hand.

My comprehension of the work was aided by its author, who had followed us from the drawing-room.

"Theseus deserts her," said he, "but amid the woodland foliage on the left you will see the beautiful Bacchus: he will kiss away her tears, and console her for the loss of her false hero. See! he bears in his hand a laurel-wreath: it is the crown of fame, whose sweet attraction will cause her first love to fade from her memory like a morning dream. The picture," he added with a curious smile, "is a sort of allegory to intimate that second love is preferable to the first."

Daphne gave an indignant little gasp at these words, and elevated her pretty eyebrows.

"I don't believe second love is better than the first; do you, Frank?"

Had Daphne absolutely forgotten the cause which had banished me so long from her presence that she could thus appeal to me? Or, remembering it, did she delight in reminding me of the power she held over me?

"The sun is still the sun at noon and at eventide," I replied; "but it is only in the early morning hours that his beams are supremely soft and lovely. So with love. Second love can never have the sweet freshness, the dewy fragrance peculiar to the first dawn of passion!"

"Was Ovid's 'Art of Love' included in your curriculum of this year?" asked Daphne with a smile. "You have come back from Heidelberg quite romantic. Where have you learnt to talk so prettily?"

"In the school of experience," I returned.

She glanced quickly at me, and I saw that she understood my meaning. Her eyes drooped, and a colour stole over her face and neck. Her confusion was too evident to escape the eye of the artist, but affecting not to notice it he turned on his heel and left us as quietly as he had come.

"After the rich display of presents here," said I to Daphne, "my gift will appear but as poor in comparison. I trust you will not estimate it solely by its monetary value."

I drew forth a jewel-case I had purchased at Heidelberg. The pressure of the spring revealed a golden bracelet set with violet amethysts.

"For me?" exclaimed Daphne, and the tone of her voice gave me a delicious thrill. "Oh, how sweet! None of my gifts will give me more pleasure. Shall I wear it this—this morning?"

There was a hesitation in the enunciation of the last words that touched me more than an avowal of love on her part could have done. I nodded, and aided her to clasp the golden circlet around her slender wrist.

"I will return your gift, Frank, though in a more simple way. You have no bouquet. Let me choose you one."

There was a vase of flowers hard by. Daphne selected some snowdrops, and, placing them on a pretty fern-leaf, attached them to my breast, bending so low in the act that my lips kissed the orange-blossoms and stephanotis that gleamed in her dark hair.

"Do you know what this fern-leaf signifies?" she said.

"No; what?" I asked.

"Oblivion!" she whispered; and then, like a beautiful fairy, she glided from the room. I understood her.

"Oblivion!" I muttered. "Well, yes; fern-leaf may signify that, but you have forgotten that the snowdrop is the emblem of hope."

CHAPTER IV WAITING

From Belgrave Square the walk to and from St. Cyprian's ordinarily takes about fifteen minutes. Allowing, say, another ten on account of the snowy weather, and it will be seen that the valet should have returned with George after the lapse of twenty-five minutes. Twenty-five minutes passed, however, thirty, thirty-five, and yet George and the valet failed to put in an appearance—a circumstance that caused the guests to look at each other in wonder.

"What can detain them?" muttered my uncle. "If George is at the church, why does he not come here? and if he has not yet arrived, why doesn't Hall hurry back and tell us so, instead of keeping us in this suspense? Confound the fellow!" he added; "I could have gone and come twice over in the time that he has taken."

He walked to the window and looked out. The snow was still falling. So thick and heavy were the whirling flakes that the air was quite darkened by them. Still the bridegroom came not. The conversation languished, the guests yawned, and Daphne's face assumed an anxious look.

"It doesn't matter about going to the church to-day," she said in a trembling voice, in answer to a question from a friend, "if I only have George here safe and well. I do wish he would come!" she said, her lip quivering. "Something must have happened to him."

"No, no, little woman, you mustn't get that idea into your head," her father said hastily. "His friends in that case would have——"

At last!

There was a ringing of the door-bell, a rush of feet to the hall, and twenty voices exclaimed:

"Here they are!"

The plural pronoun, however, was not justified by the event, for, on opening the door, only one person was visible, and that was my uncle's valet.

"Why, what! How's this? Where's the Captain?" exclaimed my uncle. "Speak low," he added, pointing to the drawing-room, as a sign he did not wish Daphne to hear.

"Captain Willard is not at the church, sir," whispered the man.

"Not—at—the—church?" repeated my uncle, pausing with astonishment between each word.

"No, sir. At least he hadn't arrived by the time I left. I have been waiting for him, and that's what has made me so long."

"What time did you leave the church?"

"Quarter past ten."

"And he was to have been there at half past nine!" cried my uncle.

"The Vicar wishes to know what you are going to do," said the valet. "Is he or his curate to come and perform the ceremony here?"

"That's a question that cannot be settled without George," replied my uncle. "Of course he's only being delayed through the snow. It's extremely awkward. What are we to do?"

He paused a moment to reflect, and then said:

"Go to the church again. If the Captain is not there tell the verger to send him on here as soon as he arrives; and ask the Vicar or his assistant to step over here. Then hasten at once to the Métropole, and see whether—whether any accident has happened to my nephew. Hurry!"

We returned to the drawing-room and explained matters to Daphne, my uncle striving to put the best complexion he could upon the case.

"It's only the stress of weather that's delaying him," he remarked. "George very likely spent last night with a friend—a brother officer, probably—who lives in the suburbs. The cab ordered to convey him this morning is unable to proceed, and so he's obliged to tramp on foot through twenty-five inches of snow. No wonder he's late, then. There's nothing to be alarmed at, little woman."

I leave the reader to imagine my state of excitement. Could it be that George was actually deserting Daphne? Was Fate after all reserving her for me?—a thought that caused my blood to course like a swift fire through vein and artery. I turned my flushed face to the bride. Poor Daphne! She sat there, silent and pale, with her hand clasping that of an aged lady-friend who was trying to assure her that there was nothing to be alarmed at. My selfish heart was touched by the sad picture. Had the time come for me to give an account of my meeting with George at Dover? Not yet. I resolved to await the return of the valet first.

Dark, and ever darker grew the gloom outside. It was impossible to keep up a pretence of conversation. Silence fell over us all, and soon nothing was to be heard but the sound of the embers glowing and crackling in the grate, and the painful ticking of the clock on the mantelshelf. The waxen tapers in the chandeliers twinkled gaily to their reflections in the mirrors, as if they enjoyed the victory they were gaining over the daylight without. And still the bridegroom came not.

Presently there was another furious ring of the bell at the hall door, and again there was a rush of feet and a score of voices exclaiming "Here they are!"

"Who is it?" said Daphne, trembling like a leaf.

"I think," replied I, "that I can hear them saying a name that sounds very like Chunda."

"Chunda? That's George's native servant. Ask him to come here, Frank."

The visitor, having shaken the snow from his garments, was conducted—almost pushed—into the drawing-room, and turned out to be a dusky Hindoo in English garb. He was followed by my uncle's valet, who had met him on the way.

"Chunda," said Daphne, addressing the Hindoo, "where is Captain Willard?"

"I do not know, Miss Daphne," returned he, in a tone in which surprise and perplexity were blended. "Is he not here? He has been absent from the hotel all night."

"Absent from the hotel all night?"

"Yes, Miss Daphne. He left the Métropole about seven o'clock last night, saying he was going to spend the evening in Belgrave Square, and would be back about eleven. He never came back."

"Then he must be at Sydenham," said Daphne.

"So I thought," continued the Hindoo; "and as he had told me that he had some orders which he particularly wished me to attend to before the wedding took place, I set off for Sydenham, and waked up the housekeeper. But the Captain wasn't there, she said. I walked back to London—cold work it was, too, through the snow. But the Captain was not at the hotel when I got there; and had not been in while I was there, the hall-porter said. I found his bed untouched. I waited some time, and then, thinking there must be something wrong, I came here."

The artist now stepped forward into the circle which had been gradually forming around the Hindoo.

"I am afraid," he said, "that I must make a statement now that I would have made before but for the fear of agitating Miss Leslie; it is this: Last night, about twelve o'clock, happening to be at Charing Cross Station, I saw Captain Willard take the express for Dover. Before I could get near enough to speak with him the train was off. I was surprised to see him taking such a journey only a few hours before his intended wedding. 'But perhaps,' I thought, 'he has some urgent business to do at Dover connected with the marriage, and will return by an early train.'"

"It is true," I said in a voice too low to reach Daphne's ear. "As I was landing from the packet-boat this morning I saw George on the pier at Dover, but not to speak to. He avoided me—fled from me, in fact."

My wondering uncle gazed at Angelo and myself, as if not quite comprehending the import of our words.

"Do you mean to say that George has deserted her?" he gasped. "I will not believe it."

Once more the hall-bell rang, causing an additional wave of excitement to pass over the company. Alas! it was not George who rang, but that bearer of joy and sorrow, the postman, with a letter directed to "Miss D. Leslie."

"It is George's handwriting," said Daphne. "Read it for me, papa."

My uncle took the letter, and turned it over as suspiciously as Cardinal de Medici may have done with an epistle from Pope Borgia in the old Italian days when clerical dignitaries enlivened the monotony of their ecclesiastical duties by taking off their enemies with poison concealed in a glove, a flower, or a letter. At length, breaking the seal amid a deep silence, he proceeded to unfold the letter, and as he mastered its contents his face darkened.

"What does George say?" asked Daphne, with her hand pressed to her beating heart.

"He says," replied her father, not wishing to let the whole truth burst on her at once, "that he regrets having to defer his wedding for a few days, but as soon as——"

"That's not it! You are deceiving me, papa! Give me the letter. I will have it—it is mine!"

With difficulty she rose to her feet, trembling all over, and before my uncle could prevent her she had snatched the letter from him, and, oblivious of the company, read out each word aloud:

"Dearest Daphne—Break not your heart over what is as sad to me as you. That has occurred which compels me to leave you forever. What the terrible circumstance is that forces me to this step I dare not say. It has occurred only within the past hour. I can never hope to look upon your face again. We must part forever. By the time you receive this I shall be crossing the Channel. Do not seek for me: you will never find me. In some secluded part of Europe I shall live out my days a lonely recluse. Try to believe that this is all for the best, and forget that there ever lived such a one as

"George Willard."

Daphne would have fallen to the floor if some one had not caught her in his arms. She lay cradled within the artist's embrace, her fair face resting on his breast, and his arms wound round her slender figure. Brief as was this embrace, it was nevertheless of sufficient duration to make me hate him—for a time, at least.

Tenderly he laid the figure of my cousin on an ottoman. The ladies of the assembly crowded round, and applied such remedies as were at hand to restore her from her swoon. Angelo stood by the couch with folded arms, gazing at the prostrate form with a wistful look.

"Beautiful! What a model for an artist!" he murmured.

He must have had a strange taste in the selection of his subjects if he could have found pleasure in painting Daphne as she was just then. Her face had parted with its bright, fresh beauty, and had assumed the sharp and careworn look of age. Her bridal dress seemed almost to have lost its sheen: the white flowers in her hair to have become emblems of death.

Presently the artist raised his eyes with a light as of triumph in them; they met mine, and for a few seconds we stood looking at each other; and then I learned that some one besides myself had been wishing that George would never return. At length Daphne opened her eyes and spoke:

"It can't be true, it can't be true! George would never treat me like this. Oh, what shall I do?" and at last she broke down in a passion of tears, terrible to witness, and we men, conscious of our impotence in face of such overwhelming grief, stole from the room and left her to the women.

Much as the guests would have liked to relieve my uncle of the embarrassment of their presence in these unforeseen circumstances of sorrow, they were prevented from doing so by the storm, which, having raged for many hours, rendered locomotion out of doors extremely difficult. My uncle made no excuses for his withdrawal from the company, and as soon as I could do so, I too followed him to his library, where I found him sitting with Angelo Vasari.

"I suppose," the latter was saying, "that Captain Willard is not very well known in Paris or London?"

A curious question this! What could it possibly matter to the artist whether George was or was not well known in Paris or London? Yet here he was putting the question with a similar show of eagerness as when asking me to study the twelve facial sketches.

"I doubt," replied my uncle, "whether there are six people in Europe who know him—know him intimately, that is. As a young man he graduated at Upsala——"

"In Sweden, you know," I interjected, for the enlightenment of the artist, who seemed to resent this attempt of mine to teach him geography.

"And then," continued my uncle, "after a brief interval in England he sailed for India, where he has been ever since till the last two months."

"And it was during that brief interval in England, I suppose," said Angelo, "that he became engaged to Miss Leslie?"

"Just so."

"And Captain Willard did not return to England, you say, till the preparations for his marriage brought him over?"

"You have it. Daphne and I took a voyage to India last winter, and spent several weeks with George at Poonah; and a very happy time we had of it, too. None could ever have guessed that their engagement would come to such an ending as this."

"Ah!"

My uncle's replies seemed to have given great satisfaction to the artist.

"You are quite a prophet," I said to the latter. "Your wedding gift, the picture, seems like a prediction of what happened to-day. Were you prepared for the event?"

"To a certain extent—yes," replied Angelo.

"Had you any reason for your belief other than George's strange appearance at Charing Cross last night?"

"Well, a day or two after I was introduced to Captain Willard, I congratulated him on his approaching marriage. His face changed at once from gay to grave. 'Don't allude to it,' he said; 'it may, perhaps, never take place.' I thought this strange language from one who had come all the way from India to be married, and asked him to explain himself, but he was silent. Since then, on one or two occasions when I have alluded to the wedding he would become melancholy in an instant; and I began to surmise that all was not right."

"Your surmises were only too well founded," I said.

And I began to tell the story of my night adventure. For a long time we sat discussing the affair, and devising all kinds of theories to account for George's flight.

"I can't understand it at all," said my perplexed uncle. "There was nothing strange or unusual in his manner last night when he left us. He talked in the most natural way of the wedding—said he would be at the church by 9:30 prompt. And yet he must have written that letter soon after he parted from us, for he left here about ten o'clock, and it is dated, you see, just an hour later."

"And he must have posted it before midnight, too," said Angelo, "or it would not have arrived here by the morning post. Strange things must have happened in those two hours to change the current of his life."

Shortly afterwards he rose, saying with a smile, "Art is long, and time is fleeting."

"Il Divino cannot leave his easel, you see," remarked my uncle, after the departure of the artist, "not even for one day."

"Il Divino? Who's he?" I returned stupidly.

"Angelo, to be sure."

"Is that his nom—de—de—brush?" I couldn't think of the French word, so I used the English one instead.

"It's a nickname his enemies have given him by antiphrasis, because he's so unlike Raphael."

"Can't leave his easel," I said, repeating my uncle's words. "Do you mean to say he is going to work on a gloomy day like this? Why, he won't be able to see, let alone paint."

"Nulla dies sine lineâ, you know. He lives in his studio, and can hardly be persuaded to leave it. It's a marvel he remained here so long this morning. He's dying to make a name."

"Do you think he will?"

"Can't say, I'm sure. It will not be for want of toil and study if he doesn't. He is occupied now on a great work which he fondly hopes will reverse the previous judgment of art-critics respecting his abilities."

"What is this great work?"

"'The Fall of Cæsar' I think he calls it, or 'The Triumph of Cæsar,' or—or something of the sort. I know it's a classical subject."

And after this we relapsed into silence.

I shall never forget the melancholy and gloom of that day as we sat, my uncle and I, in the darkening room, each occupied with his own thoughts. The non-return of my brother did not afford me the happiness I had expected, for it was counterbalanced by Daphne's exquisite grief, which was a source of real pain to me. Having wished so earnestly that the marriage might not come off, I felt as if I were in some way responsible for my brother's non-appearance.

Next day I took an early train for Dover, with the intention of calling at the strange house, and of questioning its silver-haired occupant, who, I was now inclined to believe, knew more of the mystery than he had cared to reveal. Not till I had reached the Kentish sea-town was it suddenly forced upon me that in my haste and excitement I had forgotten to note the name of the street in which the strange house was situated; nor did I even know which way to turn on leaving the station.

The cranial development known to phrenologists as the bump of locality is not my strong point. For several hours I walked the streets of the town, knocking at the door now of this house and now of that, vainly believing that at last I had discovered what I sought. I lived at the hotel a week, and spent a considerable portion of each day in the streets, and on the pier and cliffs, thinking I might meet the old man taking his walks abroad; but all my endeavors to discover him were attended with failure. The silver-haired old man, the mysterious house, the veiled lady, my brother George—all were gone, and seemed now to have had no more reality than the shadows of a dream. Once they were, now they are not.

I will not weary the reader with an account of the investigations carried on for many weeks by my uncle and myself. It will be sufficient to say that our endeavors to discover the cause of George's flight and to trace his whereabouts were fruitless.

"Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Daphne's morning, however, was a long time in coming and my uncle proposed to hasten its advent by foreign travel.

"A Continental tour will do her good," he remarked to me. "We will visit France, Spain, Italy. The glitter of foreign cities will perhaps help to remove her grief. You must come with us, Frank; we shall need you. A young fellow like you will be able to enliven and interest her more than any lady companion could do—certainly more than her old father, who is often prosy and dull, I fear. Being her cousin, you can talk to her with a freedom and an ease that in any other young man would be familiarity. And for heaven's sake try to make her forget her grief. Her sad face and thin wasted figure cut me to the heart. You do not mind giving up Heidelberg for a time?"

It would require no great sacrifice on the part of any young man to leave the cloisters of a university in order to escort a beautiful girl through Europe, so I gladly assented to my uncle's proposition, resolving, for my own sake, to try to make Daphne forget her grief. She yielded a willing acquiescence to the project of a Continental tour. Poor girl! She was in so dull and passive a state of mind that if we had proposed a voyage of discovery to the North Pole she would have offered no objection. So, late in March, we left England, and by the end of the summer had signed our names in half the hotel books of Europe.

CHAPTER V THE ARTIST PAINTS A NOTABLE PICTURE

Night was just fading from the Alpine heights that girdle the quaint old town of Rivoli in the canton of Ticino. Two men, issuing from the entrance of a châlet perched like an eagle's nest on the jutting crag of a mountain far above the valley, paused to admire the grandeur of the scene. These persons were my uncle and myself, and we had risen at this early hour in order to witness that most beautiful of sights in Switzerland, sunrise. From the terrace of the châlet we watched the dim Alpine panorama gradually emerge from the shadowy reign of night. Silent and majestic from out the dark "sea of pines" the mountains arose to view, their icy peaks glittering with rosy-tinted hues in the soft, beautiful light that was now suffusing the sky.

"By Jove, what a glorious sight!" I exclaimed enthusiastically.

"Yes, for a poet or painter," replied my uncle, who, amid the loveliest scenery of Switzerland, sighed for the shady side of Pall Mall.

"That's a pretty little town down there," I continued, gazing at the spires of Rivoli. It lay at our feet in the valley beneath, so far down that it seemed like a toy city. "How the mountains seem to isolate it from the rest of the world! Rivoli? Rivoli?" I muttered. "I have never heard of the place before," unconsciously telling a falsehood. "I suppose it's quite out of the track of the ordinary tourist?"

"Quite. We shall not see many specimens of that genus in the everlasting suit of grey tweed."

"What's that rough stone building to the right of us?" I said. "There! just by the cascade. A hermit's grotto?"

"Looks like it. A rather damp quarter for his saint-ship, eh? I suppose in this secluded part of Europe many hermits must have lived out their lonely days, and——"

He paused, stopped by the curious look on my face. "What is the matter, Frank?"

"Do you know that your last remark is singularly like an expression in George's letter of last Christmas?" and I repeated the passage, for every word of that epistle was engraved on my mind.

"Hum! so it is. A singular coincidence of language. 'Some secluded part of Europe,'" he added, quoting George's words. "It would be difficult to find a more secluded spot than Rivoli."

It was now August, and the object for which our tour had been undertaken—the removal of Daphne's grief—seemed to be accomplished. We had visited France, Spain and Italy. In the early days of our tour nothing could move her from the dull lethargy which had been her normal state since that ill-starred Christmas morning; but gradually, as week after week glided by, she began to take an interest, faint and languid enough at first, in the historic places through which we were passing, till at length she seemed to have become her old bright self once more. The colour had returned to her cheek and the smile to her lip. Whether this happier condition arose from a determination to forget her trouble and adapt herself to changed circumstances, or whether it was due to the secret hope that George might yet return to her with his name cleared from the dark shadow resting on it, I could not decide; she never alluded to him, and on our part, my uncle and myself made it a point not to mention his name in her presence. She treated me with the same sweet familiar freedom as of old, so that I found it difficult to believe that for three years I had been exiled from her at Heidelberg.

During our tour I had never betrayed by word or by act the state of my feelings toward Daphne. Satisfied with the pleasure of daily companionship with her, I was quite content to bide my time patiently, and wait for some clear indication that George had passed—not from her memory, for that could never happen, but from her affections, before venturing to express for the second time the love I had never ceased to bear.

We had arrived at Rivoli only the preceding evening, and were staying at a châlet belonging to a Swiss gentleman who had let it to us for a month. He had left behind one member of his household to supplement our own servants—an agreeable, talkative old woman, who had received us with an effusive hospitality.

A light step now sounded on the terrace and Daphne's sweet voice greeted us.

"I shall not say good-morning, for you don't deserve it. Why didn't you call me earlier, papa, that I too might have seen the sun rise?"

Her father kissed her hands as though she were some princess.

"Because I knew you would be tired after the jolting of that horrible diligence yesterday," he said; "and so I let you rest. But you have no hat, and the mornings here are chilly."

I ran indoors, and returned with a heavy wrap which I drew round her head and neck.

"Well, Daphne," my uncle said, waving his hand towards the châlet, "what do you think of our home for the next month?"

"It is lovely," she said, moving backward from the house to survey it better. "Just the place to dream away a summer holiday in."

It was indeed as picturesque a structure as could be found on a day's march through Switzerland. It was composed of fir-wood painted red, and the pretty low gallery which ran completely round it, together with the projecting roof, was adorned with the richest carvings.

"I see," remarked my uncle, "that the piety of the architect has decorated the facade with Scriptural texts—a common custom about here, I have observed. All in Latin—from the Vulgate, I suppose. Now, Daphne, show us your scholarship by translating them. What does the word over the entrance mean?"

"Over the entrance?" said Daphne, turning her eyes upon the carved porch. "'Reveniet;' that means 'He shall return.'"

Only one Latin word, and yet it had the power to make me tremble! During our Continental tour I had been continually haunted by the idea that in the next city or castle, or cathedral or palace, or ruin or theatre visited by us we should come face to face with George—an issue fraught with peril to my love enterprise. Though I was unable to assign any definite reason for it, this opinion had gained strength since our arrival at Rivoli.

He shall return!

Yes; there in letters of gold, that gleamed like fire in the rays of the morning sun, was the startling answer to the one question forever haunting my mind. A white cloud floating upwards from the valley at this juncture cast a cold shadow over us, and gave me an eerie sensation, as if George himself in ghostly form were passing by.

"He shall return!" repeated my uncle, in a vein of pleasantry that jarred on Daphne's feelings. "And who is it that shall return?"

"O papa! how can you? You know it refers to the millennium. I declare you and Frank are quite like two pagans! I don't believe you have entered a church for the purpose of worship since we first set foot on the Continent."

"Frank and I never go to church in Catholic countries. It's our way of showing our Protestantism."

Daphne turned from her irreverent parent, and became absorbed in the contemplation of the scenery.

"What peak is that to the left, Frank?"

"That," I replied, "is the Silver Horn of the Jungfrau."

And I proceeded to deliver a topographical lecture, interwoven with graceful legends and poetic quotations, specially prepared for this occasion on the previous night, in order that I might shine in Daphne's eyes as a hero of knowledge. A sudden exclamation from her, however, put a period to my eloquence.

"Who is this coming up the mountain-path? I have been watching him for a long time."

Whoever the person was, he ascended the mountain with the freedom of one to whom the path was perfectly familiar, selecting his way among the mossy boulders and grass-hidden pools without a moment's hesitation, and springing from crag to crag with the agility of a chamois-hunter.

"'Excelsior' evidently is his motto," said I. "Longfellow's young man, perhaps, 'mid snow and ice.'"

"Minus the 'banner with the strange device,'" returned my uncle. "Hanged if it isn't Il Divino! How comes he to be here?"

It was indeed the divine one, looking in the picturesque costume he was wearing more handsome and romantic than ever. A sombrero was slouched with easy negligence over his broad white brow, and a long cloak dropped gracefully from his shoulders. He had all the air of a man who, conscious of his personal charms, is determined to make the best use of them.

The look of pleasure that mantled Daphne's face had so disturbing an effect on my spirits that it was as much as I could do to treat the artist with ordinary civility.

"Angelo," cried my uncle after the first greetings were over, "I'm delighted to see you! But tell us how you came to be here, for I thought that outside of Switzerland few beside myself knew of the existence of this secluded valley."

"Rivoli the Beautiful is my native place," replied Angelo. Why had not Fate fixed his nativity at the sixth cataract of the Nile?

"I thought you were an Italian," I remarked frigidly.

"My parents were both Italians," replied the artist, "but I was born in that cottage;" and he pointed far down the valley to a tenement on which Daphne gazed with interest, while I, staring in a different direction, tried to catch a glimpse of a steel-blue lake through a veil of floating mist. "I have no parents nor any relations left. My old nurse still lives; and I make a point of visiting Rivoli each year to breathe the mountain air, and to see that the old dame does not want."

"A very pious and proper proceeding on your part," I remarked.

This was meant for sarcasm, but it did not seem to disturb the artist in the least. The look of disapproval on Daphne's face did not tend to tranquillise my mind.

"I arrived here only last night," Angelo continued, "and, hearing that a lady and two Englishmen had taken up their residence at the Châlet Varina, I guessed at once from the description who they were. I determined to call in the morning to present my compliments to Miss Leslie and her father"—he omitted me from his congratulations—"and to ask her to accept these flowers."

And with a graceful bow he presented to her a beautiful bouquet. I thought Daphne quite ridiculous in her admiration of it.

"O, how pretty!" she cried. "Thank you very much, Mr. Vasari. I am so fond of flowers. Smell how sweet they are, Frank." And she actually held the odious gift close to my nostrils for my appreciation. "Aren't they sweet?"

"Very," I said drily.

"Aren't these violets lovely, papa?" she said, appealing to her father for the appreciation she had failed to elicit from me.

"Purple," replied her republican parent, who was accustomed to spell king with a small k, and people with a capital p, "is my aversion, being the colour and emblem of tyrants and kings."

"How absurd you are, papa!" returned she. "What is your favorite colour, Mr. Vasari?"

"That which sparkles on the cheek of Beauty," replied the idiot, with his eyes fixed on my cousin's face. And certainly no colour could be more beautiful than Daphne's sweet blush at that moment, and my jealousy redoubled toward the person who had called it forth. "Do you understand the language of flowers, Miss Leslie?"

"Only a very little; do you, Frank?"

"Not I," I answered curtly. "I consider it an absurd study, if you wish for my opinion."

"You must permit me to teach you," said Angelo to Daphne, completely ignoring my remark.

"I shall be very glad to learn," was the reply.

I gasped for breath. The fellow was actually making love to her before my very eyes! The cool assurance with which he spoke and the graceful serenity with which he ignored my presence were quite maddening. Here was I, who had been Daphne's sole companion for five months, completely thrown into the shade by a foreigner who had been in her presence only as many minutes.

"And so Rivoli is your native place," said Daphne. "Why, of course, I have heard you say so many a time. How stupid of me to have forgotten! I remember now to have seen a sketch of it in your portfolio. How lucky, papa, that you hit on this spot! You must be familiar, Mr. Vasari, with every stream and crag and cascade about here—with every turn and wind of this valley; you must serve us now and then in the capacity of guide."

"I shall esteem it an honour to do so," he returned.

Matters were growing worse. The lamp that had so long illumined Daphne's path was now under a bushel.

"Look at those wreaths of silvery mist floating across the valley!" said she.

"'As if some angels in their upward flight

Had left their mantles floating in mid-air,'"

said I. I quoted this to show that there were other poetic souls in existence besides Angelo; but my quotation was lost on Daphne.

"And what a lovely violet hue those distant mountains have!" she continued. "I wonder, Mr. Vasari, you never tried to transfer this scene to canvas."

"Canvas? Ah, that reminds me," said my uncle. "I have been very remiss in not complimenting you upon the success of your picture. We shall yet have the Pope requesting your aid in adorning the Vatican with painted frescoes. I understand that your 'Fall of Cæsar' is the picture of Paris this season."

This allusion did not seem pleasing to the artist, for a peculiar expression darkened his face for a moment, like the transient sweeping of a shadow over a sunny landscape.

"It is true," he murmured, with real or simulant modesty, "that my picture has been very much admired. It was exhibited one day; the next, my name was in all the newspapers. Like Byron I woke up one morning to find myself famous. I have realized a considerable sum of money by exhibiting the picture, and as a consequence have become courted by people who discover virtues in me now they never perceived before."

"'Give me gold, and by that rule

Who will say I am a fool?'"

murmured my uncle. "Just so. Gold is a lamp that lights up virtues that without it are unseen."

I regret to say that I did not view Angelo with any more favour for his rising reputation as an artist, and Daphne's evident delight at his success added fresh fuel to my smouldering jealousy.

"What, Mr. Vasari! Have you painted a picture that is creating a sensation at Paris? Why did you not tell of this before, papa? This is the first that Frank and I have heard of it."

It was, but it was far from being the last we were to hear of the artist's memorable masterpiece.

"Well, you see," my uncle replied apologetically, "I did not know it myself till last night, when I saw it in the Standard. You were asleep at the time, and I take it you didn't want me to call you out of bed to tell you of it."

At the mention of the word Standard, there appeared on the artist's face the same peculiar expression that I had previously noticed.

"Standard, Standard!" he muttered reflectively. "Why, that's the—" He stopped, and added abruptly, "Do you have the Standard sent to you?"

"It has been sent to me. Why?"

"O, nothing, nothing," replied Angelo; "nothing at all. It's a—a Conservative journal, and I know—at least, I believe—you're a Radical."

"A Radical. Noble profession!" responded my uncle.

"Yes; that's all it is—profession!" laughed Daphne, whose political ideals differed from those of her father.

"The Standard is not my paper, as you very well know," said my uncle, grandly ignoring his daughter's remark. "It's the butler's fault that it is here. I wrote telling him to forward to Rivoli a file of newspapers for June and July. As I forgot to specify what paper, the rascal has sent me the Standard."

"For, being a good old Tory," said Daphne, "he thought it well to administer an antidote to your Radicalism. I think his act deserves commendation."

"June and July," muttered Angelo. "What did you think of the critique on my picture?"

"Didn't know there was a critique on it. In fact, I haven't read the papers yet. I was simply untying the parcel last night, when my eye was caught by a paragraph to the effect that 'Intending visitors to Paris should not fail to visit the Vasari Art Gallery, and view Vasari's magnificent production, "The Fall of Cæsar," the great picture of the year, already visited by—' I forget how many thousand persons."

Angelo smiled.

"That is my agent's advertisement. Yes, the number of persons to see it has been enormous. You haven't read, then, the criticism on it in the issue of July 2nd?"

"That's a pleasure I have in store."

"Nor Mr. Willard?" he added, turning to me.

"Not yet. I may read it," I replied, as if the act would be one of magnificent condescension on my part, whereas, if the truth must be told, I was inwardly burning to peruse the article in question.

"A—ah!"

And the prolonging of this little syllable was marked by a decided tone of satisfaction.

"And have you really made a great name?" said Daphne, looking admiringly at the artist. "I am so glad! I always knew your efforts would meet with success. But tell me all about your picture. What is the subject?"

"The 'Fall of Cæsar.' It represents the hero, as we may suppose him to have been a few minutes after his death, lying at the base of Pompey's statue. There are no other figures in the picture besides the two I have mentioned, Cæsar and Pompey. Some columns in the background complete the scene. It is a very simple tableau, and no one has been more surprised than myself at the encomiums that have been lavished upon it."

"Did the work take you long?"

"The actual canvas-work—no; the elaboration of the idea which led to the work—yes; for it has been the outcome of a lifetime of thought." He spoke with all the air of an octogenarian. "I began the work about a year ago, a year this autumn, and finished it last—last Christmas," he hesitated at the word, as if reluctant to renew Daphne's sad memories, "and exhibited it at Paris in the beginning of spring."

"At Paris? We were at Paris in the beginning of spring. It is strange we should have missed you."

"When did you leave Paris?"

"March 31st—wasn't it, Frank?"

"Ah! we—" he stopped to change the plural pronoun to the singular, but, rapid as the correction was, it did not escape my notice—"I did not arrive in Paris till April 1st."

"The very day after we left. How odd! But why did you exhibit your picture in Paris, and not in London?"

"A prophet hath no honour in his own country," replied Angelo. "I think I may speak of England as my country, from the length of time I have lived in it. London has disappointed me so often that I resolved to try Paris this year. So I hired a gallery, and exhibited 'The Fall of Cæsar,' with some other pictorial compositions of mine. The people of Paris seem more appreciative of my talent—if I may be pardoned for using the word—than the Londoners."

"I have always considered the French a superficial people," I interjected.

"Oh no, they are not," returned the artist quietly.

"Of course they are not? How can you say so?" said Daphne, defending the artist with more warmth than was pleasant to me. "We must see your picture, Mr. Vasari, when we come to Paris."

"I am afraid it is impossible for you to see it, Miss Leslie," he replied, "unless you are acquainted with the Baron de Argandarez, an old hidalgo of Aragon. He purchased it from me for a sum far surpassing my wildest expectations. It now adorns the walls of his ancestral castle, and I have no more to do with it."

"Oh, what a pity!" cried Daphne, in a tone of sincere regret. "I am disappointed. Why, it seems as if, after achieving a brilliant success, you are determined that your best friends shall not share in your triumph!"

"Yes," chimed in my uncle, "you are not very patriotic towards your adopted country, Angelo, in letting Spain carry off the great masterpiece. Now if you had let me see it, I might have exceeded the Baron's price."

"O papa, cannot you write to the Baron What's-his-name and offer him double the price he paid for it? Perhaps he might be induced to part with it."

"We'll see, little woman. It's your birthday in a month's time. How would you like it as a birthday gift?"

Daphne expressed her delight at the idea, and, turning to the artist, said:

"Haven't you any photograph or engraving of your picture to give us some notion of what it's like?"

Angelo shook his head.

"I would not permit any one to make an engraving. The engraver would but misrepresent my art. What engraving can ever realise the beauty, the finish, the colouring of an original oil painting?"

"I prefer engravings to oils," said I.

"Probably; but then you're not a judge of art, you see," replied Angelo coolly.

"I suppose your success has brought you many orders for pictures?" said my uncle, interposing quickly in the interests of harmony.

"Very many. An English baronet has employed me to paint him a picture on any subject I choose, paying me half the price in advance."

"And what subject have you chosen?" asked Daphne.

"'Modesta, the Christian Martyr,' is the title of my new work, but I am delayed somewhat by the want of a suitable model."

"'Fall of Cæsar,' 'Christian Martyr,'" murmured my uncle. "You seem fond of death-scenes."

"Yes, I have discovered wherein my talent lies. My pencil is better adapted to illustrate repose than motion. Hitherto I have attempted to portray action, and failed. Now, still-life is my study."

"Well, I hope your next picture will become as famous as the last," said Daphne, "and that you will let us have a glimpse of it before parting with it."

"If you care to view a minor performance of mine," said Angelo, "visit the cathedral at Rivoli. It contains a Madonna painted by me while on a visit last year. It has given great satisfaction to the people here, if I may be permitted to sing my own praises. They have even said I was inspired by the saint. Perhaps I was," he added with a curious smile. "I should like you to view it, Miss Leslie, before you leave Rivoli, for a reason that will at once become apparent when you see it."

"A reason? What reason? Tell me now," said Daphne, turning her eyes upon him with a look of wonder.

"Not now. The Madonna will speak for me."

"You are talking in riddles. I shall visit the cathedral this very day, and discover your meaning for myself."

"You do me too much honour. You will receive a surprise—a pleasant one, let me trust."

Daphne's curiosity was raised to the highest point and she cried:

"You hear, papa? We must visit the cathedral this very morning, and solve Mr. Vasari's enigma."

"Very well," replied her father, rising. "I think I have solved it already, and, as I begin to feel hungry qualms 'neath the fourth button of my waistcoat, suppose you run indoors and see what progress is being made with breakfast. Angelo, you will join us, of course?"

Of course he would!

Our breakfast-room was a small prettily furnished apartment, whose latticed windows commanded a fine view of the mountains.

The fresh morning air had imparted a keen edge to my appetite, and nothing but the sense of Angelo's rivalry prevented me from doing full justice to the substantial fare that old Dame Ursula, the housekeeper, had spread before us. The look of admiration in the artist's dark eyes, his tender, respectful homage, spoke of a feeling for Daphne far stronger than friendship. He completely ignored me, and, for my part, I did not address any remark to him during the course of the breakfast. Intuitively we felt that we were rivals, between whom interchange of ideas was impossible. When, in reply to some question of my uncle's, I held forth at great length on German theology, he listened without saying a word. When he grew eloquent over the Old Masters and their works, I treated his tinsel verbiage with freezing silence. He exerted all his arts to please Daphne, and the colour of her cheek and the sparkle of her eye showed that if such attentions did not inspire the sweet sentiments he desired, they were, on the other hand, not at all distasteful to her.

On the seat of one of the latticed windows lay a brown paper parcel, partly opened, containing the files of the Standard to which my uncle had alluded. Angelo cast frequent glances in this direction. I supposed he was burning to read to Daphne the eulogium on his picture, but as she seemed to have forgotten it, his vanity was not gratified.

After breakfast was over Daphne repeated her wish to visit the cathedral without delay, and ran off to change her dress for the journey. My uncle withdrew for a similar purpose, leaving me to entertain the artist. The entertainment I offered him was certainly not marked by variety, for it consisted simply of an unbroken silence—a silence that did not seem to disconcert him in the least. He occupied himself with the files of the Standard, turning them over with deft fingers, as if selecting a certain one from among the number.

"Looking for the critique, I suppose, in order to read what a great man he is," I thought. "What conceited asses these geniuses always are!" And I mentally congratulated myself that I was not a genius, a fact that I doubt not the reader has discovered long ere this.

Daphne and my uncle now reappeared.

"We are bound for the cathedral, I presume," said Angelo, assuming his sombrero and cloak with a graceful air. "Will Miss Leslie mind if I smoke a cigar? No? Thank you. And as I see no matches here, Mr. Leslie will perhaps not object if I tear off a small piece of this newspaper"—he did not wait for leave, however, but suited the action to the word—"to light it with."

"No matches?" repeated Daphne. "Here is a box on the mantelshelf."

"So there is. Hem! Curious I didn't see it! I have been looking everywhere for a match." I had not seen him so occupied. "No matter. This will serve my purpose equally well—or better," and with a peculiar smile he ignited the twisted piece of paper at the fire.

There was in his lighting of that cigar a curious air of triumph that puzzled me very much, and set me wondering as to its cause.

CHAPTER VI THE MAN AT THE CONFESSIONAL

My uncle took Angelo's arm and led the way down the mountain path, leaving me to follow with Daphne. For some little time we walked in silence, and then she led me to the subject that was uppermost in my mind.

"What is the matter, Frank? You have not been yourself this morning."

Her statement was correct; I had not been myself. Jealousy had wrought a change in my character, causing me to act and speak in a way that, upon consideration, I admit to have been the reverse of amiable.

"It seems to me," I replied in an aggrieved tone, as if I had some solid ground of complaint, "that since our departure from England we have been playing Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out."

"Why, Frank, what do you mean?" she asked.

"O, nothing much. That slave of the palette seems to have taken out a patent for the monopoly of your conversation, that's all."

Daphne assumed an air of dignity, an air that I had never before seen her assume—with me, at least.

"If I have talked with Mr. Vasari more than with you this morning, I think I had good reason. I saw a sneer come over your face as soon as he appeared, and so I took his part at once. What has he done to offend you, and what fault have you to find with him?"

I suppose if I had been perfectly truthful I should have replied that he had painted a picture that had made him famous, whereas I had done nothing to make myself famous, that he was handsome and I was not, and that as he was altogether a more attractive rival than myself I wished him at the devil. Perfect truthfulness, however, is not always observed in ordinary conversation, so I paraphrased my real meaning.

"He is too much of a genius to please me. He is a man with only one idea in his head, and that is Art. On any topic outside that circle he is mute. You think he admires your beauty, whereas he is thinking only what a good model you would make. He stands enraptured at the sunshine, and you cry, 'What a lover of nature!' whereas he is only thinking of the effect it would make on a canvas. He would paint a rose and swear that the copy was more lovely than the original. In everything Art comes first with him. According to him Art was not made for the world, but the world for Art. The world is only a place to paint in, to obtain pictorial effects from. Ask him to choose between living forever in this lovely valley of Rivoli and living forever in his studio studying a picture of it, and he would choose the canvas daub in preference to the reality. He is a monomaniac. I do like a man to have a comprehensive breadth and depth of mind."

An excellent way this of detracting from a man's abilities! Mr. A. is a great poet: exactly, but he knows nothing of science. Mr. B. is a great scientist: exactly, but he knows nothing of literature. Estimate a man, not by what he knows, but by what he does not know, and you can draw up a formidable indictment against him: as though, forsooth, it were possible for one mind to master the whole of the cyclopædia!

"In short," I concluded, "his conversation smells too much of the brush. He talks of nothing but 'shop.' I hate a fellow who is always talking 'shop.'"

Daphne evidently did not know how to reply to this tirade. She merely said: "You did not speak a single word to him at breakfast."

"Well, you see," I replied in an injured tone, "when a fellow has been a lady's companion for five months, he naturally feels that he has some claim upon her attention and he doesn't like being ignored."

"Did I ignore you?" she replied in a conciliatory tone; and then with a pensive, retrospective air she added. "Five months! And is it so long since we left England? It was too good of you to leave your university——"

"Where I was earning quite a reputation," I murmured. It would have puzzled me to say for what.

"—In order to escort me through Europe. I am sorry for my neglect of you this morning."

The look that came into Daphne's eyes was so pretty, wistful, pleading, that I, who had really no cause of complaint against her, began to feel what a hard-hearted tyrant Love sometimes makes of his votaries. I was just wondering whether she would object were I to seal our little concordat with a kiss, when my uncle and Angelo chanced to look back, so I could but give her arm a significant pressure in token of my magnanimous resolution to forgive her.

Near the foot of the mountain we came upon a beautiful pool, its waters being supplied by a slender streamlet that wound down the mountain-side almost in the line of our walk. Rude stonework bordered with moss ran all round the fountain, imparting to it a circular shape. On one side arose a steep rock containing a tall rectangular niche, which had been hewn for the reception of an image, though at present it was apparently devoid of any such ornament.

"Please, Mr. Willard," said Daphne, dropping a mock courtesy, "have I your permission to ask Mr. Vasari what place this is?"

"Mr. Vasari," I called out, "Miss Leslie would like to know the name of this spring."

"This," replied the artist, coming to at once, "is the haunted well of Rivoli."

"Why do they call it haunted?" said Daphne.

"From certain mysterious things that have happened."

Daphne became interested at once, while my uncle, a disbeliever in the supernatural, shrugged his shoulders.

"What things?" said Daphne.

"Mr. Leslie will smile at what he deems a superstitious story," said Angelo, by way of prefatory apology, "but it is a story that no one in Rivoli doubts."

"I hope you do not class yourself among the believers in humbug," my uncle remarked.

"From time immemorial," said Angelo, ignoring the protest, "this place is said to have been haunted, though I never could discover by what. Was it a pagan god, demon, or fata—the spirit of a murdered man or of some wicked mediæval baron—that lurked within the shades of this fountain? No one could tell me. 'It was haunted,' was the only answer to my questionings. Such a belief might well have been dismissed as superstition, were it not for certain events that have taken place within my own knowledge. The bishop of the diocese, with a view of removing the ghostly fears of the people around here, resolved to exorcise the spirit. A procession of priests came to the well, the forms of exorcism were gone through, and a crucifix—a life-size image of the Saviour—was consecrated by the bishop, and placed in that niche which you see before you. The place was thus to become holy ground. Next morning the crucifix was found hurled from its position. Who had done it? None of the peasants; they would not be guilty of such impiety. And besides, none of them would have had the courage to venture to the haunted well in the night-time. The crucifix was restored to its place. Next day it was again found hurled from the recess, and this time it was blackened as if by fire. I leave you to imagine the excitement in Rivoli at this. A bold priest—I knew him well—resolved to spend a night here, for the purpose of exorcising the dark power so antagonistic to the Church's sacred emblem. He came alone, equipped for the task in full canonicals, with bell, book, and candle to boot. Next morning, when we came to look for him—I say we, for I was one of the search-party—we found him, apparently exhausted, lying asleep by the fountain. We woke him, and—"

"And he gave an account, I suppose," said my uncle, "of an awful figure he had seen, adorned with horns, tail, and hoofs?"

"He related nothing of the sort," replied Angelo with quiet dignity, "for he had become——"

He paused, to give greater effect to his words.

"What?"

"Insane!"

"What had he seen to make him so?" said Daphne.

"No one will ever know, Miss Leslie. He died the same week."

"What a strange story!"

"And a true one," returned Angelo gravely. "No one in Rivoli dares come within a mile of this fountain after dark; and no priest, or body of priests, has had the courage to try the powers of exorcism since that fatal day."

Daphne was silent and my uncle, taking Angelo's arm, resumed the journey, saying:

"Your story is a mysterious one, but it admits of an easy explanation on rationalistic and psychological principles. Now Professor Dulascanbee——"

And while I was enjoying sweet confidences with Daphne on the way to Rivoli, Angelo had to listen to a prosy lecture from my uncle, directed against belief in the supernatural.

"What do you say, Frank?" he called out to me. "Shall we imitate the bold cleric, and try to solve the mystery by passing a night at the fountain?"

"I'm perfectly agreeable," I responded. "I long to see a ghost."

It was a superb day. The mists had vanished before the glowing sun, and the sky was now one clear expanse of delicate blue. A soft breeze fanned our temples. Through the sunny air the mountains shimmered, faint violet airy masses topped with snow, their various peaks reflected in the surface of the lake, on whose margin stood the quaint old town of Rivoli.

The women of the place, having little else to do, assembled at their doors to see the rare spectacle of foreign visitors. All interest, however, was centred in Daphne: fingers were freely pointed at her, and she seemed to be an object of animated conversation after we had passed by.

Arrived at the cathedral, Angelo paused by the holy water at the porch, and, after making the sign of the cross, led the way into the building. To my surprise, Daphne allowed her High Church tendencies to carry her so far as to imitate the artist, dipping her pretty finger in the lustral font, and tracing a wet cross on her forehead, while she whispered with a smile to me, "When one is at Rome, one must do as Rome does."

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that if the water had not been previously consecrated, it certainly was now after the touch of her hand; but this action of hers was a going over to the enemy, so I frowned under pretence of being a Protestant consumed with a zeal for orthodoxy.

"You will be taking the veil next, Miss Leslie," I remarked loftily.

"Miss Leslie? Just hear him, papa! Not Daphne," she whispered with a sweet smile, holding up her little gloved hand, with the second finger crossed over the first, to indicate that it symbolised my frame of mind at that particular moment, as there is no denying that it did.

We rejoined Angelo within the precincts of the cathedral. The interior was a marvel of art, and with its dim magnificence mysteriously coloured by the subdued light of the stained casements it seemed more like the splendid dream of some Gothic architect than an actual reality in marble and mosaic.

"There is my picture!" exclaimed the artist; and, hastening forward to a painting of the Madonna suspended from the cathedral wall and before which waxen tapers were burning, he assumed a kneeling attitude.

"From the days of Pygmalion downwards," I whispered to my uncle, "what artist has not fallen in love with his own work and—worshipped it?"

Daphne's thoughts were more charitable than my own:

"I always think Catholics are more devout than we are."

"Externally, perhaps, they may be," said my uncle; adding aside to me, "but, if I mistake not, neither art nor religion is claiming his thoughts at this moment. Do you not recognise the face of our Lady? No wonder the people in the streets stared so at Daphne."

Surprise for the moment kept me dumb.

Angelo had given to his Madonna the face of Daphne! Very sweet and saintly the portrait looked, too, I must confess, and yet, withal beautiful and womanly, totally different in character from the stiff unnatural productions of the mediæval school. The background was of bright gold, and a deep blue coif veiled the fair throat and hair. The drooping eyes seemed to be contemplating the kneeling devotee, and the fringe of long dark lashes lay, a vivid contrast to the purity of the snow-white cheek.

Angelo's gaze was fixed in rapt adoration on the lovely face above him. The expression of his eyes and the significance of his attitude were not to be mistaken.

Anger flamed in my breast. The artist's motive for wishing Daphne to visit the cathedral was now clear. It was to flatter her vanity by representing her as a sort of saint, to whom good Catholics paid their vows—another of his steps toward weaving the silken threads of love around her. Oblivious of the timid, retiring delicacy that characterises the spirit of true love, he thus by a bold profanation of religious art dared to flaunt his passion for Daphne in the face of others, so sure of victory did he feel.

"They call this the Iron Age," I whispered in my uncle's ear. "It should be the Brazen."

"Ah," he returned in a tone which did not indicate whether he was pleased or annoyed at the tableau before him, "a custom this of the old Italian artists—a beautiful face, I suppose, materially aids one's devotions."

I turned to Daphne. The colour had mounted to her brow, but her face was no index of the thoughts passing within her mind. Did she divine the meaning of Angelo's kneeling attitude, or did she regard the portrait as a compliment only—an over-bold one, perhaps—to her beauty, and see in his pseudo-devotion nothing more than the spirit of a devout Catholic?

The artist, having gone through the beads of his rosary, rose to his feet and addressed Daphne.

"I trust, Miss Leslie," he said with a smile, "that you will forgive me for having canonised you without either papal sanction or your own."

Like a good Catholic, he put the papal sanction first and Daphne's next.

"Last autumn," continued Angelo, "I was requested by a priest of this cathedral, Father Ignatius by name, to paint a Madonna. Not thinking that you, Miss Leslie, would ever visit this place, I took your face as my model, for, pardon my boldness, I could not find a more beautiful one."

Daphne looked extremely grave.

"It is sacrilege," she said in a tone of awe. "What would your priest say if he knew of this?"

"He would pardon the sacrilege—if sacrilege it be—that gave him so fair a Madonna. If the divine Raphael introduced the heads of beggars in his delineations of patriarchs in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, may I not employ the living face in my picture?"

Daphne did not reply to this question, but, still very grave, continued:

"To be recognised by staring, gaping crowds in the streets of this town as the original of their cathedral Madonna is a kind of fame I could very well dispense with."

"They will say that the saint has left the skies to shed the sunlight of her presence on earth," he answered.

He accompanied this extravaganza with a smile, but it was a melancholy one. Clearly Daphne was not pleased with the act that had elevated her into a saint. The artist was not slow to perceive the light of triumph in my eyes, and his face darkened.

"I have committed an error," he said with a deferential bow. "I must ask pardon. I could not know when I painted this Madonna that you would ever set foot within this edifice."

"But you could at least have told me before setting out what to expect."

The artist was the picture of despair.

"I have done wrong in your eyes—English Protestants perhaps regard it as a sin, but believe me, the practice is not unknown among us Italian artists. Let the example set by others exculpate me to some extent."

The melancholy of his face and the humility of his manner softened Daphne's displeasure, and, resuming her wonted air, she said quickly:

"Let us say no more. What is done cannot be undone. You have my forgiveness, and as a proof you shall show me round the cathedral, if you will."

A look of delight mantled the face of the artist, and he offered her his arm, which she readily took. My uncle, saying that he preferred to rest in some quiet spot, and that he would await their return, had already taken a secluded seat, and I moved off to join him.

"Are you not going to accompany us, Frank?" said Daphne in a tone of surprise.

"Thank you, no," I returned loftily. "Mr. Vasari will not mind if I remain here till your return."

She made no reply, and, escorted slowly by her cicerone along an aisle adorned with statuary and pictures, was soon deep in the mysteries of ecclesiological lore.

We have it on the authority of a gentleman who lived at Stratford-on-Avon that jealousy is green-eyed. If so, my eyes must have resembled emeralds as they followed the pair. Of the two candidates for her smiles, which was the favourite? During breakfast I fancied it might be Angelo; while escorting her to the cathedral I felt certain it was I; now once more my rival's star seemed in the ascendant.

"And probably," I thought, "she will smile sweetly on me at her return. Verily woman is an enigma!"

"What are you thinking of?" asked my uncle, as I took a seat beside him.

"Of inditing a sonnet on the mutability of women."

"Ah! take my advice, and never attempt to understand a woman or her motives. You will never succeed."

"Daphne's motives are pretty obvious," I replied, glancing darkly at the distant figure of the artist.

My uncle's only reply was a smile, that resembled his opinion of women, inasmuch as it was very oracular and quite impossible to understand, and he resumed his reading of Goethe's Faust—a work of which he was extremely fond, carrying it about with him wherever he went, and favouring us hourly with quotations appropriate to any state of circumstances we happened to be in.

Presently he looked up from his reading, and said: "Has it never occurred to you that Daphne may have a motive in giving a little encouragement to Angelo—a motive, totally free from any love for him?"

"I am afraid I don't understand."

"Did you not—er—well, make love to her once?"

"Yes," I said gruffly. "I did. But it's more than three years ago."

"And you have not breathed a word of love to her since then."

"Certainly not," I said.

"Very well, then. Supposing she wants to find out whether you still retain your love for her, how is she to do it? Do you expect her to ask you outright? No? Well, one way of finding out is to seem to encourage a rival and note the effect on you. I don't say it's a noble way, but it's a woman's way. And if she sees that you are jealous she can draw her own conclusions."

"Do you honestly mean that that is her motive in encouraging that fool of an artist?" I cried eagerly.

My uncle put up his hand.

"How do I know? Woman is an enigma, to which I don't pretend to know the proper answer. I merely make a suggestion."

That I found the suggestion palatable requires no saying, but if I accepted it I was immediately confronted by the further question why Daphne should wish to know whether I still loved her, and therein I found matter for not a little meditation.

My uncle seemed disinclined to carry on the conversation, so I whiled away the time by taking a survey of the cathedral. It was a Saint's day on the morrow, and preparations for the festival occupied most of the attendants. There was much moving to and fro. Now and again peasants would enter with baskets of fruit and flowers for the adornment of the columns, shrines and altars, until the place began to assume the aspect of a flower market. Tired of gazing at the decorations, I directed my attention to a confessional box not far off. Unlike most confessional boxes, the front of this one was quite open to view, and within there sat an aged priest, corded and sandalled, while outside, with his lips applied to an orifice on a level with the priest's ear, knelt a man whispering a confession. The penitent was aged too, with hair that gave him quite a venerable appearance.

I watched the "little sinner confessing to the big sinner," to use a favourite phrase of my uncle's, and noted the troubled expression on his face and the nervous humility with which he clasped one hand over the other. If looks were to be taken as evidence the father confessor was deeply interested in the recital of the other's frailties. Suddenly I saw his eyes turn to a far corner of the cathedral, and following his gaze I saw that the objects of his attention were Daphne and Angelo, who had just come into view from behind the pillars of a colonnade. She was laughing gaily, and the artist was bending over her in an attitude suggestive of tender affection. Long and earnest was the look that the priest fixed upon the pair—so long and earnest that my curiosity was aroused as to its cause. Was he envying Angelo his happiness? Was he thinking of the maidens who might have loved him in the early days before his vows of celibacy were taken?

A quick motion of the priest's cold grey eyes recalled me from this train of thought, and to my surprise I found him regarding me with a keen gaze that was in no way abated when he saw that I was conscious of it. Then he turned his gaze once more upon Daphne and her escort, who had again become visible between the columns of the cloister. And so long as he sat there, coffined in the confessional box, he continued to manifest this singularity, that when he was not looking at Daphne and Angelo he was looking at me, and when he was not looking at me he was looking at Daphne and Angelo, so that I could tell simply from the motion of his eyes when the artist and my cousin were visible, and when the pillared walk concealed them from view. Although he appeared to be putting a number of questions to the aged penitent he nevertheless did not abate one jot of his steady gaze.

It occurred to me that he had recognised in Daphne the original of the Madonna, but that did not explain his scrutiny of me,—a scrutiny that sprang, I was sure, from something more than casual curiosity. Could the confession of the penitent have anything to do with it? Once more I surveyed the person of the old man, and it began to dawn upon me that I had seen him before, but when and where and in what circumstances I failed to recall. I closed my eyes in order to aid my powers of reflection, but still could not solve the problem of his identity. Just as I opened my eyes again to take another view of the confessional box I witnessed a remarkable tableau.

The penitent was still proceeding with his whispered story when the priest started to his feet with an impulse that apparently he could not control. Horror was painted in vivid characters on his face as he stood erect and stiff, with his eyes fixed on the distant cloister, while the other man, with his white head bent and his hands piteously clasped, sank low on his knees, a study of humiliation. What terrible secret had been imparted to the priest that he should betray such emotion? For a full minute he remained as rigid as a statue, and then hurriedly quitting the confessional box he beckoned the penitent to follow him. They passed through a small archway leading to some sacristy, and the oaken door concealed them from my view.

Then it was that memory came to my aid, and I trembled all over at the revelation it imparted. I turned to my uncle who, absorbed in his book, had not observed the singular scene.

"Uncle," I said, and even in my own ears my voice sounded strange; "did you notice an old man kneeling at that confessional box over there?"

"I have been at Nuremberg all this time," replied my uncle in tones aggravatingly dry and measured, "and therefore could not see what was passing here. Why do you ask?"

"Who do you think he was?"

"Answer your own riddle and let me return to the wit of Mephistopheles."

"He was the tenant of the mysterious house at Dover."

My uncle found my words more interesting than those of Mephistopheles.

"You are dreaming, Frank."

"No. I am sure that it was he."

"So far from Dover? Is it likely he would turn up in this out-of-the-way place?"

"It isn't a question of what he is likely to do; it's a question of what he has done. He is here. That's a fact. For aught we know to the contrary he may be an Italian. Now I come to think of it his voice had a foreign accent."

"Where is he now?" asked my uncle, looking all around the cathedral.

"He went with the priest through that door-way," I answered, and I told him of what had taken place at the confessional box.

"What are we to do?" my uncle asked.

"We must not let him go without having a word from him," I answered. "Wait at the sacristy door and speak to him as he comes out, and learn—what you can. I will walk to the aisles yonder, for should he see me he will be suspicious of you. We won't say anything to Daphne about this yet."

As I was turning away I caught sight of Daphne, who, having gone the round of the cathedral, was sitting near the picture of the Madonna, with the artist by her side. They were chatting away as confidentially as if there were no one in the world but themselves. The sight of the Italian offering his homage to my beautiful cousin would have moved my jealousy at any other time, but at present my head was occupied with the tableau at the confessional.

"Your father will be with us in a few minutes, Daphne," I said, taking a seat beside her. "You have seen all that is to be seen?"

"Yes. I have to thank Mr. Vasari for a very interesting lecture. He is quite a learned antiquary, minus the pedantry."

"Ah! that last is a stroke at me, I suppose," I returned carelessly, without looking at her. My eyes were directed toward my uncle, whom I could see in the distance, keeping watch by the sacristy door.

"May I ask why papa is playing the part of a statue?"

Here was a question! But I was equal to the occasion.

"He fancies he saw an old friend of his enter that room, and he is waiting for him to come out."

"Why doesn't he go in after him?"

"Well, if you ask Mr. Vasari, he will perhaps tell you (for he knows better than I) that that is the priest's private room, and naturally your parent is reluctant to intrude."

"True, Miss Leslie. It is the sacristy of Father Ignatius."

"Father Ignatius? Haven't you mentioned his name once before?"

"Yes, it was he who commissioned me to paint my unfortunate Madonna," replied the artist, glancing at the picture above his head.

"What sort of a person is this Father Ignatius?" I asked of Angelo, who seemed surprised at my addressing him, as well he might; it was so rarely I did so. "I saw a priest just now with a very remarkable type of head, quite like an antique Roman's—bald, aquiline nose, keen grey eyes, erect, proud——"

"Yes, that was Father Ignatius.

"A high dignitary of this cathedral, I suppose?" I remarked.

"The very highest, save the bishop, whom he quite eclipses by his vigorous personality—supersedes, in point of fact, for the bishop prefers to live at Campo, and leaves the entire control of Church affairs to Father Ignatius."

"I see. The bishop is le roi fainéant, and Father Ignatius mayor of the palace."

"Just so. Yet despite his love of power he is a good man, and every one in Rivoli loves him. He was a second father to me in my boyhood. It was he who first directed and encouraged me in the study of painting, but of late he has looked with disapproval on my art."

"What! After your brilliant success?" cried Daphne. "He ought to be proud of his protégé."

"He is vexed because I have turned from the mediæval school with its 'Madonnas,' 'Pietas,' and 'Ecce Homos,' to seek inspiration from the pages of classic history. He thinks that whatever talent a man has should be consecrated to the service of the Church."

It was ever thus with Angelo. No matter what subject was being discussed he always contrived to drift down to art before long.

"What a pretty girl that is telling her beads before yonder crucifix!" said Daphne.

"Yes," replied the Italian, surveying the girl's figure with his artist's eye. "She would make a beautiful model for my 'Modesta the Martyr'—if I had not a fairer form in view," he murmured in a lower tone.

Impatiently I turned my eyes in the direction of that sentinel my uncle, and found him still on the watch at the sacristy-door. It swung open at last.

To my disappointment, however, neither priest nor penitent issued forth, but a man who had every appearance of being one of the attendants of the cathedral. He was walking over to us.

My heart beat fiercely. The mystery of last Christmas Eve was going to be cleared up!

The belief in my own mind that the attendant was going to invite me to the priest's room in order to interview the aged penitent was so great that I had actually risen to meet him—an unnecessary action on my part, for he passed by without regarding me, and, walking up to Angelo's picture of the Madonna, he removed it from the wall, and was preparing to depart with it, when he was stopped by the artist.

"What are you going to do with that picture, Paolo?" inquired Angelo, to whom the attendant was evidently well known.

"I am taking it to Father Ignatius' room," replied Paolo.

"What for?"

"Such are Father Ignatius' commands. He says it is to hang no more on these walls."

"No more! Why not? Did he give any reason?"

"None at all—to me. He seems extremely angry, and when he bade me do this his voice was sharper than I have ever heard it before. 'Take that man's handiwork down,' he cried, 'and burn it.'"

"Burn it! Did Father Ignatius say that?" said Angelo in a tone of concern.

"He did, Master Angelo," was the reply. "I told him that you were here in the cathedral sitting by the picture, and that you would be sure to ask why I was taking it down. 'Remove it at once, and burn it, I tell you,' was the only answer he would give me."

"You may tell Father Ignatius for me, Paolo, that I look upon this as an insult, and——"

"You must tell him that yourself, Master Angelo," replied Paolo, speaking with considerable freedom. "I have a sister in Purgatory whom he is going to set free next week by his prayers. He'd keep her in Purgatory forever if I gave him your message. You know the fiery stuff old Padre Ignatio is made of."

And with these words, so spoken that I could not tell whether he were in jest or earnest, the man marched off, carrying the picture with him.

The artist stared after him with so dark a look on his face that if Paolo had been in Purgatory in place of his sister, with Angelo for mass-priest, Paolo's detention would certainly have been a long one.

"What can this mean?" muttered the artist. "I shall see Father Ignatius to-night, and shall ask him the meaning of this affront."

"Perhaps," said Daphne, "the priest has seen me, and is vexed to think that the Madonna he asked you to paint, instead of being, as he supposed, an ideal face, is simply the portrait of an Englishwoman—and of an Englishwoman who is a heretic in his eyes, you know."

The artist was silent, and, turning to Daphne, I said:

"I will just ask uncle how long he is going to remain standing over there."

Walking off quickly, I overtook the attendant before he reached the sacristy door.

"You really do not know, then," said I to him, "why Father Ignatius wishes the picture to be destroyed?"

"I know no more than I told Master Angelo just now, sir."

My uncle at this juncture approached us, wondering much to see Angelo's Madonna in the hands of the attendant. Addressing Paolo, he said, while pointing to the sacristy door:

"The old man who went in here with the priest—is he still within? I want to see him."

"He is gone. Left a few minutes since."

"Gone? Left? What! both of them?"

"Both of them."

"They did not pass through this door-way then?"

"No, sir. They left the sacristy by a side-door."

"Confound it! Baffled!" exclaimed my uncle with a gesture of impatience, and stamping his foot. "After all this waiting, too! What are we to do, Frank?"

"Do you want very much to see this old man?" said Paolo. "Perhaps," and he looked around, as if to see that no priest were by—"perhaps I may be able to help you."

"Help us?" said my uncle. "Good! You will be the very man for our purpose. Ah!" he continued, as he saw the fellow's face gleam with the hope of a reward, "you worship the golden calf, I see. We understand each other. What is your name?"

"Paolo."

"Paolo, eh? None other? Perhaps you prefer a single name. The great men of Greece had but one. Well, Paolo, you must know every face in this little town. Tell us whether this old man is an inhabitant of Rivoli."

"He is a complete stranger to me," replied the attendant. "I have never seen his face till this morning."

"If, Paolo, you can find out for us what his name is, where he is staying, whence he came, and what business brings him here," my uncle continued, "I will give you more money than you can earn in a twelvemonth. There is an earnest of it," and he pressed some silver pieces into the fellow's palm. "But conduct your inquiries very secretly and cautiously. You understand? We do not wish him to suspect he is being watched. We are tourists staying at the Châlet Varina—you know it—a house perched on a crag on the mountain-side, two miles from here——"

"Châlet Varina! What, Andrea Valla's house—the great tenor's?"

"Ah! the great tenor's. He sings in the choir here, I believe. I see you know the house. Ask for Mr. Leslie. But stay," he ejaculated, as the thought passed through his mind that if the fellow called at the châlet the matter would have to be explained to Daphne—"stay. I will meet you this evening at eight. Be in the cathedral square at that hour. Can you contrive to be there?"

The man nodded assent and then pushing open the door of the sacristy to its full extent, showed us that his words were true, and that both priest and penitent had quitted the chamber.

"Stay," I said, ere the door closed; "ask him, uncle, whether Father Ignatius and the old man talked before him, and if so, what they said."

My uncle put this question, and Paolo replied:

"As they pushed open the door, I heard Father Ignatius say, 'When do you say this happened?' and the old man answered, 'Last Christmas Eve:' and that's all I heard, for when they saw me they stopped talking at once, and Father Ignatius ordered me in a voice of thunder to go and take down Master Angelo's Madonna and burn it here in the sacristy, though for what reason I can't make out; and then, as I said just now, they went out by the side-door, and that's all I know of the matter, and— But there's Serafino, the deacon, looking at me; he's sure to ask why you gave me this money."

And in some trepidation Paolo closed the door and occupied himself with whatever work he had to do within.

My uncle had become the personification of gravity.

"'Last Christmas Eve,'" he muttered, speaking slowly. "Did you hear what he said, Frank?"

"I heard it, uncle."

"That old man's confession must have had some reference to George."

"That's what I've been fancying all along."

"You say the priest started up excitedly at the recital of the other?"

"Yes, with a look of unspeakable horror. I was watching him closely, and could not mistake the expression."

"What caused the priest's excitement? Some terrible crime that the old man was relating. If so, whose? His own or another's?"

My uncle stared slowly round at the stained casements and sacred pictures, as if expecting an answer from them.

"Not his own. I will never believe that old man guilty of crime; his face is too noble."

"Face is no index to character," he returned; and then he added reflectively: "and no sooner does this priest quit the confessional than he orders Angelo's picture to be destroyed. Frank, what are we to make of this?" he added, a curious expression passing over his face as he glanced at the distant figure of the artist.

"Oh, that's easily explained," I rejoined. "The priest, as he sat in the confessional-box, saw Daphne and Angelo, and no doubt he considers that Madonna a sacrilegious piece of work."

"Ah! true, true," he replied, his brow clearing instantly; and after a pause he added: "Frank, say nothing to Daphne of our discovery. It will only excite her unnecessarily, and revive memories of George."

"You may depend on my silence. But if you wish her to suspect nothing, just try to infuse a little more gaiety into your countenance, for you are looking as grave as a judge."

"I look as I feel, then. I am afraid I should make a bad detective; my face always betrays my emotions. But what shall we say to Daphne, for she has been watching us? She is sure—women are so confoundedly curious—to ask the meaning of this long vigil of mine, and of the bribe to the attendant."

"I have told her," said I, as we moved off to join her and the artist, "that you fancied you saw an old friend of yours enter that sacristy. So keep up the farce."

"Now, papa," were Daphne's first words, "why have you been standing by that door so long?"

"Hem!" replied her parent, clearing his throat, and pausing to collect his inventive faculties. "I thought I saw a German friend of mine pass into that vestry—the great Professor Dulascanbee—gathering materials for his learned work, Ecclesiologia Helvetica, but I was mistaken. A silver fee to the attendant has elicited the fact that the man in the vestry doesn't resemble my learned friend at all; he always wears blue glasses. Well, my pseudo-Madonna," he continued, touching his pretty daughter under the chin, "what say you if we quit this 'dim religious light'?"

No one offering any opposition to this, we passed out through the porch. On the top of the cathedral steps Angelo paused.

"I shall not see you any more to-day, Miss Leslie. I have an appointment to keep, and must leave you at the foot of these stairs. It is a high festal day to-morrow in Rivoli. May I hope to see you present at early Mass in the morning? You love music, and I assure you, you will find the singing beautiful; Mozart's Twelfth Mass."

Daphne with a smile promised to be present if the weather were propitious; and thus ended our morning in the cathedral.

CHAPTER VII WHAT THE "STANDARD" SAID OF THE PICTURE

We did not return immediately to the châlet, but spent the rest of the day in exploring the antiquities of Rivoli. Daphne, from her resemblance to the cathedral Madonna, drew attention wherever she went. She frequently expressed her annoyance at the staring to which she was exposed, especially when she learned from some semi-audible remarks that she was regarded as the artist's future bride!

For my own part, I was secretly delighted at all this, knowing that with the increase of her displeasure came a proportional decrease in the artist's chances of winning her. It will be readily guessed that I did not let the grass grow beneath my feet, and in the absence of my rival I used every opportunity of strengthening my hold upon her affections.

Toward the close of the day, when the purple hues of twilight were suffusing the air, and the bell of the Angelus was sounding softly from the cathedral-tower, Daphne and I set off home. My uncle, promising to follow us later, lingered behind, on pretence of awaiting the arrival of the diligence from Campo (the nearest large town to Rivoli), with its slender freight of letters and newspapers, his real object being to keep his appointment with the cathedral attendant.

Old Ursula had prepared a dainty repast for us, and when the meal was over Daphne lit the lamp, drew the curtains, and took her seat by the fire.

"Read to me, Frank. There is a whole heap of newspapers over there."

I sat on a footstool at her feet, with the file of journals beside me, in the light of the blazing fire, and wished that Angelo were looking through the casement, to see how cosy and comfortable we were.

"Where shall I begin?"

"Anywhere you like."

"Very well. 'Theatre of Varieties, Westminster; every night, at 8:30, Tottie Rosebud will sing "Then she wunk the other eye." Admission—'"

"O Frank! How horrid you are!"

"Am I? You told me to read anywhere, so I took the first paragraph that my eyes fell on. However, as you don't like that, I'll turn to something else. 'Letter from Paris.' Would you like that?"

"Yes, that will do," she replied, composing her dainty little person comfortably in the big armchair.

So, compliant with her will, I began to read the lively letter of that mysterious personality, "Our Own Correspondent," keeping a cautious eye ahead, in case I should be landed before I was aware of it on some Parisian doings whose recital might offend the susceptibilities of my fair cousin, equally with those of that staid old lady, the British Matron. I had not read more than half a column, when my eye lighted upon a name that drew from me an exclamation of surprise.

"What's the matter, Frank?"

"Here's that fellow Vasari's name."

"Fellow Vasari, indeed!" returned Daphne with mock dignity. "Do you mean the eminent artist, Signor Angelo Vasari?"

"That's it. The oil-and-colour man. Here's a notice of his famous daub. This must be the critique he was referring to."

"O go on, Frank! Read it, read it!" she cried eagerly.

The praises of a rival are never very pleasant reading. They become doubly unpleasant when the beloved object is a listener. Pity me, then at having to read the following little Vasariad!

"'The principal topic of conversation among art-circles at present is a very remarkable picture, called in the catalogue "The Fall of Cæsar." The artist, who till yesterday was completely unknown to the public, is one Angelo Vasari, an Italian by birth, who has, however, spent the greater part of his life in the art-schools of London. He is said to be a descendant of the sixteenth-century Vasari, the friend of Popes and Princes, who has earned considerable fame by his Lives of the Painters. Though but twenty-five years of age, this new artist has produced a work that, without exaggeration, may be ranked with the finest compositions of Doré or Gérome. What he may be expected to accomplish when his genius is fully matured is shadowed forth by his present picture. What causes great surprise is the fact that up to the present time Vasari has never produced a work that deserved to rank above mediocrity. Indeed, so devoid of talent have his previous compositions been that the name "Il Divino" was bestowed upon him, not from his likeness to Raphael, but from his unlikeness. We are given to understand that when the artist was informed of the nickname, he replied unconcernedly: "Ah! then I must endeavour to merit the appellation."

"'"'Tis not in mortals to command success;" but Il Divino has both deserved and commanded it. His toil and perseverance have enabled him to turn the tables completely upon his critics, and from a poor, obscure, struggling artist he has become elevated to a position of fame and wealth, for the profits drawn from the crowds that have flocked to view the picture have been enormous.

"'That a young man accustomed only to paint mediocrities should, as it were, by one stroke produce a masterpiece is indeed a marvel, and there are not wanting tongues to say that "The Fall of Cæsar" is not the work of Vasari at all—an absurd statement, for it is not likely that the real author of such a remarkable work of genius would be so self-sacrificing as to give his glory to another. If there be any truth in this rumour, it is probably founded on the fact that some one may have collaborated with Vasari to produce a few minor points. If the latter be not the author of "The Fall of Cæsar," then assuredly his next work will betray him, unless indeed he has determined to rest his fame on this one picture only. But no importance is to be attached to the mysterious rumours current to account for the artist's success.

"'The Vasari Gallery is situated in the Rue de Sèvres, and admission is obtained by the payment of two francs. What the visitor first sees on entering the apartment devoted to this masterpiece is a wide doorway at the farther end draped on each side with curtains between which can be seen a court apparently open to the sky, since glimpses of a heavenly blue are visible between lofty columns. By one of these columns rises the statue of a warrior mounted on a pedestal, and at the base, with arrowy beams of sunlight streaming over it, lies a prostrate form, which requires no second glance to certify that it is a dead body, especially as the bloodstained weapons that have accomplished the deed are scattered on the pavement around.

"'The spectator (not in the secret) hurries forward, and on arriving at the end of the apartment can hardly be persuaded that no doorway exists, and that the whole scene is simply a picture painted on canvas. Yet so it is. The picture is draped on each side with curtains so disposed as to give it the appearance of a doorway. The light entering the apartment from above strikes the picture at a certain angle, and, aided by the marvellous perspective skill of the artist's brush, the picture has every appearance of being an actual scene beyond the room in which the spectator stands, and in which some terrible tragedy has taken place. The illusion is perfect.

"'We have indicated the principal features of the picture; the fallen Cæsar with his toga wrapped partly round him, the statue of Pompey rising above, a tesselated pavement stained with blood, here and there a discarded dagger, columnar architecture in the background: such are the simple elements presented by this work of art. The fidelity to archæological details displayed in all parts of the picture has satisfied the judgment of every antiquary who has examined the work.

"'The picture, as we have intimated, contains but two figures—a disappointing number, one might think; and yet it is no paradox to say that had the picture contained more it would have revealed less. Had the artist, for example, represented Marc Antony mourning over the dead body, and drawing eloquence from its pitiable aspect, the eloquence that was to excite the Forum, or had he given us the conspirators waving their swords aloft, their faces radiant with the enthusiasm of liberty, he would have drawn off the spectator's attention from the point which most deserves praise. In the multiplicity of details we should perhaps have lost sight of the marvellous manner in which the painter has triumphed over the difficulty of his subject in regard to the face of the dead Cæsar, expressing therein all the varying emotions that must have agitated the great Dictator's mind at the moment of his death.

"'How often the painter, desirous of depicting the human countenance lit up by some sublime feeling, has had to lament the impotence of his art!

"'Timanthes, unable to express the death-emotion on the face of Agamemnon, conceals the head of the king in a purple robe; Da Vinci in "The Last Supper," despairing of diffusing a ray of divinity over the features of the Saviour, lays down his pencil, and leaves nothing but a blank oval for the face.

"'Who shall succeed where such masters fail? Echo answers—Vasari! A bold statement, but a true one!

"'Mr. Vasari might reasonably and with perfect fidelity to historic truth have adopted the method of Timanthes, since, every schoolboy knows, that Cæsar fell with his head concealed in the folds of his toga; but, disdaining the pusillanimity of such a method, the artist has permitted the whole of Cæsar's face to be seen, for the purpose of delineating with ghastly realism the expression of a dead face. The effect of the sunlight quivering on——'"

At this point I paused to look up at Daphne, whose eyes were eloquently expressive of the interest she was taking in the subject of my reading, and remarked quietly:

"To be continued in our next."

"Go on," she said eagerly. "Don't stop."

It was with a certain amount of malice that I replied:

"There is no more."

"No more? It doesn't end in the middle of a sentence?"

"Probably not. But some one has been kind enough to tear off the bottom of this sheet just at the very line I have arrived at."

"Oh, how annoying! Isn't it continued at the top of the next column?"

"Fortunately—no."

"Fortunately?"

"Yes; I'm tired of it; it's the essence of dulness. I marvel that the writer is still at large."

"Who can have torn it," she said, taking no notice of my gibe. "Not uncle, I'm sure. Oh, I know now. It was Angelo himself that did it. Don't you remember? This morning, when he lit his cigar."

The memory of this last event invested the newspaper article with an interest which it did not before possess in my eyes. I recalled the artist's uneasy manner when asking whether my uncle or myself had read the critique on his picture, his evident satisfaction when he found we had not, the triumphant air with which he had lit his cigar with a piece of newspaper; and this conduct disposed me to think that he had designedly torn off the bottom of the column containing the end of the article.

The more I dwelt on the matter the more my opinion became strengthened. I was as anxious now as Daphne to read the critique to the end.

"How curious that Angelo should tear the very paper referring to himself!" remarked Daphne.

"Very!" I responded drily.

"Can't we get another copy of this Standard?"

"Not at Rivoli. Rome or Paris is the nearest place to send to, and then it will be at least four days in arriving. Besides, it's an old copy, and very likely no more are left."

"How provoking! You'll send to-morrow for another copy, won't you Frank?"

"Most readily. I, too, wish to see the end of this article."

"Why, you said just now that it was the essence of dulness."

"Yes, but you know what a variable mortal I am."

"How well the paper speaks of him!" said Daphne, taking up the Standard, and dwelling with more pleasure than I cared to see on the flattering language bestowed on the artist. "Angelo isn't vain, that's easy to be seen. Didn't you notice how reluctant he was this morning to speak of his picture? One had to draw it out of him, as it were. I am glad he has made a name at last. 'There are not wanting tongues,'" she continued, reading from the paper, "'to say that it is not the work of Vasari at all.' What a shame to say that!" she ejaculated with considerable indignation. "When his pictures were not very good the critics sneered at him and called him 'Il Divino'; and now that he has produced something good they suggest that some one else painted it for him. Just like the critics! Fancy Angelo being a descendant of the great Vasari, too!"

"No great honour," I returned, as eager to depreciate the artist as Daphne was to exalt him. "His great ancestor's pictures have always been considered daubs; and as for the famous book, Lives of the Painters, it is supposed not to have been written by Vasari."

Critics will bear me out in these statements; but Daphne scorned criticism, and would not listen to any reflections on Angelo's ancestor.

"Ah! I suppose it's the case of Shakespeare v. Bacon over again. Well, for my part I believe in Shakespeare. Say good-night to papa for me."

And she danced gaily off to bed at an earlier hour than usual. Was she going to dream of the artist?

Now, ever since my interest had been roused in the critique of the picture my eyes had been fixed on the fireplace, where Angelo, after lighting his cigar, had thrown the burnt paper, and in one corner of the fender I had fancied I could perceive a charred piece of paper. Accordingly after Daphne had gone I pounced on this fragment. It crumbled to black powder in my hands, save one little unburnt piece.

This piece contained six words only; yet they were sufficient to cause my pulse to throb more quickly:

an Anglo-Indian officer to judge.

That was all; and I had some difficulty in making out even those few words, owing to the blackened aspect of the paper. I did not doubt that they formed a part of the critique, and that the paragraph in which they occurred was one that the artist was anxious to conceal from us.

The memory of my lost brother had been strangely revived by the events of the day, and the phrase "an Anglo-Indian officer" naturally and immediately associated itself with his name. It was impossible in my then state of ignorance to establish a connexion between my brother and Angelo's picture, and the various hypotheses I framed to account for the admission of his name into the art-critique would fill a chapter.

"It was a mean trick of Angelo's," I muttered, "to mutilate that paper. I am certain it contained a reference to George. I would give fifty pounds to know his reason for so doing. No matter; this little mystification can't last very long, for I'll send to England for another copy to-morrow."

From the picture my thoughts wandered to the hidalgo whom Angelo had represented as having purchased it, and with a view to learning something, however brief, about this grandee, I took down from the shelf a book on the Spanish peerage, and turned over its pages. I was still occupied thus when my uncle returned.

"Have you discovered anything?" was my first question.

"Absolutely nothing."

"Paolo had nothing to reveal?"

"Paolo was not there. I was in the cathedral square by eight, but could see nothing of him. I looked in at the cathedral, too. It was bright with lamps, being the eve of a festa; but he was not there; so, after two hours' patient watching and waiting, I gave it up in disgust."

"We are sure to see him at early Mass; his duties will take him there."

"Probably," replied my uncle, sinking into the armchair lately vacated by Daphne, and lighting a cigar. "But what ponderous tome are you poring over so studiously?"

"The Spanish Peerage."

"Ah! take St. Paul's advice, 'Beware of endless genealogies,' for they are dull reading."

"Not when one has a motive for studying them."

"A motive? Great Jupiter! what has made you take so sudden an interest in the hidalgos?"

"You remember to whom Angelo said he had sold his picture?"

"The Spanish baron, De Argandarez. Ah! I see, you are looking him up."

"I am; and, do you know, I cannot find the name anywhere in this book."

"You haven't looked in the right place."

"Well, here is the book; examine it for yourself. Here is the list of barons. Find De Argandarez."

"Humph! I have no wish to qualify myself for a Spanish herald. I'll take your word for it that the name of Argandarez is not here, merely remarking that the book is dated 1898, and that therefore the fellow may have been created a baron since then, which will account for the omission of his name."

"What! When Angelo called him an old hidalgo of Aragon, and spoke of his ancestral walls, or ancestral castle, or something similar! At any rate, he used the word ancestral."

"Ha! I remember something of the sort," my uncle said, and the alert glance in his eye belied the indifference in his tone. "You are certain the name does not occur in this book? Hum! Unless it be an editorial oversight, our noble grandee would seem to have no existence, save in the imagination of Angelo. Il Divino is slightly given to romancing."

"Il Divino must have had a motive for the—lie," I replied, with an emphasis on the last word, as a protest against my uncle's euphemism. "He evidently wishes the destination of his picture to remain unknown to us."

"Why should he wish that? And even if he does, it is impossible for him to conceal it. The sale of so notable a work of art would be mentioned in all the papers, together with the name of the buyer."

"Not necessarily. An agent may have bought it for a client who wishes his name to be kept secret. Or the sale may have been a private affair between Angelo and the purchaser."

"Granted," he agreed. "To tell you the truth, Frank, there's something about Angelo's success I can't understand. How, after his many failures, he has contrived, by the exhibition of one picture only, to acquire so great a name is a mystery."

"So the public seem to think. Here is the Standard's account of it."

I passed the paper to my uncle, who read as far as he could, and then exclaimed:

"The end has been torn off!"

"Yes, by Angelo this morning when he lit his cigar; designedly torn off, I believe. This is a fragment of the burnt piece," I said, laying it before him.

My uncle did not betray the excitement that I had expected of him.

"So you think the mutilation of this newspaper intentional?" he asked with a half-smile.

"I am certain of it."

"How suspicious you are growing of Il Divino! A lover's jealousy, I suppose," he said, knocking the ash of his cigar into the fender.

"There was something in that paper that Angelo did not wish us to see," I replied. "That something, whatever it was, was probably peculiar to this paper, and Angelo supposes that if we are prevented from taking note of it now, we shall never hear of it again."

My uncle regarded me with a look of good-humoured surprise before taking a whiff again at his cigar.

"Nonsense!" he returned. "My dear Frank, whatever was in the Standard cannot be a secret. It's absurd to suppose that Angelo is trying to keep from us that with which a large number of the reading public is already familiar."

"Yes, but the reading public are not, like us, behind the scenes and familiar with the artist. In a sentence they would pass over as of no note we, who can read between the lines, might discover something."

"Well, what is this something we might discover?"

"'An Anglo-Indian officer,'" I said, tracing the words with my finger. "George is an Anglo-Indian officer; so are his chief friends. 'The Anglo-Indian officer' alluded to here is either George himself—and, if so, this passage would afford a clue to his movements—or it is a friend of his, recently returned from India, and from whom information respecting George might be obtained."

"Granting your inference, what motive has Angelo for wishing to conceal the fact from us?"

"Motive? His motive is pretty obvious after to-day's revelation. He is in love with Daphne, and, being so, he is tormented by two ideas—namely, that she still retains her love for George, and that George himself may yet return to claim her. Therefore, do you think he wishes her to know where George is? Not likely! His plan is to woo and win her before George reappears to spoil his game."

"I do not think so. The tearing of that paragraph was an accident."

"An accident? Did you not notice this morning how anxious he was to know if we had read this critique; how relieved he seemed when he learned we had not? Singular that he should light his cigar with a bit of newspaper, pretending he could see no matches in the room, when all the time they were staring at him from the mantel! Singular, too, that out of fifty newspapers he should light on the very one in which this eulogy of himself is, and tear the very column containing it, leaving, however, sufficient to show what a great man he has developed into. An accident? Bah! My good uncle, give me credit for a little discernment."

"Or—a picturesque imagination. Well, well, if you think the paragraph of such importance, by all means send to England for a copy of the Standard of July 2nd. If there were anything of consequence in it, I feel sure that some friend would have called our attention to it before now."

I was silent, and my uncle occupied himself in reading the article again.

"I wonder," he remarked, "if there is any truth in the suggestion that some one else painted the picture?"

"Can George paint?" I asked: an unnecessary question on my part, for my uncle knew no more of the matter than I.

"Never knew him to handle the brush; though it is not unlikely he may have studied painting a little in India, but scarcely to the extent of being able to produce a masterpiece such as we have been reading about."

"You remember the date Angelo assigned for his arrival at Paris."

"I do. It was the day after we left."

"Exactly. And don't you think it strange that he should arrive there the very day after we had taken our departure?"

"I see nothing strange in it."

"And then, talking of his arrival at Paris, he made use of the plural 'we.' 'We arrived,' he said, and then, suddenly checking himself, he altered it to 'I did not arrive.' Do you remember it?"

"I can't say I do."

"But I do, though, and wondered at it. Now who are they who compose the 'we'?"

"He and his agent, probably; or he and those who were conveying the picture."

"If he meant those persons only, why should he check himself so sharply?"

My uncle shrugged his shoulders, as if he were growing tired of the subject. "I think, Frank," he said, "that you are attaching too much importance to a trivial expression."

"Possibly I may be; but I cannot help thinking that a mystery surrounds the production of Angelo's picture, and that the mystery is in some way connected with George."

CHAPTER VIII HIGH MASS AND WHAT HAPPENED AT IT

The morning dawned more soft and lovely than the preceding one: a boon to the good people of Rivoli, for it was a gala-day with them.

Daphne, my uncle and myself rose with the break of day, and at an early hour we were standing in the market-place watching the worshippers throng into the cathedral.

Be it far from me to attempt to describe the various ornaments and robes displayed by the dames of Rivoli on this festal occasion: the silver chains and rich headdresses, the dainty cloaks and embroidered kirtles. Suffice it to say there was sufficient white, blue, and black among them to gladden the heart of his Holiness the late Pope, who has expressed his approval of these colours as most becoming to young persons. Nor were sober grey and brown wanting, hues suitable, according to the same authority, to ladies of a more advanced age.

"To be or not to be? that is the question," murmured my uncle, as the last devotee filed into the cathedral, and the great square was left to us. "Whether 'tis nobler to follow the crowd into this edifice to witness a ceremony whose superstition provokes my irreverence, or to stroll onward in the soft morning air and finish this weed? Havana versus church, that is the question."

"No question at all," said Daphne; and, compelling her pagan parent to fling away his cigar and assume a more decorous air, she drew him within the cathedral.

As we came as spectators only, we took up our position in a side-cloister. Looking round for the artist among the crowd of worshippers I at length discovered him in the very first line of seats, reading a Missal, with such attention that he never once glanced to left or right. His devout air and the position he had taken so near the chancel evidently implied an intention to partake of the Communion.

On the high altar seven lofty candlesticks of solid silver, each with its seven waxen tapers, gleamed on the great brazen gates of the chancel, and on the lofty casement above with its blazoned saints and angels, and fretwork of purple and gold. The splendour was sufficient to illumine the whole length of the nave, and, contrasted with the gloom of the more remote parts of the edifice, had a dazzling, not to say theatrical, effect.

We had not occupied our position in the aisle above two minutes, when forth from the sacristy issued the train of the priests and their auxiliaries. Thurifers swinging slow their golden censers, and acolytes with lighted tapers, led the way to the chancel. Father Ignatius, his eyes fixed on the ground, came last, robed in a magnificent white cope, and bearing under a veil the sacred vessels, which he deposited on the altar.

"What is the matter?" remarked Daphne presently. "Why do they not begin?"

This question found an echo in my own mind. Though several minutes had elapsed since Ignatius had entered the sanctuary, he had not yet begun the prefatory rite of incensing the crucifix, but was conversing in whispers with his deacon, and their motions and glances, which were directed towards Angelo, seemed to intimate that the artist was the subject of their talk. It was with considerable surprise that we saw the deacon leave the sanctuary and, walking over to the spot where Angelo sat, still absorbed in his Missal, hold a brief but animated conversation with him. Presently he returned to the side of Father Ignatius. Whatever the object of this intercourse may have been, it had met with failure, to judge by the perplexed looks of the deacon.

The service commenced. The organ, touched by a master-hand, rolled with grand cadence through the cathedral, now swelling high and loud to the lofty arches above, now dying away with faint echoes in far-off aisles.

From the chancel issued voices so mysteriously beautiful as to suggest the idea of a hidden choir of angels. Daphne was deeply interested, and even my anti-ecclesiastical uncle condescended to remark that it was a "well-organised noise."

As for me, the character of the worship was such that at any other time it would have enthralled my senses and filled me with dreams of mediævalism; but on the present occasion curiosity to know the nature of the communication that had passed between Angelo and the deacon overcame every other feeling, and made me inattentive to the solemnity.

The tinkling bell of the acolyte sounded, and the assembly fell on their knees as Father Ignatius elevated the sacred host for the adoration of the faithful. The sun by this time had mounted high above the rooftops and was now gilding the chancel-window with its splendour: and from the holy dove figured at the apex of this casement, arrowy beams of mystic and many coloured light slanted full on the head of the aged priest, lighting up a countenance thin and ascetic, yet bearing in every lineament the lofty spirit and iron will of a Hildebrand.

The time had come for the people to receive the Mass. Among the first to advance and kneel reverently at the altar-rails was Angelo. My position prevented me from seeing his face. I could not help wondering whether his faith was sincere, and whether, in accordance with the spirit of the holy mystery, he was in charity with all mankind, even with me, his rival.

The administration of the sacrament was conducted by Father Ignatius accompanied by the deacon, who held the paten under his host as it was placed on the tongue of the receiver. The worthy padre commenced at the Epistle side of the altar. Angelo was the ninth in order from that end. We noticed with surprise that Ignatius, while giving the host to the first eight, never once looked at them, but kept his eyes all the time on Angelo with a fixed stony expression that gave no indication of his thoughts.

I waited with painful interest for the priest to confront Angelo, absurdly thinking there might be some secret between them, and that in addition to the ritual words Ignatius might whisper others not of sacred import. I was certainly not prepared for the result. As Angelo reverently elevated his face to receive the wafer between his lips, Ignatius, affecting not to notice the action, passed him by for the next communicant, and proceeded with the delivery.

I was doubtful at first whether I had seen aright, but the looks interchanged among the assembly told me that others too had observed the action. My wonder found its reflection in the wide-open eyes of Daphne; her arm trembled on mine, but she did not speak; for a deep silence had fallen over all, and the faintest whisper would have attracted attention.

What could be the reason for this action on the part of the priest? What could Angelo have done to forfeit the privileges of the Church? Quick as a flash of light there rose before me the confessional scene of the preceding day. Was the rejection of Angelo the result of the recital made to Father Ignatius by the silver-haired penitent? Of the nature of that confession I had only an inkling, but that it was the key to this priest's conduct I felt certain.

The first line of communicants retired to their seats. The artist did not move but remained kneeling solitary and silent, his lips pressing the cold marble chancel-rails, his hands clasped nervously above his dark hair, as if he were supplicating the Church, his mother, to receive and forgive an erring child.

For a brief moment I had entertained the idea that Ignatius, in passing Angelo by, had perhaps committed an oversight. It was impossible now for him not to perceive the artist; but with a face cold and impenetrable as marble he stood erect within the chancel, openly ignoring the other's mute appeal to be noticed. It was clear that his refusal to give the Communion to him was a deliberate act. The most exquisite penalty that can fall on the soul of a devout Catholic had fallen on Angelo. A rustle of surprise passed through the assembly like the ripple of the forest-leaves swayed by the summer breeze.

Despite my jealousy I could not help pitying the artist at having to suffer this slight in the face of a great mass of people. He had crossed the sea and travelled hundreds of miles expressly (so he had told us) to be present at this solemn festa—a festa hallowed by all the memories of his childhood and youth; and the end of it all was to become an excommunicate from the Church he loved, an object of suspicion to the people among whom he had been brought up.

Several minutes had elapsed since the first communicants had retired; a second line had not yet come forward, and the artist continued to kneel in silent loneliness. Still he moved not, as if dreading to lift his head and face the wondering eyes of the faithful.

Father Ignatius was in a dilemma. Knowing—as I supposed—his old protégé's passionate nature, he feared that a command for the artist to retire might provoke an outburst of rage that would profane the sacred solemnity. He hesitated to speak, and so this singular tableau continued some moments longer, and people looked at each other, wondering how it was going to end.

Suddenly the deep hush and awe that lay on all was broken. Sweetly, solemnly, from some hidden portion of the chancel, in tones as clear as a silver bell, the voice of a woman arose. She was singing a sacred solo; and the words directed none to draw near the altar but those whose consciences were pure, whose lives were holy. The effect of this music was thrilling in the extreme. Whether applicable or not to the would-be communicant, certain it was that his whole figure quivered like an aspen, and his head sank still lower on the chancel-rails. The solo did not form part of Mozart's Mass, and I could not help thinking afterwards that Father Ignatius had previously directed that the words should be sung in the event of the artist's presenting himself at the altar.

Still Angelo did not stir; and the deacon glanced at Father Ignatius, as if apprehensive of a disturbance. That ecclesiastic staved off the difficulty for a time by motioning the attendants to bring forward a second line of communicants, who, advancing to the chancel, knelt some on one side of Angelo, some on the other.

Would the priest ignore the artist a second time? was the thought that filled every mind in the cathedral. Interest gleamed from every face. The sanctuary had assumed for the time being the aspect of a stage, and with bated breath the assembly awaited the result, as an audience awaits the dénouement of a play. The only person who showed no trace of feeling was Ignatius himself. With solemn air he proceeded to the delivery of the Sacrament. Once more he approached the artist, who elevated his face to receive the host, and once more did Ignatius pass him by.

At this second refusal Angelo bounded to his feet with a suddenness that startled every one except Ignatius, who, calm and dignified, drew back a few paces, covering with the linen corporal the paten containing the wafers as if to guard them from seizure and profanation.

With eyes of fire and lip of scorn Angelo glared round on the assembly, as if in disdain of any opinion they might have formed of him, his face proud, dark, and defiant. The cathedral attendants, observing his wild bearing, were stepping forward to remove him, but a signal from Father Ignatius checked their advance.

"Peace!" he exclaimed with lifted hand, and at his word the rising murmur of many voices was hushed. "Peace! Let there be no tumult, I pray you, my children. My conduct may seem harsh, but the occasion warrants it. My son," he continued, turning to the artist, "you have forced this humiliation on yourself. Warned yestereven by me that you had forfeited the privileges of the Church, you have yet dared to disobey her voice, and to approach her hallowed altar. Leave this holy place, I pray you in quietude; or if force be employed in your removal, on your head be the guilt of profanation!"

A wave of emotion swept over Angelo, but with an effort he subdued it, and faced the priest.

"One question, and I retire. For what reason do you thus refuse me the Mass?"

"The reverence due to the holy mysteries forbids you to participate in them. Now go. Would that my words might be: Vade in pace!" The voice of a judge giving sentence of death could not have been more impressive than those solemn tones issuing from the depths of the chancel. "Will you compel me to speak out?" he added, as the artist showed no sign of moving. "Let your own conscience vindicate me."

"My conscience acquits me of any action that can justify you in excluding me from the Communion."

"The saints pardon thee that falsehood, my son!"

"Falsehood!" repeated the artist, stepping up to the chancel rails with clenched hands, and with so dark an expression on his face that I thought he was going to attack Ignatius. "If it were not for your age and holy office, you would not dare use such words to me. But the priest is protected by his alb and chasuble, as a woman by her sex. You have publicly affronted me. I demand an explanation, nor will I retire till you give it."

"This is not the time or place. At the confessional will I hear thee—nay, absolve thee; but come not as thou art to the holy altar."

"I tell you,"—Angelo began angrily, but Ignatius would not hear him.

"Too long have we listened to thee!" he exclaimed with a gesture of impatience. "Attendants, remove this brawler, ere from the high altar we curse him with bell, book, and candle!"

"Touch me at your peril!" cried Angelo fiercely. "Who dare accuse me of——"

His eyes, glaring defiantly round at one and all, suddenly lighted upon us. There in that hour of his humiliation he beheld a sight calculated to call up all the bitterness of his nature; the woman whom he loved reclining in the arms of the man whom he hated! Daphne, with a frightened air, was clinging half fainting to me.

He cast a look at her as if appealing for sympathy, but in the expression of her face, and in the quickly averted motion of her head, he read the loss of all his hopes.

I was but human—it was ignoble of me, I know—but I could not repress the exultant thought that this was a splendid triumph for me!

A similar thought was evidently passing through the mind of the artist. Despair caused him to stand immovable, staring in Daphne's direction, regardless of the people's murmurs that rose on the air like the sound of many waters—regardless of the advice of the attendants to withdraw quietly. Like a statue he stood, deaf to their appeals, till at length, losing their patience, the attendants, aided by some of of the worshippers, laid hands on him to enforce his removal. Their grasp seemed to rouse all the latent fury of his nature.

"Touch me at your peril!" he cried, struggling to free himself from their grasp and actually striking out among them with clenched hands. "Who dare accuse me of guilt? I have not deserved this," he continued, panting and breathless, as he was dragged with more force than ceremony from the chancel. "Let me go. Release my wrists. I am going quietly, I tell you. Will you not take my word? Cowards! Oh, if my hands were but free! I ... let me go ... I tell you ... let me——"

The oaken door of the sacristy removed the struggling group from our view; and the scene that for the space of a few minutes had degraded a holy solemnity to the level of a stage-representation was at an end.

"Why, the boy must be mad!" cried my uncle, as Angelo's cries became lost in the distance.