A look of utter astonishment, then one of painful perplexity, came over his face—­a look which I attributed to his having heard part of the conversation between my mother and myself.

‘You mean the—­the—­model?  She is not here, Mr. Aylwin,’ said he.  ’The same young lady you were seeking in Wales!  Mysterious indeed are the ways of the spirit world!’ and then his lips moved silently as though in prayer.

‘Where is she?’ I asked again.

‘I will tell you all about her soon—­when we are alone,’ he said in an undertone.  ‘Does the picture satisfy you?’

The picture!  He was thinking of his art.  Amid all that gorgeous pageant in which mediaeval angels; were mixed with classic youths and flower-crowned; maidens, in such a medley of fantastic beauty as could never have been imagined save by a painter; who was one-third artist, one-third madman, and one-third seer—­amid all the marvels of that strange, uncanny culmination of the neo-Romantic movement in Art which had excited the admiration of one set of the London critics and the scorn of others, I had really and fully seen but one face—­the face of Isis, or Pelagia, or Eve, or Natura Benigna, or whosoever she was looking at me with those dear eyes of Winnie’s which were my very life—­looking at me with the same bewitching, indescribable expression that they wore when she sat with her ‘Prince of the Mist’ on Snowdon.  I tried to take in the ensemble.  In vain!  Nothing but the face and figure of Winifred—­crowned with seaweed as in the Raxton photograph—­could stay for the thousandth part of a second upon my eyes.

‘Wilderspin,’ I said, ’I cannot do the picture justice at this moment.  I must see it again—­after I have seen her.  Where is she?  Can I not see her now?’

‘You cannot.’

‘Can I not see her to-day?’

‘You cannot.  I will tell you soon, and I have much to tell you,’ said Wilderspin, looking uneasily round at my mother, who did not seem inclined to leave us.  ’I will tell you all about her when—­when you are sufficiently calm.’

‘Tell me now,’ I said.

’Gad! this is a strange affair, don’t you know?  It would puzzle Cyril Aylwin himself,’ said Sleaford.  ‘What the dooce does it all mean?’

‘Is she safe?’ I cried to Wilderspin.

There was a pause.

‘Is she safe?’ I cried again.

‘Quite safe,’ said Wilderspin, in a tone whose solemnity would have scared me had the speaker been any other person than this eccentric creature.  ’When you are less agitated, I will tell you all about her.’

‘No! now, now!’

IV