In order to get this other man--this active and zealous fellow-conspirator--you must find means to persuade him to sacrifice every single thing that men care for--honour, reputation, success. He must be satisfied to pursue Art, actually and literally, for Art's own sake. This is, I know, a rule of conduct preached by every art critic, every æsthete, every lecturer or writer on Art. Yet observe what it may lead to. Was there, for instance, an unknown genius who gave his work to Giotto, with permission to call it his own? And was that obscure genius content to sit and watch that work in the crowd, unseen and unsuspected, while he murmured praises and thanksgiving for the skill of hand and eye which had been given to him, but claimed by that other young man, Messer Giotto? Did Turner have his ghost? Sublime sacrifice of self! So to pursue Art for Art's sake as to give your pictures to another man by which he may rise to honour--even, it may be, to the Presidency of the Royal Academy, contented only with the consciousness of good and sincere work, and with the possession of mastery! It is beyond us: we cannot achieve this greatness--we cannot rise to this devotion. Art hath no such votaries. By what persuasions, then--by what bribes--was Roland induced to consent to his own suicide--ignoble, secret, and shameful suicide? He must have consented; in no other way could the thing be done. He must have agreed to efface himself--but not out of pure devotion to Art. Not so. The Roland of the past survived still. The burning desire for distinction and recognition still flamed in his soul. The bitterness and shame with which he spoke of himself proved that his consent had been wrung from him. He was ashamed. Why? Because another bore the honours that should be his. Because he was a bondman of the impostor. Of this Armorel was certain. Roland Lee--the man whom for five long years she had imagined to be marching from triumph to triumph--conqueror of the world--had sold himself--for what consideration she knew not--hand and eye, genius and brain, heart and soul--had sold himself into slavery. He had consented to a monstrous and most impudent fraud! And the man who stood before the canvas in public, writing his name in the corner, was--the noun appellative, the proper noun--belonging to such an act. And her own friend--her gallant hero of Art--what else was he in this conspiracy of two? You cannot persuade a woman--such is the poverty of the feminine imagination--to call a thing like this by any other name than its plain, simple, and natural one. A man may explain away, find excuses, make suggestions, point out extenuating circumstances, show how the force of events destroys free will, and propose a surplice and a golden crown for the unfortunate victim of fate, instead of bare shoulders and the nine-clawed cat. But a woman--never. If the thing done is a Lie, the man who did it is a ----