g forward, he stared at the painting, panting as
he might after racing for a wager. He stood in perfect silence, for I
know not how long, as though it were Medusa he was gazing on, and when at
last he clasped his hand to his brow, I called him by name. He made no
reply, but an impatient 'Leave me alone!' and then he still gazed at the
face as though to devour it with his eyes, and without a sound.

"I did not disturb him; for, thought I, he too is bewitched by the
exquisite beauty of those virgin features. So we were both silent, till
he asked, in a choked voice: 'And did you paint that? Is that, do you
say, the daughter that Seleukus has just lost?'

"Of course I said 'Yes'; but then he turned on me in a rage, and
reproached me bitterly for deceiving and cheating him, and jesting with
things that to him were sacred, though I might think them a subject for
sport.

"I assured him that my answer was as earnest as it was accurate, and that
every word of my story was true.

"This only made him more furious. I, too, began to get angry, and as he,
evidently deeply agitated, still persisted in saying that my picture
could not have been painted from the dead Korinna, I swore to him
solemnly, with the most sacred oath I could think of, that it was really
so.

"On this he declared to me in words so tender and touching as I never
before heard from his lips, that if I were deceiving him his peace of
mind would be forever destroyed-nay, that he feared for his reason; and
when I had repeatedly assured him, by the memory of our departed mother,
that I had never dreamed of playing a trick upon him, he shook his head,
grasped his brow, and turned to leave the room without another word."

"And you let him go?" cried Melissa, in anxious alarm.

"Certainly not," replied the painter. "On the contrary, I stood in his
way, and asked him whether he had known Korinna, and what all this might
mean. But he would make no reply, and tried to pass me and get away. It
must have been a strange scene, for we two big men struggled as if we
were at a wrestling-match. I got him down with one hand behind his knees,
and so he had to remain; and when I had promised to let him go, he
confessed that he had seen Korinna at the house of her uncle, the
high-priest, without knowing who she was or even speaking a word to her.
And he, who usually flees from every creature wearing a woman's robe, had
never forgotten that maiden and her noble beauty; and, thoug