e to say, and did not interrupt
his pause, but filled it in for himself by priestly considerations on
the useless illumination worldly success seems generally to afford to
the searchers after happiness. His reverie was broken by the painter's
voice saying:

"I myself, Uniacke, am curiously persecuted by remorse. It is that, or
partly that, which has affected my health so gravely, and led me away
from my home, my usual habits of life, at this season of the year."

"Yes?" the clergyman said, with sympathy, without curiosity.

"And yet, I suppose it would seem a little matter to most people. The
odd thing is that it assumes such paramount importance in my life; for
I'm not what is called specially conscientious, except as regards my
art, of course, and the ordinary honourable dealings one decent man
naturally has with his fellows."

"Your conscience, in fact, limits its operations a good deal, I know."

"Precisely. But if it will not bore you, I will tell you something of
all this."

"Thank you, Sir Graham."

"How the wind shakes those curtains!"

"Nothing will keep it out of these island houses. You aren't cold?"

"Not in body, not a bit. Well, Uniacke, do you ever go to see pictures?"

"Whenever I can. That's not often now. But when my work lay in cities I
had chances which are denied me at present."

"Did you ever see a picture of mine called 'A sea urchin'?"

"Yes, indeed--that boy looking at the waves rolling in!--who could
forget him? The soul of the sea was in his eyes. He was a human being,
and yet he seemed made of all sea things."

"He had never set eyes upon the sea."

"What?" cried Uniacke, in sheer astonishment, "the boy who sat for that
picture? Impossible! When I saw it I felt that you had by some happy
chance lit on the one human being who contained the very soul of an
element. No merman could so belong of right to the sea as that boy."

"Who was a London model, and had never heard the roar of waves or seen
the surf break in the wind."

"Genius!" the clergyman exclaimed.

"Uniacke," continued the painter, "I got L1,000 for that picture. And I
call the money now blood-money to myself."

"Blood-money! But why?"

"I had made studies of the sea for that picture. I had indicated the
wind by the shapes of the flying foam journeying inland to sink on the
fields. I wanted my figure, I could not find him. Yet I was in a sea
village among sea folk. The children's legs there were browned with th