Coming to the room which I knew to be hers, I dashed open the door, and saw Daphne sitting erect in bed, her eyes staring wildly around, her face and manner expressive of the extremity of terror. I at once ran to the bedside.
"Oh, Frank, don't leave me, don't leave me till some one comes!"
She followed up this appeal by a flood of tears, andclung tightly to my arm with both her hands, while staring about her on all sides.
"Why, Daphne, what is the matter?"
"There's something in the room." She paused, and looked fearfully around her. "I don't know what. A black shape—a shadow. It was bending over me."
I cast a glance over the room, but nothing unusual met my eye, and I concluded she had been dreaming.
"You are dreaming, Daphne. Do not cry so. There is no one here but you and me."
"Yes, yes, there is!"
All the guests, roused by the screams, had risen from their slumbers, and in various stages of dressing were thronging around the open door, becoming round-eyed as they took in the character of the scene.
"Heyday! what's the matter here?" exclaimed my uncle, entering at this juncture; and all the rest, imitating his example, entered too.
"I came because I heard Daphne calling for help," I replied.
"Oh, papa," said Daphne, withdrawing her arms from me and placing both hands in his. "I have been frightened, and could not help screaming out, and Frank came."
"Frightened? What was it that frightened you?"
"I—I don't know what it was," she stammered. "I opened my eyes, and there was a black thing bending over me. I could see a pair of gleaming eyes staring straight into mine. I screamed out, but the thing remained bending over me, and didn't move till Frank's step sounded outside."
I opened my eyes, and there was a black thing
"What?" I cried in amazement. "Didn't this shape, whatever it was, take its flight through the door?"
"No; there was no opening of the door till you came. It's here now in the room somewhere. As youopened the door it darted off on this side," motioning to the left with her hand.
There was a sensation among the ladies, and they drew closer to one another. The gentlemen, with a valour born of numbers, peered into wardrobes and cupboards, and looked beneath the bed and behind hangings.
I could see my uncle and the Baronet exchanging curious glances, and I knew that both were connecting the cause of Daphne's fright with the apparition supposed to haunt the picture-gallery. It was the opinion of every one else that she had been dreaming.
"Oh, you silly girl!" cried Florrie, coming to the bedside. "To fancy you saw a ghost, and frighten us all out of our beds!"
Daphne shivered visibly. The search into every corner of the apartment had done very little to remove her terror.
"Oh, Florrie," she cried, "do stay with me for the rest of the night! I dare not sleep alone. I shall die of fright if it comes again. If you could but have seen those gleaming eyes!"
The Baronet's niece expressed her perfect willingness to share her sleep with Daphne.
"Leave me that sword," she said to me. "I only hope that ghostwillreturn: if it is one of flesh and blood it had better not venture too near me!"
And Florrie waved the blade above her head with the serio-comic air of the pretty lady-hero in the Christmas pantomine when she bids the wicked demon come on and do his worst.
"Florrie is an Amazon," smiled the Baronet, "and doesn't fear man, ghost, or devil. I think, Miss Leslie, you will be quite safe in her keeping."
We made no longer tarrying, but, bidding the twogirls "good-night," withdrew—the ladies to their rooms, the gentlemen to the broad landing, at the end of the corridor, there to discuss the affair for a few minutes.
"This is a very mysterious house," said my uncle to the Baronet.
"Egad! I'm beginning to think so myself."
Among those who had stood silent spectators in Daphne's room was a doctor of great renown.
"Did you not detect," he said to my uncle, "a peculiar odour hanging around the dressing-table?"
"I did. Perfumes for handkerchiefs, I suppose."
"Perfumes for handkerchiefs—Oh?" replied the doctor in a curious tone of voice, and sniffing as if the odour still remained in his nostrils. "Hum! I shouldn't advise the young lady to sprinkle her handkerchief too freely with that sort of essence, unless she wishes to be a member of 'kingdom come!'"
On descending next morning to the drawing-room, I found Angelo there before me, the idol of a crowd of æsthetic young ladies who adored art (and especially the artist) without understanding much about either. He was exhibiting to their admiring gaze the contents of his portfolio and unless my eyesight deceived me, it was the identical portfolio he had displayed to me on that memorable wedding morning.
It had been my intention to question the artist on that singular utterance of his when he first parted from Daphne: "You are nearer to him now than you have been for months;" but as I saw that he purposely ignored me, I imitated his example, and ignored him.
I was curious to see how he would receive Daphne on this occasion—their first meeting after her refusal of him; but he manifested no signs of embarrassment when she appeared, and acknowledged her presence with an air so grave and stately that none, seeing him, would ever have guessed that he had at one time made passionate love to her.
Daphne was confused and blushed a little, and was not sorry, I think, when, at the sound of the breakfast-bell, I relieved her of his presence by escorting her to the table, taking care to put as many feetof mahogany as I could between her and the artist, who had for his partner the lively Florrie.
During breakfast the conversation turned on the mysterious apparition of the preceding night, and Daphne was twitted by the ladies for her fright; but the Baronet, noticing how agitated she became and how distasteful the subject was to her, came to her aid, and, declaring that he would not allow her to be teased, diverted the conversation to another channel.
"When do you expect to finish your picture?" he said, turning to Angelo.
"Within a few days: perhaps a few hours."
Perhaps a few hours! Such an answer implied that it was within the range of probability for the completion of his picture to take place on Christmas Day—that is, on the very anniversary of the day on which he had finished his last masterpiece. This coincidence of dates was certainly remarkable, and my uncle could not help reverting to it.
"Christmas is a favorite time with you," he remarked. "Your last great work, if I remember rightly, received its final touch on Christmas Day."
"Yes," replied the artist, "because both pictures represent death scenes; and the brilliant sunshine and blue skies of summer-time are too joyous to allow me to think of anything sad. I am like that poet who could never write good verse unless he was in an elegant and tastefully-appointed study. Similarly, I find the gloom and darkness of your English Christmas a more appropriate time than any other to portray my conceptions of death."
"Egad! there's something in that," said the doctor with a nod of approval. He seemed to have taken a great fancy for Angelo. "The weather has a wonderful effect on the mental faculties."
"The want of a suitable model has delayed your work, I think you said," said the Baronet to Angelo. "Did you procure in London what you wanted?"
"Yes; I have—found a—a—" he seemed to hesitate as to the choice of a word—"a lovely figure. The very ideal of what an artist's model should be."
"What is the subject of your picture?" inquired Florrie.
"I am going to call it 'Modesta, the Christian Martyr.' It represents a scene in the Coliseum. A Christian maiden is breathing her last on the sands of the arena. A Libyan lion stands proudly over her, with one claw fixed in her breast."
"What a ghastly subject!" said Florrie.
"Ghastly? Yes; yet such thingshavebeen, and 'tis well to recall them," replied the artist gravely. "You must judge my picture by the end it is meant to accomplish, which is not mere vulgar sensationalism. It is intended as a contribution to religion—an aid to morality; for it is my object to show the character of ancient paganism, and from the contemplation of the sweet girl-martyr men will derive nobler ideas of the great battle which their ancestral Christianity had to fight."
His eyes sparkled and his cheek glowed with the fire of enthusiasm.
"Angelo posing as an exponent of morality is a new character," I murmured to my uncle, who sat beside me.
The artist was now in his element. A multitude of questions relative to his new work were addressed to him from all sides. Nobody was more attentive to his words than the doctor, or more curiously interrogative. I marvelled to see him taking such an interest in Angelo's painting.
"It was Italy," explained the artist, "that furnished me with the blue sky of my picture. I spent months there experimenting on canvas till I had caught the lovely transparent azure of the Italian atmosphere. The amphitheatre I painted sitting on the arena of the Coliseum itself, picturing to my mental eye the place as it existed in the palmy days of the Empire. From Rome I transferred my canvas to Paris. They have a magnificent African lion there in the Jardin d'Acclimatation. I took a photograph of him. It was a difficult matter for the keepers to compel him to assume the pose I wanted, but it was managed at last; and, working from the photograph, I got the image of the lion fixed on the canvas. Since my arrival at the Abbey here I have been filling in the minor details and working at the figure of the girl-martyr, which I am hoping will prove the crowning-piece of the whole picture."
"Well," said the genial Baronet, when breakfast was over, "what is to be the programme for to-day? I would propose a ride over the moors, but I fear the weather is scarcely propitious."
"Oh, we can't ride out to-day," said Florrie. "We all solemnly promised the Vicar yesterday that we would help him to decorate the church with flowers and holly this morning."
"And he says that he must keep you to your promise," smiled a clerical-looking young man, the Rev. Cyprian Fontalwater, curate of Silverdale, who, having come with that very message from the Vicar, had been compelled by the hospitable Sir Hugh to stay to breakfast. "Our Dissenting brethren"—he called them brethren, but he didn't mean it—"are beautifying and adorning their—er—meeting house, and we must not be outdone by them in floral decorations anymore than we are in the—ahem!—spiritual portion of the service."
He coughed slightly, as if apologising for bringing this last point before the notice of the company.
The conversation now took an ecclesiastical turn under Florrie's lead, and we were soon discussing such topics as the decorations, Christmas carols, and the anthem to be sung at the service in the morning.
"Well," said the Baronet, giving the signal for rising, "suppose before setting off for the church you spend an hour in the picture-gallery, and view my latest addition to it."
Expressions of delighted assent arose.
"When I tell you that the addition I allude to is the great masterpiece of Mr. Vasari," he added with a gracious wave of his hand towards the artist, "the masterpiece that set all Paris talking last summer, we shall require no other reason for visiting the gallery at once."
Remembering Angelo's curious dealings with regard to his famous work of art, I thought to see him betray some little confusion when it was mentioned by the Baronet. He manifested no such embarrassment, however, but gravely bowed his acknowledgments; and Sir Hugh led the way from the breakfast-table. The artist and curate each offered an arm to escort Florrie. Preference was given to Art, and Ecclesiasticism retired confounded.
"I shall put myself under your guidance," said Florrie, taking Angelo's arm. "You must be my cicerone, and point out the beauties of the picture for me. I haven't seen it yet, you know."
"The beauties? You do me too much honour. Say the defects, rather."
"Very well, the defects, then," said the irrepressibleFlorrie. "I daresay that sounds uncomplimentary, but it isn't meant to be so. I'm no connoisseur, and what you artists consider defects I may consider beauties, and what you know to be beauties I may think defects. I never go into an art-gallery and become enraptured with some sweet interesting painting without being told by some frowning critic that it is a very mediocre performance, worth nothing at all. But if I come to some ugly daub, whose perspective is all at fault and whose figures are so comically drawn that I feel tempted to laugh, I am told that I must reverence and adore because it is a Cimabue or a Fra Angelico. I am deficient in taste, I suppose. What is the title of your picture, Mr. Vasari?"
"I have entitled it 'The Fall of Cæsar,'" replied the artist, a little confounded, I thought, at the idea that there should be any one in existence ignorant of the title of his famous work.
"'The Fall of Cæsar?' Oh, how interesting. What did he fall from?" she asked with an assumed ignorance. She uttered this rather loudly; and then, dropping her voice, she whispered in Daphne's ear: "Now hear Mr. Fontalwater give us a lecture. He's sure to. Mad on history. Read nothing else from his cradle upwards."
And sure enough the Reverend Cyprian, on hearing her question, at once proceeded to satisfy her curiosity.
"Caius Julius Cæsar, Miss Wyville, was stabbed by conspirators in the Senate House at Rome, and fell at the base of Pompey's statue covered with twenty-three wounds. According to Plutarch the conspirators were Marcus Brutus, Metellus Cimber, Cassius, Casca——"
"My goodness, Mr. Fontalwater, what a memory you have!" cried Florrie, cutting him short with alook of mock admiration. "You surely don't expect me to remember all those names? You are worse than my old governess. Have you introduced all those classical fogies into your picture, Mr. Vasari?"
"No, Miss Wyville; my picture contains but two figures—Cæsar lying dead at the foot of Pompey's statue. I have represented this statue pointing downward with its lance, figuratively intimating thereby the fate that befalls a too lofty ambition. Personal vanity has induced me to represent Pompey with my own features, a proceeding for which I can quote a notable precedent—the immortal Haydon, who, in his famous picture, 'Curtius leaping into the Gulf,' gave to the Roman hero his own countenance—a fact mournfully prophetic of his own sad downward destiny."
"And so," replied Florrie, "in the figure of Pompey you represent yourself as triumphing over the dead. Fie, Mr. Vasari!"
"I am pointing a moral, you see."
"What a curious idea to introduce one's own face into a picture! I should not like to offend you: you would paint some wicked historical woman, and then give her my features. But tell me, have you given to your Cæsar the face of a friend? Come, don't deny it; I am sure you have. Whose features served as a model? Oh, do tell us!"
"You are mistaken," he replied. "I did, indeed, procure an ancient bust of Cæsar, but finally I abandoned sculptured fact for my own imagination, and endeavoured to paint ambition's ideal face."
"I am quite dying to see it," said Florrie. "Is it true what they say, Mr. Vasari, that your way of painting is a secret?"
"Quite true. I am not aware that my method isemployed by the artists of to-day. Yet my method is no new thing; it is simply the revival of an idea buried in the dust of ages."
"And are you not going to reveal it?"
"And raise a crowd of imitators? Pardon me—no. None shall rob me of my laurels. If it were possible to patent my idea, I should have no hesitation in disclosing it. But the secret shall not die with me. At my death I will leave papers showing how my effects were wrought."
I attributed all this to the vanity of the artist, not knowing how much truth there was in his boasted secret.
The doctor nodded approval, as if he understood all that the artist meant. He had been walking close to Angelo all the way from the breakfast-table, listening to his utterances as though they were so many gems of wisdom that deserved to be treasured in the memory.
By this time we had entered the gallery, a magnificent hall—long, broad, and lofty. On one side only was the light admitted, and that through high and deep embrasured casements. The spaces between the windows were adorned with the family portraits all arranged in chronological order, beginning with a fearfully weird daub of Richard III.'s time, and ending with a splendid portrait of Sir Hugh.
The wall facing the windows was covered with pictures of a general character, and was penetrated at regular intervals by deep alcoves containing suits of mail and mounted knights armedcap-à-pie, illustrating various periods of English history; for the Wyvilles had been an ancient family long ere they received from the hand of Mary Stuart's son the patent of baronetcy.
We proceeded leisurely down the gallery, I listening, in shame be it written, with very little interest to the Baronet's genealogical discourse, because all my thoughts were running on Angelo's painting.
"I understood," said my uncle, turning to the artist, "that your great picture had gone to Spain, and never expected to meet it in the Abbey here."
"What gave you that idea?" inquired Angelo with a smile of amusement.
"Yourself, I believe. Don't you remember telling us at Rivoli that you had sold your picture to a Spanish nobleman?"
"I certainly donotremember saying so," replied the artist with a decided emphasis on the negative adverb, and speaking in the tone of one who was quite sure of the truth of his statement.
"Oh, yes, you did," I returned quietly. "De Argandarez was the name of the nobleman—an old hidalgo of Aragon, you know."
"I think I remember it, too," said Daphne timidly.
"We are three to one, you see," remarked my uncle.
"Far be it from me," said Angelo, "to differ from Miss Leslie, but I certainly have no recollection of ever saying any such thing. I was guilty of falsehood if I did. How could I have said so, when Sir Hugh was the only one who offered to purchase?"
This argument was of course unanswerable. The doctor offered us the tribute of a pitying smile, as if to say, "This is how a man of genius is liable to be misinterpreted."
We had now reached the middle of the hall, when a sudden exclamation broke from Sir Hugh, and on looking up I saw that worthy Baronet staring at a certain extent of oak panelling in the wall that faced the windows. There was nothing remarkable aboutthis extent of panelling: it held no pictures, that was all; but the Baronet's words soon showed us what was wrong.
"Why, how's this?" he cried in a voice that was almost a shout. "The picture's gone!"
"The picture? What picture?" cried Angelo, dropping Florrie's arm in his excitement, and hurrying to the side of the Baronet.
"Why yours! 'The Fall of Cæsar.'"
"Are you sure?" cried Angelo breathlessly.
"Quite. And it was hanging here last night, I will swear."
There was a deep and painful silence, followed by the usual commonplaces evoked by a surprise.
"Where can it have gone?" cried Angelo, his voice expressing the deepest concern. "Sir Hugh, I trust nothing has happened to that picture. Though yours in point of law, I still regard it to some extent as mine. I would never have parted with it, if I had thought it would be destroyed. My picture! my picture! Some one must have stolen it."
He sank down on a seat, and lifted his hand to his brow with a bewildered air, as if scarcely realising the situation.
"This is the work of an enemy," he murmured.
If his words were true, the enemy was certainly one who knew how to strike home. No mortification—not even Daphne's refusal of his love—could have been more bitter to the artist than the knowledge that his adored masterpiece was in the hands of an enemy capable of destroying it.
"Let all the servants be sent for," cried the Baronet. "What does all this mean? First it is a book that vanishes, then a picture."
"And next—a lady," murmured a voice.
It was the doctor who spoke, but his tones were so low that they reached no ear but mine. I stared at him, wondering what he meant.
"A book? What book?" cried Florrie.
The Baronet described the missing volume, relating the circumstances under which he came to lose it. The guests shook their heads. They could give no account of its disappearance.
All the servants, young and old, male and female, now came trooping into the hall, with wonder depicted on their faces at being thus strangely summoned.
"Now, Fruin," said the Baronet, addressing the butler, whose duty it was to see that the gallery was locked at night, "let me ask you if the fastenings of these windows," and he pointed to the long line of casements, "were all as secure when you examined them this morning as they were when you left them last night?"
The butler murmured an affirmative reply.
"You locked the doors at both ends of the gallery?"
"I did, Sir Hugh."
The Baronet turned to his housekeeper.
"There was nothing, I suppose, Mrs. Goldwin, in any part of the house this morning to lead you to suspect that the Abbey had been entered during the night?"
The good dame asserted that there had been nothing to lead her to that suspicion.
"Very well, then," continued the Baronet, scanning the faces of the assembled servants with a keen eye; "let me ask if any of you can account for the disappearance of a picture—a very valuable picture. It was hanging on this part of the wall last night. It is not here now, you see."
The servants began to interchange significantglances, and I knew that in their own minds they were connecting the disappearance of the picture with the ghostly figure supposed to haunt the gallery.
"The thing couldn't go without hands, you know," resumed Sir Hugh; "and as you are certain that no burglars entered the place last night, it follows that the picture must have been removed by some one in the Abbey. Can any of you tell me what has become of it?"
"It always was an uncanny picture," remarked a little housemaid. "When I was dusting it the other day the figure stared at me with its dead eyes. I am sure they moved once."
"Uncanny! How dare you?" exclaimed Angelo so fiercely that the poor little maid shrank behind the others in dismay. "Your dislike of it exposes you to suspicion. You, or some of your fellow servants here, from an absurd fear, have destroyed it. Produce the picture, you gaping pack of menials! My picture! my picture!"
And he sank down again on the seat, the very image of despair.
"What Mr. Vasari says is perfectly correct," said the Baronet. "Suspicion rests on you all till the picture be produced. There is a silly story going the round among you that a ghost is seen in this hall at night. I need not tell you I do not believe it; but even if it were so, what has that to do with the picture's disappearing? A ghost, according to your own theory, you know, is nothing but air: now a being that is simply air cannot carry off a heavy picture, any more than the sunbeams shining through that casement can lift this chair. No; human hands have been at work here, that's quite clear."
There was silence for a time, and then Fruin, stepping forward and clearing his throat, said:
"Sir Hugh, I ought to have spoken before, perhaps, but knowing how much you hate ghost stories, I didn't like to speak."
"Well, speak now," said the Baronet impatiently—"that is," he added, "if your story is a fresh one, and not a mere repetition of last night's nonsense."
"My bedroom, as you know, Sir Hugh, is over one end of the gallery."
It was with this very sentence that Fruin had begun his story of the previous night. Evidently it was a stereotyped formula with him when recounting his ghostly experiences, not to be abandoned any more than the orthodox "Once upon a time" of the fairy stories.
"This morning about three o'clock I fancied I heard a noise as if some one were walking up and down here; I got up and looked out of the window, and I could see a light shining through the casements below on to the lawn. This light kept appearing and disappearing, as if the person in the gallery were walking to and fro with a lamp. I put on my things and came downstairs——"
"Didn't you wake some of the others?" interrupted the Baronet.
"No, Sir Hugh."
"Why not?"
"Because I knew none of them would come. It isn't the first time nor yet the second that we've heard queer sounds coming from this hall at night, and once when I did try to persuade the others to come down with me to find out what the matter was, not one of them would leave their beds, so I didn't try last night."
"Cowards! Why did you not come to me, Fruin?"
"Or to me?" groaned Angelo.
"It would have taken me some minutes to reach your room, Sir Hugh, and by that time the thing might have gone, and a pretty fool I should have looked at having called you up for nothing. Well, as I was saying, I crept downstairs and stood outside that door. I had the keys in my hand, but I don't mind confessing I was afraid to enter. A man, a burglar, anything in human shape I'll face, but this on the other side of the door was a different matter. I listened and heard steps moving softly to and fro——"
"Was there more than one person, do you think?"
"I can't say, Sir Hugh. I thought at first there was only one; afterwards I thought there were two."
"What made you think there were two?"
"I am coming to it, Sir Hugh. As I was saying, I listened, and could hear footsteps. After a time they ceased, and there came sounds as if two persons were whispering together, but it may only have been one person talking to himself. Then there was a long silence, and at last there came a cry—such a cry! My blood ran cold to hear it. I dropped on one knee, and peered through the keyhole, a thing which, strangely enough, I hadn't thought of doing before, and there—and there——"
Here the butler paused as if conscious that his next item was a little too extravagant for belief.
"Well, go on. You saw——?"
"Mr. Vasari's picture was hanging in its usual place there," pointing to the black panel, "but," and the speaker dropped his voice to an awed whisper, "lying on the floor was a figure—the moonlight was shining clear upon it—a figure in a long cloak, a grey cloak. I jumped to my feet at once. 'Good God!there's a murder been done!' I thought. I forgot my fright in the desire to see if I could give the poor fellow any help. I unlocked the door, flung it open, and—" He paused once more. "The picture was still there, but the figure was gone. I came a little way into the gallery, but I could see nobody. Then all my fright returned. 'It must have been a ghost,' I thought. I dared not stay any longer, and I bolted off to bed as quick as my legs could carry me. For a long time I lay awake, but I heard nothing more."
I offered a chair to Daphne, for she seemed on the point of fainting. The mention of a figure in a grey cloak had revived all the memories of that night by the haunted well.
Strange as Fruin's story was, it was told in a way that made it impossible to dismiss it with a sneer. Sir Hugh seemed to feel this; seemed, too, to be angry with himself for feeling it. He looked in silence at his guests, whose faces reflected his own uneasiness. The empty space on the wall was a disquieting fact.
"Your story," he said, "does not explain in the least how the picture comes to be missing." Turning to the other servants, he continued:
"The picture has been removed by some one within the Abbey, and not by any outsider: of that I am certain. If any of you has taken it, he had better confess at once, and I will overlook the offence, or rather I will inflict no other punishment than that of dismissal from my service. I will give the guilty party, whoever he may be, an hour to consider the matter. If at the end of that time no confession be forthcoming, I will make a thorough search of the Abbey from end to end and from roof to basement, for I am certain the picture must be concealed somewhere within it. And I promise you whoever shall be foundto have taken it shall not be leniently dealt with. What's the matter with that girl?"
This last question was occasioned by the singular conduct of the little housemaid before mentioned who had so evoked Angelo's wrath. She was staring at the artist, and had been staring at him ever since his outburst, as though there were some strange attraction in his face. Several times she had seemed on the point of speaking, but had hesitated as if from fear. At the Baronet's question, however, her emotion at last bubbled over and took the shape of words. She pointed to the artist with her forefinger, and cried, as defiant of grammar as the monks of Rheims when they beheld the kleptomaniac jackdaw:
"That's him! that's him!"
Her arm dropped from a horizontal to a vertical position on receiving a smart tap from the housekeeper's hand.
"How dare you point in that rude fashion? Have you no manners? What do you mean?"
"That's the face!" cried the girl—"the face in the picture!"
"Oh, that's what you mean, is it?" said the Baronet. "Yes, yes; we know that." And turning to the artist, he explained the housemaid's words by saying: "She recognises you to be the Pompey of the picture."
"And there's the other face," cried the girl, pointing at me.
This observation startled me. Surely the artist had not adopted my features as the model for the face of his Cæsar?
"Don't be stupid, girl!" said Sir Hugh impatiently. "The other face is no more like Mr. Willard's than—yes, it is, though, now I come to look deeply at you," he continued, regarding me a moment. "Thereis a faint resemblance—not much. The girl has a quick eye. How she stares at you, Angelo! Upon my word," he said with a grim smile, "I believe she thinks you have stepped out of the canvas. Don't stare so at Mr. Vasari, girl. You must be out of your mind!"
"Then what's he laughing for, and staring at me with his wicked eyes—frightening me so?"
"Jane," said the housekeeper, administering as mild a shaking as the dignity of her position and the presence of her guests would allow, "how dare you make an exhibition of yourself in this manner? I'll send you home to your mother this very day! How dare you? You shall not stay here another hour!"
"It's his fault!" cried the girl, rendered desperate by fright. "He keeps staring at me and smiling wickedly. I won't be looked at like that!"
Her manner almost led one to believe that Angelo had been casting the "evil eye" upon her, and that the operation hurt. All looks were turned towards him; but whatever peculiarity his eyes may have displayed had quite vanished now: they manifested only their usual quiet dreamy expression.
"The girl is as mad," he said with a scornful air, "as your curiosity of a butler, who takes the caterwauling of a tom-cat for the cry of a banshee."
He had quite recovered from his outburst of excitement, and seemed by far the calmest person present.
"Egad, you're right!" replied the Baronet. "They both seem anxious to qualify themselves for Bedlam."
The doctor said nothing, but rubbed his hands with the air of a man who has arrived at a satisfactory solution of some problem that has been puzzling him.
Well, the picture was gone, nor could it be seen in any part of the gallery. The ladies expressed a wish toretire, and, headed by the whispering servants, we all withdrew.
I was the last to leave, lingering awhile to explore the recesses of the hall in the vain hope of lighting on the missing picture. On gaining the drawing-room I found Daphne alone waiting for me. The rest of the company had retired to dress for their expedition to the church.
"Oh, Frank, I feel so frightened!" she said, referring to the incident of the missing picture, and laying both her hands on my arm.
"And I am not very easy in my mind," returned I. "Silverdale seems more mysterious than Rivoli."
"What can it all mean? There was some one in my room last night; and now the butler declares that he has seen a figure in a grey cloak in the gallery. Can it"—and her voice sank to a whisper of awe—"have anything to do with—with George?"
This was the first time she had mentioned his name to me since our leaving Rivoli. While pronouncing it she gave a shiver of terror, and I saw clearly that of all persons on earth, the one whom she was least desirous of meeting was—George!
"There is a tide in the affairs of men," etc. I resolved without delay to take advantage of the tide, that seemed to have turned full in my favour.
"No, no," I said. "You mustn't let that stupid fellow's ghost story trouble you. He's a fool! All butlers are," I added, with a hasty generalisation; "they're always so old, you see."
"Then what can it all mean?" repeated she. "We seem to be leading haunted lives. I have become so nervous of late. I look in the glass every morning to see whether my hair is turning grey. I live in dailydread of—I don't know what, and at night I am as afraid of the dark as a little child."
She was trembling like a leaf. She looked so pretty and interesting in her grief that I could not resist the temptation of placing my arm sympathisingly around her waist. She did not resent the action. On the contrary, the new light that sprang up in her eyes could only be caused by one feeling.
Now I had not intended to make love to Daphne for some weeks to come, but the present occasion was too tempting to be thrown away. As Angelo himself had very justly remarked on a similar occasion, "Who can forge chains for love, and say, 'To-day thou shalt be dumb; to-morrow thou shalt speak?'"
"Daphne," said I, "I am going to let you into a secret."
"A secret?" she repeated.
"Yes; you have always taken me into your confidences"—this was scarcely true, but it served to pave the way for what was to follow—"so I am going to take you into mine."
I paused to admire the look of mystification in her bright eyes.
"What will you think," I continued, speaking very slowly and deliberately, "when I say that I have fallen in love with one of the ladies here at the Abbey?"
"Are you in earnest?" she asked, trembling all over, and gently endeavouring to free herself from my embrace.
"So much so," I replied gravely, "that I am going to propose to her this very day."
Daphne's tongue seemed frozen.
"Well," I said, "aren't you going to wish me success?"
"Tell me her name. Who is she?" she gasped.
"I have her portrait here—somewhere—in a locket—that I'm going to give her as a Christmas gift," I replied with apparent unconcern, fumbling in my pockets for it; and while I was doing so Daphne contrived to withdraw from my embrace.
I drew forth the locket and handed it to her. It contained, instead of a portrait, a tiny mirror, whose convexity of surface diminished the objects reflected by it.
"You have made a mistake," she replied coldly, returning the locket. "There is no portrait here; nothing but a little mirror."
"No; I do not mistake. If you look again you will see the face of her I love."
She gazed at me for a few seconds before my meaning became clear, and then gave a little cry:
"Oh, Frank!"
And Eros and Anteros at last kissed each other.
I was alone in the drawing-room, the happiest mortal beneath the roof of Silverdale. Daphne had gone off to change her dress. She was going to help the guests in their work of decorating the church with holly and other Christmas emblems. As the party were to lunch at the Vicarage, they would be absent a considerable part of the day.
My language implied that I was not going to form one of this party. Such was the case. With many expressions of regret for my seeming want of gallantry on this day of all others, I had claimed indulgence of Daphne to remain behind at the Abbey on the fictitious plea that Sir Hugh was desirous of consulting my uncle and myself together with some speculator from London, on the formation of a company for the purpose of working a vein of lead recently discovered on the Silverdale estate. The truth was that theBaronet had determined to avail himself of the absence of his guests to make a thorough search for the lost picture, and I was desirous of helping him.
It was not without a mental struggle that I consented to forego the pleasure of Daphne's companionship for several hours, but my anxiety to penetrate the mystery surrounding the missing picture was so great that it overcame the fascination even of love.
The sound of approaching voices told me that the doctor and the Baronet were entering the drawing-room.
"And so," remarked the latter, "you have made up your mind to go to the church?"
"Yes," replied the doctor, drawing on a pair of gloves; "though not from any particular wish to aid in the decorating."
"No?"
"No! A very different motive takes me there. Your young friend, the artist Vasari, is going."
"Yes?"
"I have taken a deep interest in him."
"Ah! how is that?"
"He is a psychological study."
And with these words the doctor walked away, flourishing his cane in a mysterious manner.
The company departed for the village church; and the Baronet, my uncle, and myself, aided by the servants, whose zeal had been stimulated by the promise of a liberal reward to whomsoever should discover the picture, proceeded to search the length and breadth and depth of the Abbey. Every room, including the bedrooms of the guests, was subjected to a careful inspection; places the most unlikely to be selected as the hiding-place of the famouschef-d'œuvrewere examined by keen eyes, but all in vain. We might as well have looked for the Holy Grail, said by poets to have vanished somewhere in this very neighborhood.
Late in the afternoon of the day—it was Christmas Eve—we stood on the terrace overlooking the undulating extent of woodland that formed the grounds of the Abbey. The sun was now low down on the horizon. Its dying splendour tinged with red hues the ivy-mantled Nuns' Tower, that rose in solitary grandeur on one side of the Abbey. The Baronet's eye was resting on this tower, and his thoughts reverted to the tenant of it.
"Angelo can explain the disappearance of the missing picture," he said suddenly.
"You think so?" returned my uncle.
"I am loath to suspect him, but I cannot help thinking that he carried it off in the night."
"He carried it off well in the morning, then," responded my uncle jocularly. "Who would have thought from his surprise and agitation that he himself had removed it!"
"His surprise and agitation were assumed, to disarm suspicion."
"Perhaps. But what is his motive for the removal?"
"From certain things you have told me, I believe he is determined that neither you nor Frank shall see his great masterpiece."
The Baronet's opinion was one that I had long held.
"Why not, in Heaven's name?" cried my amazed uncle.
"Ah, that is a reason best known to himself. I fancy—it seems absurd to say it—that the picture, when seen by you, will reveal something that is entirely passed over by others: something detrimental to himself, I mean—what, I cannot undertake to say."
"What can he have done with it?"
"It is inside that tower," replied the Baronet confidently.
"Why there? Why in existence at all? If he is so anxious, as you say, to prevent us from seeing it, the safe plan would be to destroy it altogether."
"That would be the course of a wise man—yes; but Angelo is a fond parent, you see; his picture is his favourite child, and he cannot bring himself to destroy it. Perhaps he intends after your departure to return it to me uninjured, concocting some cock-and-bull story as to where he found it. I trust to goodness he will do something of the kind," continued the Baronet. "So valuable a thing is no trifle to lose.If I could obtain proof that hehastaken it, I would certainly bring him to book before the law."
"Can't we search the tower?" I said; "Angelo is absent."
"Exactly; but he takes care to lock the door every time he leaves it."
"Have you no other keys that will fit the lock?"
"The key of that lock has peculiar wards. There is no other like it in my possession."
"Well, let us go to the tower," I said. "He may for once have left the door unlocked—who knows?"
"Not very likely, but we may try."
The tower, octagonal in shape, was situated at a little distance from the main body of the Abbey, to which it was joined by a covered walk consisting of a wall on one side and a row of pillars on the other. It contained but one story, lighted by a large Gothic casement twelve feet at least from the ground. Access was gained to the tower by a flight of steps surmounted by an oaken door studded with iron nails.
"The Nuns' Tower," I murmured, as we walked down the cloister; "how came the place to receive that name?"
"Tradition says that when this place was a convent, nuns who broke their vow of virginity were tried in this tower by their ecclesiastical superiors—or, if you will, inferiors—and were led hence by a subterranean passage to their doom."
"Which was——?"
"Precipitation down a deep chasm. The book I spoke of last night—a book I firmly believe to have been stolen, and not mislaid—will tell you more about those dark days than I can."
On reaching the foot of the steps leading to thetower, we mounted them, and, having tried the door, found it locked.
"It would have been strange, indeed," smiled the Baronet, "if Angelo had left his studio accessible."
Bending down I applied my eye to the keyhole.
"What do you see?" asked my uncle.
"It's impossible to see anything," I returned. Something dark within—it may have been a folding screen, the back of a chair, any piece of furniture, in fact—standing immediately behind the keyhole, prevented me from obtaining a glimpse of the interior.
"A cold cell to paint in during the depth of winter," remarked my uncle. "Does he work without a fire?"
"Scarcely," responded the Baronet. "A servant makes up the fire every morning, and brings in coal enough to last the day; but Angelo takes good care to stand by all the time, with a curtain drawn over his easel, and his artistic paraphernalia covered by a cloth, and does not begin work till he is alone."
The concealment displayed by Angelo over his new work of art made me only the more curious to obtain a glimpse of the studio; so I clambered up the ivy towards the Gothic casement, and peeped through its diamond panes, to find that a curtain of violet silk had been drawn across.
"Upon my word," I called out, "Angelo takes precious good care that no one shall discover his art-secret—if secret he has. There is a piece of violet silk stretched across the casement!"
"You can't open the window and get in, I suppose?" said Sir Hugh.
Mounting still higher, I stepped upon the windowsill, and, holding on to a mullion by my left hand, shook the casement with my right; but the fasteningswere too secure to permit my forcing an entrance, so I scrambled down again.
"He hasn't put up that curtain exactly as a screen of concealment," remarked the Baronet, stepping backwards to take a view of it. "In this new picture of his the amphitheatre, so he tells me, is represented as being partly screened from the glare of the sun by a purple velarium. The curtain that you see up there faces the south. Angelo has no doubt been trying an experiment: studying the effect of violet-coloured rays upon the sanded floor; for he has had it sanded," the Baronet explained, "to make it resemble the pavement of an arena."
If Sir Hugh really believed that this was the reason why Angelo had covered up the window, he had greater simplicity than I gave him credit for.
As we were turning to go away, my unsatisfied curiosity induced me to take a second peep through the keyhole. An ejaculation of surprise escaped my lips, and I rose to my feet in perplexity.
"When I looked through the keyhole just now, there was something dark within that prevented me from seeing anything. That dark something—whatever it was—has vanished. I can now see nothing but a white surface."
The Baronet and my uncle, stooping down to the keyhole, satisfied themselves of the truth of the last part of my statement, and then both looked at me with a half-doubting expression.
"There is something white in front of the door now," said Sir Hugh. "Are you certain it was dark before?"
"Quite certain. There's some one inside."
"Can Angelo have come back?" the Baronet whispered. "You remember he said at breakfast that hemight finish his picture within a few hours. Is he at work now?"
This idea made us look rather mean. It is not nice to be caught playing the spy upon a man in his supposed absence. Only the oaken door separated us from the cell within, so that the artist, if hewerethere, must have overheard our suspicions of him. We all three listened with our ears pressed close to the door, but could not detect the faintest sound within.
"Angelo, are you here?" cried the Baronet, rapping on the door; "we have come to see how the picture is going on."
There was no reply, and all our words and knockings failed to evoke any.
"You must have made a mistake, Frank," said my uncle, as we relinquished our efforts, and turned to go away.
"I think not," I replied, having my doubts on the matter nevertheless.
"Angelo can't be painting now," remarked Sir Hugh. "This dim twilight would not permit it. And if he has been at it earlier in the day, his fire would surely have been lit; but," glancing back and pointing to a little chimney-turret on the battlemented roof of the tower, "we have seen no smoke."
"Yes," returned I; "but if Angelo wishes to keep his presence there a secret—and secrecy seems to be asine quâ nonin all his undertakings—he won't have a fire."
"Well, then he'll be confoundedly clever if his chilled fingers can handle the brush with any delicacy of touch in this cold atmosphere," said the Baronet with a shiver, for the air was extremely damp and cold.
"Sir Hugh," said my uncle, "if you are certainthat the picture is concealed in this tower, why not force an entrance?"
"Well," replied the Baronet doubtfully, "there is just the possibility that it maynotbe there, which would be rather awkward; for Angelo on his return would see the broken lock, and learn that we have been playing the spy on him, which is exactly what we have been doing," added he with a cynical smile, "but there's no need for him to know it."
Evidently the Baronet regarded espionage very much as the ancient Spartans regarded theft. There was no dishonor in the act—the dishonor consisted in being found out.
"I shall tell Angelo," Sir Hugh continued, "when he returns, that as we have thoroughly examined the Abbey, including the apartments allotted to my guests, without coming upon the picture, we must, in common fairness, subject evenhissacred studio to the same investigation."
"And supposing he refuses to submit to this?" said my uncle.
"Then I shall assert my authority as master of Silverdale, and order an examination of the tower. Ugh! how cold it is!" he added. "Let us get back to the library fire. I feel frozen."
Twilight was coming on apace, and a dim silvery mist was gradually veiling the landscape from our view as we turned to enter the Abbey.
My visit to the Nuns' Tower made me anxious to learn whether the artist had returned. I questioned some of the servants on this point, but none of them had seen Angelo since the morning, so I was forced to the conclusion that I had been mistaken in supposing any one to have been in the tower.
On repairing to the library I found my uncle and theBaronet discussing the technicalities of some Parliamentary Bill of the past session, a topic that was speedily cut short by the entrance of Fruin, the butler, who carried under his arm an artist's portfolio filled with papers and sketches.
"What have you there, Fruin?" said the Baronet.
"A portfolio, Sir Hugh. I found it hidden under some leaves in one of the vases on the West Terrace."
"A queer hiding-place for it," remarked the Baronet, taking the portfolio and examining it. "How came it there, I wonder. Vasari's, of course. He was showing the ladies some sketches this morning before breakfast, and suddenly closed the portfolio and would not allow them to see any more. He said they must be tired of them, but Florrie declared he had shut it up because there was something he did not want her to see, and she seized the portfolio and ran off with it. I suppose she must have hidden it where you found it, Fruin. Thank you for bringing it here."
The butler withdrew, and the Baronet pushed the portfolio over to me.
"Here you are, Frank," he said, "if you are interested in Vasari's sketches."
"Not at all," I replied carelessly, and then a thought struck me. "Stop, though! You say Vasari would not let all of them be seen. More secrecy. What's the game this time? Let me try to find out."
I drew a chair to the table and began to examine the contents of the portfolio. They consisted of sketches—ink, pencil, and crayon—in every stage of execution, some being unfinished outlines, and others finished to perfection. They embraced a vast variety of subjects—single objects, landscapes, sketches for historical pieces, and copies of statuary from the antique. Like a detective seeking for evidenceI examined each sketch suspiciously, holding it near the light and turning it over to see whether there was any mark or writing on the back. I came at last to twelve sketches of different heads, and unfastening the tape that kept them together, I laid them out on the table and drew my uncle's attention to them.
"You see these twelve heads? They have been in this portfolio a year, for Vasari showed them to me last Christmas and asked me whether I recognised any of them. As a fact I did not, but I fancied at the time he had an interested motive for the question, and now I am pretty certain he had."
My uncle looked at them carefully.
"You don't see a likeness to any one you know?"
"No," I replied.
"Try again."
There was one face that seemed familiar. It was that of a man about thirty years of age, but the head was quite bald, and the face destitute of beard and moustache.
"I may have seen this fellow," I said. "I seem to have a faint recollection of him."
My uncle laughed.
"Your recollections of your brother are growing very faint indeed if you do not recognize that face. Can't you see that it is George?"
"George?" I cried.
"Yes. That is George's face, minus hair, beard, and moustache."
Now that the likeness to George had been pointed out I could see it clearly enough, but the absence of all hair had imparted so different a look to the face that I doubt whether I myself would ever have discovered it.
"And why the deuce should he sketch George likethat?" I asked, thoroughly perplexed. "I remember how relieved he seemed when I did not recognise it."
"Can't say," replied my uncle. "It's another of those little mystifications which he delights to put upon his friends. By the way, wasn't Cæsar bald, and beardless?"
"'Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head,'" I murmured. "Yes, at the time of his death he was. But I don't quite see the relevancy of your remark."
"Merely a passing thought," he said lightly. "It's not much of a portrait of George; it's like him, and yet not like him. And there is a most uncanny expression about the eyes."
He threw aside the sketch, which the Baronet took up. As soon as his eyes fell upon it a half-repressed exclamation escaped his lips, and setting his gold-rimmed glasses upon his nose he took a long and careful look at the drawing.
"Do you say this is Captain Willard?" he asked, elevating his eyebrows in surprise.
"Yes," I replied. "That is my brother."
"He is a handsome man," said Sir Hugh, studying the sketch as if it were some puzzle offered to him for solution.
"Do you know him?" I asked.
"I have never seen Captain Willard in my life," he replied, laying aside the drawing.
It would have been wrong to doubt his word, but if any one else had spoken in the same curious, halting way I should have hesitated to believe him. I was on the point of asking him the reason of his evident surprise, when my attention was caught by a series of remarkable drawings that my uncle had just taken out of the portfolio. There were completed sketches ofgravestones and monumental pieces, which I supposed had been drawn by Vasari at the request of some cemetery mason in want of new designs, or else were the result of some competition at an art school. Whatever their origin, they had provided Vasari with an opportunity of displaying his inventiveness and taste, and the result was a collection of from twenty to thirty funeral monuments of various graceful shapes, decorated with broken columns, reversed torches, urns, crosses, wreaths, and other objects emblematic of death and immortality.
But what interested me most in this collection was a sort of grim humour, which had taken the shape of placing on these monuments the names of many distinguished men, and from my knowledge of the artist's character, I readily discerned that the persons thus selected were those from whose opinions he differed. I suppose his eccentricity found a kind of pleasure in thus consigning to the tomb men whom he disliked. Some of the epitaphs served only to display the morbid vanity of the man, as, for instance:—
"Sacred to the Memory ofFrederick, Lord Leighton,p. r. a.,
Who was succeeded in the Presidential Chairby the Equally Eminent if notSuperior Artist,Angelo Vasari."
A future Walpole in search of "Anecdotes of Painting" must not overlook the following curious incident:—
"In Memoriam,Alma Tadema,The Star among Artists,Who died with grief at the eclipse of his nameby the Rising Sun,Angelo Vasari."
"Egad!" said the Baronet, who was looking on with the half-abstracted air that he had displayed since the discovery of George's likeness. "I don't wonder he shut the portfolio up when he came to this exhibition of his vanity. What a conceited fool the fellow is!"
Casually turning over the rest of these drawings, we came upon the following singular epitaph, inscribed on a monument crowned with a piece of sculpture representing the Crucifixion:
"To the Memory of the SublimeGiotto,Who, in his zeal for Art,Set at defiance those fantastic notions whichCasuists call Morality,And whose example inspired the genius ofAngelo Vasari,With the idea that gave birth to that NobleMasterpiece,'The Fall of Cæsar.'"
"Giotto? Giotto?" repeated the Baronet with a thoughtful air. "He meanstheGiotto, of course."
"Without doubt," responded my uncle. "But whatdoes he mean by the words, 'setting at defiance those fantastic notions which casuists call morality?'"
"Can't say, I'm sure," replied Sir Hugh. "I'm not sufficiently versed in Giotto's history to understand the allusion. But perhaps Frank can explain it."
"I'm sorry to say I'm exactly in your position," I returned.
"Learned gentlemen we are!" laughed the Baronet; and then, after a brief interval of silence, he continued:
"I would like to know what this allusion is—for a reason," he added in a grave tone. "It refers undoubtedly to some incident in Giotto's career; if we knew what this incident was, it might furnish us with a clue to the mystery that surrounds the production of Angelo's picture."
"Well, let us try to solve the enigma," said I, going to a bookcase, and taking therefrom a volume entitledThe History of Early Italian Art. "Here's a book that is sure to contain a biography of Giotto."
I turned to the index, and having found the pages referring to Giotto, I glanced hastily over the biography of the great "Fa Presto," stopping now and then to read aloud, for the edification of the Baronet and my uncle, some item that I deemed worthy of notice. At length, in the course of my reading, I came to the following passage:
"A horrible story is told in connexion with his picture of 'The Crucifixion.' It is said that Giotto persuaded the man who acted as his model to be tied to a cross, and while in this helpless state he stabbed him, in order that he might be the better enabled to limn with ghastly fidelity the dying agonies of the Saviour."
"What do you think of that?" said I, looking upfrom my reading. "If that isn't setting morality at defiance, what is?"
"You've hit on it," said the Baronet. "That's the story Angelo's alluding to, for see! he has put the Crucifixion scene on the tomb. But what does he call Giotto's deed? 'A zeal for art?' Surely he doesn't approve this horrible act?"
"It would seem so from his language," I returned blankly.
"'Whose example,'" said the Baronet, reading from the epitaph, and tracing the words with his forefinger, "'inspired the genius of Angelo Vasari with the idea that gave birth to that noble masterpiece, "The Fall of Cæsar."' What can he mean, Leslie?" he continued, addressing my uncle. "Not," he added with a grim smile, "that he, too, stabbed his model for the sake of an artistic effect. That would be too much of a joke, to murder a man for the sake of producing a realistic picture. And yet," he concluded with a perplexed air, "that's the only meaning one can give to his words."
He stared uneasily at my uncle, who stared uneasily at me.
"I don't know what to think of it," said my uncle. "He certainly seems to approve Giotto's act, and intimates that he copied his example in painting his own picture. This must be the language of a madman!"
"There's method in his madness, then," remarked the Baronet. "He had wit enough to hide this from the ladies this morning."
We read daily of terrible murders committed by men who are mere names to us. In the columns of the newspaper such crimes do not seem out of place—they are quite natural; we almost look for them; butto learn that a person within our own circle—who has sat at our table, and is on familiar terms with us—has his hands stained with the blood of his fellow-man; this is so new an experience that we can not bring ourselves to believe.
For a long time we sat looking at each other in silent surprise, not knowing what to make of the singular effusion to the memory of Giotto.
"It must be, it must be!" murmured the Baronet at length. "It's quite clear to me that Angelo stabbed his model."
"No, no, it can't be!" exclaimed my uncle, unable to keep his chair in his excitement, and nervously pacing the apartment. "You do not really think that Angelo would murder a fellow-mortal merely to produce a realistic picture?"
"Why not?" replied the Baronet coolly, as if the supposititious act, were the most natural one in the world. "Such instanceshaveoccurred in the history of art—science, too, has had its murders. Did not Vesalius on one occasion dissect a living man? From his boyhood Angelo has thirsted for fame as an artist. His long line of early failures, therefore, may have had the effect of disturbing his mental balance. Constant brooding over the neglect offered to his genius may have so obliterated the line that divides right from wrong as to have led him, in despair of obtaining success by any other method, to imitate the example of Giotto."
"Good God! And this man might have been my son-in-law!" cried my uncle.
"Let me congratulate you upon your lucky deliverance from such a relationship."
"If Angelo is an assassin," said my uncle, "who was the victim?"
"That is the question which the picture will answer."
"You mean that Angelo has transferred the features of the dead without alteration to the canvas?"
"That is my meaning—yes."
"And yet," remonstrated my uncle, "he exhibits his picture at Paris in a public gallery open to all. That is the very way to betray himself."
"Exactly, if the dead man were a well-known person, which probably he was not."
I sat silent, revolving in my mind the whole history of the strange picture, as I was by no means disposed to accept the Baronet's theory that Angelo was an actual assassin. I remembered the date assigned by the artist for the completion of his work. It was Christmas Day—the day of my brother's departure for the Continent. I recalled the red stain on his vest. Could it be that both George and Angelo were concerned in a murder? But why should one remain and the other become a fugitive? Was it the more guilty of the two that had fled? and had Angelo for his own purpose simply taken advantage of a deed that George alone had committed? Was the officer who had caused the fracas in the Vasari Gallery at Paris none other than George, who, angry with the artist for having painted a picture that might lead to the detection of the crime, had attempted to destroy it. Was the silver-haired old man—Matteo Caritio—an accessory to the deed? Touched with remorse, had he confessed his part in the plot to the priest of Rivoli, only to meet with death a day later at the hand of the man whose secret he had betrayed?