“But for how long?”

“I have one more picture to complete.”

They turned again to the wall.  Suddenly something caught Lady Tamworth’s eye.  She bent forward and examined the four pictures with a close scrutiny.  Then she looked back again to Julian with a happy smile upon her face.  “You have done these lately?”

“Quite lately; they are the stages of a man’s life, of the struggle between his passions and his will.”

He began to describe them.  In the first picture a brutish god was seated on a throne of clay; before the god a man of coarse heavy features lay grovelling; but from his shoulders sprang a white figure, weak as yet and shadowy, but pointing against the god the shadow of a spear; and underneath was written, “At last he knoweth what he made.”  In the second, the figure which grovelled and that which sprang from its shoulders were plodding along a high-road at night, chained together by the wrist.  The white figure halted behind, the other pressed on; and underneath was written, “They know each other not.”  In the third the figures marched level, that which had grovelled scowling at its companion; but the white figure had grown tall and strong and watched its companion with contempt.  Above the sky had brightened with the gleam of stars; and underneath was written, “They know each other.”  In the fourth, the white figure pressed on ahead and dragged the other by the chain impatiently.  Before them the sun was rising over the edge of a heath and the road ran straight towards it in a golden line; and underneath was written, “He knoweth his burden.”

Lady Tamworth waited when he had finished, in a laughing expectancy.  “And is that all?” she asked.  “Is that all?”

“No,” he replied slowly; “there is yet a further stage.  It is unfinished.”  And he pointed to the easel.

“I don’t mean that.  Is that all you have to say of these?”

“I think so.  Yes.”

“Look at me!”

Julian turned wonderingly to Lady Tamworth.  She watched him with a dancing sparkle of her eyes.  “Now look at the pictures!” Julian obeyed her.  “Well,” she said after a pause, with a touch of anxiety.  “What do you see now?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” she asked.  “Do you mean that?”

“Yes!  What should I see?” She caught him by the arm and stared intently into his eyes in a horror of disbelief.  He met her gaze with a frank astonishment.  She dropped his arm and turned away.

“What should I see?” he repeated.

“Nothing,” she echoed with a quivering sadness in her voice.  “It is late, I must go.”

The white figure in each of those four pictures wore her face, idealised and illumined, but still unmistakably her face; and he did not know it, could not perceive it though she stood by his side!  The futility of her errand was proved to her.  She drew on her gloves and looking towards the easel inquired dully, “What stage is that?”