he thrust his
maul-stick through it, then kicked easel and painting to the floor.

Coello, shaking his head, watched him, and tried to soothe him with
kindly words, but Ulrich paid no heed, exclaiming:

"It is all over with art, all over. A Dios, Master! Your daughter does
not care for love without art, and art and I have nothing more to do
with each other."

At the door he paused, strove to regain his self-control, and at last
held out his hand to Coello, who was gazing sorrowfully after him.

The artist gladly extended his, and Ulrich, pressing it warmly, murmured
in an agitated, trembling voice:

"Forgive this raving.... It is only.. I only feel, as if I was bearing
all that had been dear to me to the grave. Thanks, Master, thanks
for many kindnesses. I am, I have--my heart--my brain, everything is
confused. I only know that you, that Isabella, have been kind to me and
I, I have--it will kill me yet! Good fortune gone! Art gone! A Dios,
treacherous world! A Dios, divine art!"

As he uttered the last sentence he drew his hand from the artist's
grasp, rushed back into the studio, and with streaming eyes pressed his
lips to the palette, the handle of the brush, and his ruined picture;
then he dashed past Coello into the street.

The artist longed to go to his child; but the king detained him in the
park. At last he was permitted to return to the Alcazar.

Isabella was waiting on the steps, before the door of their apartments.
She had stood there a long, long time.

"Father!" she called.

Coello looked up sadly and gave an answer in the negative by
compassionately waving his hand.

The young girl shivered, as if a chill breeze had struck her, and when
the artist stood beside her, she gazed enquiringly at him with her dark
eyes, which looked larger than ever in the pallid, emaciated face, and
said in a low, firm tone:

"I want to speak to him. You will take me to the picture. I must see
it."

"He has thrust his maul-stick through it. Believe me, child, you would
have condemned it yourself."

"And yet, yet! I must see it," she answered earnestly, "see it
with these eyes. I feel, I know--he is an artist. Wait, I'll get my
mantilla."

Isabella hurried back with flying feet, and when a short time after,
wearing the black lace kerchief on her head, she descended the staircase
by her father's side, the private secretary de Soto came towards them,
exclaiming:

"Do you want to hear the latest news, Coello?