“No,” said Gard sternly.  “Excuse me; I am here for one purpose.”

Mahr was chagrined, but switched on the electric lights above the canvas occupying the place of honor on the crowded wall.  The portrait stood revealed, a jewel of color, rich as a ruby, mysterious as an autumn night, vivid in its humanity, divine in its art, palpitating with life, yet remote as death itself.  The marvelous canvas glowed before them—­a thing to quell anger, to stifle love, to still hate itself in an impulse of admiration.

Suddenly Marcus Gard began to laugh, as he had laughed that day long ago, at his own discomfiture.

“What is it?” stuttered Mahr, amazed.  “Don’t you think it genuine?” There was panic in his tone.

Gard laughed again, then broke off as suddenly as he had begun; and passion thrilled in his voice as he turned fierce eyes upon his enemy.

“I am laughing at the singular role this painting has played in my life.  We have met before—­the Heim Vandyke and I. If Fate chooses to turn painter, we must grind his colors, I suppose.  But what I intend to grind first, is you, Victor Mahr!  You—­you cowardly hound!  No—­stand where you are; don’t go near that bell.  It’s hard enough for me to keep my hands off you as it is!”

The attack had been so unexpected that Mahr was honestly at a loss to account for it.  He looked anxiously toward the door, remembered the absence of his secretary and gasped in fear.  He was at the mercy of the madman.  With an effort he mastered his terror.

“Don’t be angry,” he stammered.  “Don’t be annoyed with me; it’s all a mistake, you know.  Are you—­are you feeling quite well?  Do let me give you something—­a—­a glass of champagne, perhaps.  I’ll call a servant.”

Gard’s smile was so cruel that Mahr’s worst fears were confirmed.  But the torrent of accusation that burst from Gard’s lips bore him down with the consciousness of the other’s knowledge.

“You scoundrel!” roared the enraged man.  “You squirming, poisonous snake!  You would strike at a woman through her daughter, would you!  You would send anonymous letters to a child about her mother!  You would hire sneaks for your sneaking vileness!—­coward, brute that you are!  Well, I know it all—­all, I say.  And as true as I live, if ever you make one move in that direction again, I shall find it out, and I will kill you!  But first I’ll go to your boy, Victor Mahr, and I shall tell him:  ’Your father is a criminal—­a bigamist.  Your mother never was his wife.  Sneak and beast from first to last, he found it easier to desert and deceive.  You are the nameless child of an outcast father, the whelp of a cur.’  I’ll say in your own words, Victor Mahr:  ’Obscurity is best, perhaps, even exile.’  Do you remember those words?  Well, never forget them again as long as you live, or, by God, you’ll have no time on earth to make your peace!”