mworth cried. She forgot all her fears in face of
this splendid revelation of his skill. Here was the fulfilment of his
promise.

In the centre four pictures were ranged, the stages in the progress of
an allegory, but executed with such masterful craft and of so vivid an
intention that they read their message straightway into the heart of
one's understanding. Round about this group, were smaller sketches,
miniatures of pure fancy. It seemed as if the artist had sought relief
in painting these from the pressure of his chief design. Here, for
instance, Day and Night were chasing one another through the rings of
Saturn; there a swarm of silver stars was settling down through the
darkness to the earth.

"Julian, you must come back. You can't stay here."

"I don't mean to stay here long. It is merely a halting-place."

"But for how long?"

"I have one more picture to complete."

They turned again to the wall. Suddenly something caught Lady
Tamworth's eye. She bent forward and examined the four pictures with
a close scrutiny. Then she looked back again to Julian with a happy
smile upon her face. "You have done these lately?"

"Quite lately; they are the stages of a man's life, of the struggle
between his passions and his will."

He began to describe them. In the first picture a brutish god was
seated on a throne of clay; before the god a man of coarse heavy
features lay grovelling; but from his shoulders sprang a white figure,
weak as yet and shadowy, but pointing against the god the shadow of a
spear; and underneath was written, "At last he knoweth what he made."
In the second, the figure which grovelled and that which sprang from
its shoulders were plodding along a high-road at night, chained
together by the wrist. The white figure halted behind, the other
pressed on; and underneath was written, "They know each other not." In
the third the figures marched level, that which had grovelled scowling
at its companion; but the white figure had grown tall and strong and
watched its companion with contempt. Above the sky had brightened
with the gleam of stars; and underneath was written, "They know each
other." In the fourth, the white figure pressed on ahead and dragged
the other by the chain impatiently. Before them the sun was rising
over the edge of a heath and the road ran straight towards it in a
golden line; and underneath was written, "He knoweth his burden."

Lady Tamworth waited when he had finished, in a laugh