ious model that had dissatisfied me. I now took out the
figure too, for the figure of this new model was as perfect as her
face.'

'Go on, go on. What occurred?'

'Nothing, save that she stood dumb, like one who had no language save
that of another world. But at the second sitting she had a fit of a
most dreadful kind.'

'Ah! Tell me quickly,' I said. Her face became suddenly distorted by
an expression of terror such as I had never seen and never imagined
possible. I have caught it exactly in my picture "Christabel." She
revived and tried to run out of the studio. Her mother and I seized
her, and she then fell down insensible.'

'What occasioned the fit? What had frightened her?'

'That is what I am not quite certain about. When she entered the
studio she fixed her eyes upon a portrait which I had been working
upon; but that must have been merely a coincidence.'

'A portrait!' I cried. And Winifred's scared expression when she
encountered my mother's look of hate in the churchyard came back to
me like a scene witnessed in a flash of lightning. 'The portrait was
my mother's?'

'It was the face of the kind, tender, and noble lady your mother,'
said Wilderspin gently.

I gave a hurried glance at my mother, and saw the pallor of her
face,--but to me the world held now only two realities, Winifred and
Wilderspin; all other people were dreams, obtrusive and irritating
dreams. 'Go on, go on,' I said.

'She recovered,' continued Wilderspin, 'and seemed to have forgotten
all about the portrait, which I had put away.'

'Did she talk?'

'Never, Mr. Aylwin,' said Wilderspin solemnly. 'Nor did I invite her
to talk, knowing whence she came--from the spirit-world. At the first
few sittings Mrs. Gudgeon came with her, and would sit looking on
with the intention of seeing that she came to no harm. She said her
daughter was very beautiful, and she, her mother, never trusted her
with men.'

'God bless the hag, God bless her; but go on!'

'Gradually Mrs. Gudgeon seemed to acquire more confidence in me; and
one day, on leaving, she lingered behind the girl, and told me that
her daughter, though uncommonly stupid and a little touched in the
head, had now learnt her way to my studio, and that in future she
should let her come alone, as she believed that she could trust her
with me. She warned me earnestly, however, not to "worrit" the girl
by asking her all sorts of questions.'

'And there she was right,' I cried. 'But yo