r
understood me, for to them there was nothing there save the figures I had
set,--a living picture all ready for the painter's hand.

'I could not bear it, the sight of that Face. I flung my tools away; I
covered my eyes with my hands. But those who were about me pressed on me
and threatened; they pulled my hands from my eyes. "Coward!" they cried,
and "Traitor, to leave us in the lurch! Now will the other side win and
we be shamed. Rather tear him limb from limb, fling him from the walls!"
The crowd came round me like an angry sea; they forced my pencils back
into my hands. "Work," they cried, "or we will tear you limb from limb."
For though they were upon my side, it was for rivalry, and not out of any
love for me.' He paused for a moment, for his heart was yet full of the
remembrance, and of joy that it was past.

'I looked again,' he said, 'and still it was there. O Face divine,--the
eyes all wet with pity, the lips all quivering with love! And neither
pity nor love belonged to that place, nor any succor, nor the touch of a
brother, nor the voice of a friend. "Paint," they cried, "or we will tear
you limb from limb!" and fire came into my heart. I pushed them from me
on every side with the strength of a giant. And then I flung it on the
canvas, crying I know not what,--not to them, but to Him. Shrink not from
me, little sister, for I blasphemed. I called Him Impostor, Deceiver,
Galilean; and still with all my might, with all the fury of my soul, I
set Him there for every man to see, not knowing what I did. Everything
faded from me but that Face; I saw it alone. The crowd came round me with
shouts and threats to drag me away but I took no heed. They were
silenced, and fled and left me alone, but I knew nothing; nor when they
came back with others and seized me, and flung me forth from the gates,
was I aware what I had done. They cast me out and left me upon the wild
without a shelter, without a companion, storming and raving at them as
they did at me. They dashed the great gates behind me with a clang, and
shut me out. And I turned and defied them, and cursed them as they cursed
me, not knowing what I had done.'

'Oh, brother!' murmured the little Pilgrim, kneeling, as if she had
accompanied him all the way with her prayers, but could not now say more.

'Then I saw again,' he went on, not hearing her in the great force of
that passion and wonder which was still in his mind, 'that vision in the
air. Wherever I turn