“Do you notice them in me?” he gasped.

“A—­yes—­in a m-modified measure—­”

“In me?”

“Certainly!” she said firmly; but the slow glow suffusing her cheeks was disconcerting her.  Then his own face began to reflect the splendid color in hers; their eyes met, dismayed.

“There are sixteen volumes about this disease,” she said.  “There must be such a disease!”

“There is,” he said.  “I have it badly.  But I never had it before I first saw you in the Park!”

“Mr. Carden—­this is the wildest absurdity—­”

“I know it.  Wildness is a symptom.  I’m mad as a hatter.  I’ve got every separate symptom, and I wish it was infectious and contagious and catching and fatal!”

She made an effort to turn the pages to the chapter entitled “Manias and Illusions,” but he laid his hand across the book and his clear eyes defied her.

“Mr. Carden—­”

Her smooth hand trembled under his, then, suddenly nerveless, relaxed.  With an effort she lifted her head; their eyes met, spellbound.

“You have every symptom,” he said unsteadily—­“every one!  What have you to say?”

Her fascinated eyes held his.

“What have you to say?” he repeated under his breath—­“you, with every symptom, and your heavenly radiant beauty to confirm them—­that splendid youthful loveliness which blinds and stuns me as I look—­as I speak—­as I tell you that I love you.  That is my malady; that is the beginning and the end of it; love!”

She sat speechless, immovable, as one under enchantment.

“All my life,” he said, “I have spent in painting shadows.  But the shadows were those dim celestial shapes cast by your presence in the world.  You tell me that the world is better for my work; that I have offered my people beauty and a sort of truth, which they had never dreamed of until I revealed it?  Yet what inspired me was the shadow only, for I had never seen the substance; I had never believed I should ever see the living source of the shadows which inspired me.  And now I see; now I have seen with my own eyes.  Now the confession of faith is no longer a blind creed, born of instinct.  You live!  You are you!  What I believed from necessity I find proved in fact.  The occult no longer can sway one who has seen.  And you, who, without your knowledge or mine, have always been the one and only source of any good in me or in my work—­why is it strange that I loved you at first sight?—­that I worshiped you at first breath?—­I, who, like him who raises his altar to ‘the unknown god,’ raised my altar to truth and beauty?  And a miracle has answered me.”