d away, grieved and mortified to the soul,
cursing the intrusion of the mysterious personage whose insolent
superiority had overthrown the hopes of my friends.

At the door of the gallery I met G----, the painter, just returned from
London. I drew him with me into the inner gallery, to make a thorough
examination of the picture. I called his attention to the wonderful
resemblance of the queen to Honoria. He did not see it; we looked
together, and I began to think that it might have been a delusion. I told
the Duke's story of the picture to G----. He examined the canvas, tested
the layers of color, and pronounced the work genuine and of immense value.
We looked again and again at the queen's head, viewing it in every light.
The resemblance to Honoria had disappeared; nor was the demon any longer a
figure of the Duke's valet.

"One would think," said G----, laughing, "that you had been mesmerized. If
you have been so deceived in a picture, may you not be equally cheated in
a man? I am loath to offend; but, indeed, the person whom you call
Rosecouleur cannot be the Duke of that title, whom I saw in England. I had
leave to copy a picture in his gallery. He was often present. His manners
were mild and unassuming,--not at all like those of this man, to whom, I
acknowledge, the personal resemblance is surprising. I am afraid our good
friends, the Denslows, and Mr. Dalton,--whom I esteem for their patronage
of art,--have been taken in by an adventurer."

"But the valet, Reve de Noir?"

"The Duke had a valet of that name who attended him, and who may, for
aught I know, have resembled this one; but probability is against
concurrent resemblances. There is also an original of the picture in the
Duke's gallery; in fact, the artist, as was not unusual in those days,
painted two pictures of the same subject. Both, then, are genuine."

Returning my cordial thanks to the good painter for his timely
explanation, I hastened to find Dalton. Drawing him from the midst of a
group whom he was entertaining, I communicated G----'s account of the two
pictures, and his suspicions in regard to the Duke.

His perplexity was great. "Worse and worse, De Vere! To be ruined by a
common adventurer is more disgraceful even than the other misfortune.
Besides, our guests are leaving us. At least a hundred of them have gone
away with the first impression, and the whole city will have it. The
journal reporters have been here. Denslow's principal credito