our later Julian Goetze was standing alone in his studio. The sketch
fresh from his brush was before him, and beneath it, resting upon the
floor, was another somewhat farther advanced.

He had painted until the light had begun to grow yellow and dim, then he
had reluctantly told his sitter that he could do no more for that day.

"And when shall I come again?" she had asked.

He would have said, "Come to-morrow," had he dared; but remembering
other engagements, and knowing that the work could not be continued so
soon, he had hesitated before replying.

"I can go on with the picture in two or three days; come as soon after
that as--as you wish," he said, softly.

Their eyes met for a moment; the delicate color deepened in her cheeks,
her lips murmured a half inaudible word of adieu, and she was gone.

Julian left alone had flung himself into a large chair that stood near
the window, and looked out upon the little garden beyond. It was June.
The days were long and the sun was still touching the tops of the locust
trees. He was away from the bustle of the city, and an atmosphere of
peace almost like that of the country was about him. All at once he
covered his face with his hands, pressing his fingers hard into his
eyes.

"I love her, I love her," he groaned; "she is an angel from heaven, and
I--oh, my God! if she knew she would hate me."

He rose and stood before the face on the easel; then, as if suddenly
recollecting, he approached the canvas that was turned face to the wall,
and which once before that day had claimed his attention, and, facing it
nervously about, placed it beneath the other.

It was the portrait of a woman. Like the one above her, she was fair and
beautiful; but here all resemblance apparently ceased. Nothing could be
more widely different than the characters that had stamped themselves
upon the faces of these two.

The picture on the floor was that of a woman whose age might be anywhere
from twenty-five to thirty-five; a woman of the great world of fashion,
of folly, of intrigue, perhaps of vice. Her dress was a rich ball
costume, exposing the white flesh of her beautiful arms, her perfect
shoulders, and her pearly tinted throat and bosom. Like the other, her
face was oval in shape, but seemed less perfect in its contour. There
was a certain lack of delicacy and softness about the outline that
suggested the fierce chase after the sham pleasures of the great social
world.

The rest of the f