There was silence a while—­till a nurse came in to make up the fire.  Fenwick began to talk of old friends, and current exhibitions; and presently tea made its appearance.  Watson’s strength seemed to revive.  He sat more upright in his chair, his voice grew stronger, and he dallied with his tea, joking hoarsely with his nurse, and asking Fenwick all the questions that occurred to him.  His face, in its rugged pallor and emaciation, and his great head, black or iron-grey on the white pillows, were so fine that Fenwick could not take his eyes from him; with the double sense of the artist, he saw the subject in the man; a study in black and white hovered before him.

When the nurse had withdrawn, and they were alone again, in a silence made more intimate still by the darkness of the panelled walls, which seemed to isolate them from the rest of the room, enclosing them in a glowing ring of lamp and firelight, Fenwick was suddenly seized by an impulse he could not master.  He bent towards the sick man.

‘Watson!—­do you remember advising me to marry when we met in Paris?’

‘Perfectly.’

The invalid turned his haggard eyes upon the speaker, in a sudden sharp attention.

There was a pause; then Fenwick said, with bent head, staring into the fire: 

‘Well—­I am married.’

Watson gave a hoarse ’Phew!’—­and waited.

’My wife left me twelve years ago and took our child with her.  I don’t know whether they are alive or dead.  I thought I’d like to tell you.  It would have been better if I hadn’t concealed it, from you—­and—­and other friends.’

‘Great Scott!’ said Watson, slowly, bringing the points of his long, emaciated fingers together, like one trying to master a new image.  ’So that’s been the secret—­’

‘Of what?’ said Fenwick, testily; but as Watson merely replied by an interrogative and attentive silence, he threw himself into his tale—­headlong.  He told it at far greater length than Eugenie had ever heard it; and throughout, the subtle, instinctive appeal of man to man governed the story, differentiating it altogether from the same story, told to a woman.

He spoke impetuously, with growing emotion, conscious of an infinite relief and abandonment.  Watson listened with scarcely a comment.  Midway a little pattering, scuffling noise startled the speaker.  He looked round and saw the monkey, Anatole, who had been lying asleep in his basket.  Watson nodded to Fenwick to go on, and then feebly motioned to his knee.  The monkey clambered there, and Watson folded his bony arms round the creature, who lay presently with his weird face pressed against his master’s dressing-gown, his melancholy eyes staring out at Fenwick.

‘It was Madame she was jealous of?’ said Watson, when the story came to an end.

Fenwick hesitated—­then nodded reluctantly.  He had spoken merely of ‘one of my sitters.’  But it was not possible to fence with this dying man.