Mr. Pelly was deeply interested. The question of whether this was a dream, a hallucination, or a vision, or the result of exceeding by two ounces his usual allowance of glasses of Madeira, he could not answer offhand. Besides, there would be plenty of time for that after. His present object should be to let nothing slip, however much he felt convinced of its illusory character. It could be sifted later. He would be passive, and not allow an ill-timed incredulity to mar a good delusion in the middle. He switched off scepticism for the time being, and spoke sympathetically. "Is it possible? Did you know him? But of course you must have known him, or he could scarcely have painted you. Dear me!" Mr. Pelly checked a disposition to gasp; that would never do--he might wake himself up, and spoil all. The sweet voice of the picture--it was like a voice, mind you, not like a gramophone--was prompt with its reply: "I knew him well. But, oh, so long ago! One gets to doubt everything--all that was most real once, that made the very core of our lives. Sometimes I think it was a dream--a sweet dream with terror at the end--a nectar-cup a basilisk was watching, all the while. Four hundred years! Can I be sure it was true? Yet I remember it all--could tell it now and miss nothing." Mr. Pelly was silent a moment before answering. He reflected that if his reply led to a circumstantial narrative of events four hundred years old, it would be a bitter disappointment to be waked by the return of the family, and to have it all spoiled. However, it was only ten o'clock, and they might be three hours yet. Besides, it was well known that dreams have no real duration--are in fact compressed into a second or so of waking. He would risk it. "I have a keen interest, Signora," said he, "in the forgotten traditions of antiquity. It would indeed be a source of satisfaction to me if you would consider me worthy of your confidence, and entrust to me some portion at least of your family history, and that of your painter. I can assure you that no portion of what you tell me shall be published without your express permission. No one can detest more keenly than myself the modern American practice of intrusion into private life...." He stopped. Surely that sound was a sigh, if not a sob. In a moment the voice of the picture came again, but with even more of sadness in it than before: "Was it Antiquity, then, in those days? We did not know it then. We woke to the day that was to come--that had not been, before--even as you do now; and the voices of yesterday were not forgotten in our ears. We flung aside the thing of the hour; as you do now, with little thought of what we lost, and lived alone for hope, and the things that were to be. I cannot tell you how young we were then. And remember! I am twenty now; as I was then, and have been, ever since.