ssion
to admit. They forgot to praise the picture; but Morewood was well
content with their tacit homage.

"The finest thing I ever did--on my life; one of the finest things any
one ever did," he murmured; "and I can't show it!"

"No," said Eugene.

Ayre rose and took his stand before the picture. Then he got a chair,
choosing the lowest he could find, and sat down, sitting well back.
This attitude brought him exactly under the gaze of the eyes.

"Is it your diabolic fancy," he said, "or did you honestly copy it?"

"I never struck closer to what I saw," the painter replied. "It's not my
doing; he looked like that."

"Then who was sitting, as it were, where I am now?"

"Yes," said Morewood. "I thought you couldn't miss it."

"Who was it?" asked Eugene, in an excited way.

The others looked keenly at him for a moment.

"You know," said Morewood. "Claudia Territon. She was sitting there
reading. He had a book, too, but had laid it down on his knee. She sat
reading, and he looking. In a moment I caught the look. Then she put
down the book; and as she turned to him to speak, in a second it was
gone, and he was not this picture nor the other, but as we know him
every day."

"She didn't see?" asked Eugene.

"No."

"Thank God!" he cried. Then in a moment, recollecting himself, he looked
at the two men, and saw what he had done. They tried to look as if they
noticed nothing.

"You must destroy that thing, Morewood," said he.

Morewood's face was a study.

"I would as soon," he said deliberately, "cut off my right hand."

"I'll give you a thousand pounds for it," said Eugene.

"What would you do with it?"

"Burn it."

"Then you shouldn't have it for ten thousand."

"I thought you'd say that. But he mustn't see it."

"Why, Lane, you're as bad as a child. It's a man in love, that's all."

"If he saw it," said Eugene, "he'd hang himself."

"Oh, gently!" said Ayre. "If you ask me, I expect Stafford will pretty
soon get beyond any surprise at the revelation. He must walk his path,
like all of us. It can't matter to you, you know," he added, with a
sharp glance.

"No, it can't matter to me," said Eugene steadily.

"Put it away, Morewood, and come out of doors. Perhaps you'd better not
leave it about, at present at any rate."

Morewood took down the picture and placed it in a large portfolio, which
he locked, and accompanied Ayre. Eugene made no motion to come with
them, and they left him sitting ther