rtist
appearing round the edge of the door. As he threw it wide open he gave a
cry of pleasure, singing the while at the top of his lungs the air he
played that evening at Miss Kingsley's when he flung himself down before
the piano after tea.

"At last, at last, my goddess! I have prayed for this hour," he said,
bowing low.

I stopped short in the middle of the room. "If you do not wish me to
leave you instantly, you must cease all such language and unseemly
conduct. I have come to see your picture, Mr. Barr."

"I will. Believe me, I will. I will be quiet as a lamb, though I am so
happy I could dance a minuet with Satan and not tire. But I will obey
you. Do not be uneasy. Sit here. No, here. The light is better. There it
is. Look, finished! My masterpiece, my ideal! It is only to lift that
curtain, and I shall be famous."

Despite his words he was jumping about with nervous, excited gestures. I
sat in the armchair he had indicated, and looked from him to the picture
on the easel over which a drapery was flung, and back again to him. For
an indefinable feeling of dread was coming over me, as I noted the
disordered dress and the bloodshot eyes of my strange host. He had
failed, then, to keep his pledges; had yielded to temptation. My
hoped-for regeneration was a failure, and all was as it used to be with
him. But yet it might be overwork and the strain of a night without
sleep that gave him such a dissipated aspect. I tried to think it was
so. Meanwhile he had seated himself at an old worn-out piano, and
looking across to me was pounding out bar after bar of passionate music.

"Really, this is too much! I cannot stay and endure this absurdity," I
cried, and I walked to the door.

But he darted at me and seized my hand with fierceness and the grip of a
vice, so that I shook with fear.

"You shall not go, not until you have seen her,--her I adore. Sit
there!" he thundered; and then, with an apparent sense of his own
harshness, he fell on his knees before me and kissed my fingers with
feverish frenzy. "My queen! my own!" he cried.

I was so frightened I could not speak. What was I to do? To scream would
not have availed me in that attic,--and yet I wonder now I did not try
to scream. I tore my hands away from him and sprang from my seat, he not
seeking to restrain me, but still kneeling and gazing up at me with wild
but penitent eyes.

"Open the door, sir, and let me go! That is the least return you can
make for