‘On various grounds. First, there are the praises of people who cannot flatter, since there is nothing to be gained by speaking well of the dead. Secondly, there is that shelf full of books with George Penwyn’s name in them, all nice books, the choice of a man of refinement and good feeling. Thirdly, there is his portrait, and I like his face. Are those reasons strong enough, do you think?’ ‘Quite, for a woman! His portrait!—ah, by-the-bye, I should like to have another look at that.’ ‘Come and see it at once, then,’ replied Viola, good-naturedly. ‘It is in the little study, yonder—the old Squire’s room. The books are there too.’ The study was a little room off the hall. Maurice remembered it well, though he had never entered it since Mrs. Darvis showed him George Penwyn’s portrait, on his first visit to the Manor House. Viola took a candle from the mantelshelf and led the way to the study, a room which was still used for business interviews with stewards or tenants, a second door opening into a passage communicating with the offices, and obscure backways by which such inferior beings were admitted to the squire’s presence. Maurice took the candle from Miss Bellingham’s hand and held it up before the picture over the mantelpiece. His grip tightened on the bronze candlestick, and his breath came stronger and quicker as he looked, but he said never a word. That picture was to him stronger confirmation of his idea about Justina’s parentage than all the circumstantial evidence in the world. There, in those pictured lineaments he saw the very lines of Justina’s face—lines modified in her countenance, it is true, and softened to feminine beauty, but characteristics too striking to be mistaken even by a casual observer. ‘Strange that the likeness did not occur to me when I saw that picture first,’ he thought. ‘But at that time I had only looked at Justina with the eye of indifference. I did not know her face by heart as I do now. And I remember that even then the picture struck me as like some one I knew. Memory only failed to recall the individual.’ Those dark blue-grey eyes, with their somewhat melancholy expression, were so like the eyes he had seen looking at him mournfully only three weeks ago, when Justina bade him good-bye; the eyes which he faintly remembered looking up at him for the first time, in the buttercup meadow near Eborsham. He put down the candle without a word. ‘I hope you have stared long enough at that picture,’ said Viola, laughing. ‘You appear to find it remarkably interesting.’ ‘It is a very interesting portrait—to me.’ ‘Why to you, in particular?’ ‘Because it resembles some one very dear to me.’ ‘Oh, I understand,’ said Viola, gently. ‘Your poor friend, James Penwyn!’ Maurice did not attempt to set her right.