These words came in shortened sentences divided by the mounting of each step, the two hurrying up the stairs, "Old Sunshine" ahead, Dalny following. The sister was waiting for them at the open door. She had a snow-white kerchief over her shoulders and a quaint cap on her head, evidently her best. Her eyes, still red from weeping, shone like flashes of sunshine through falling rain. "Keep him here, Louise, until I get my umbrella--I am afraid. No; stay till I come for you--" this to Dalny, who was, in his eagerness, peering into the well-swept, orderly looking room. "Shut your eyes until I tell you--quick! under this umbrella" (he had picked it up just inside the door). Dalny suffered himself to be led into the room, his head smothered under the umbrella, the old man's hand firmly grasping his as if the distance between the door and the masterpiece was along the edge of an abyss. "Now!" cried the old man, waving the umbrella aside. Dalny raised his eyes, and a feeling of faintness came over him. Then a peculiar choking sensation crept into his throat. For a moment he did not and could not speak. The thousands of little patches of paint radiating from the centre spot were but so many blurs on a flat canvas. The failure was pathetic, but it was complete. The old man was reading his face. The faded sister had not taken her eyes from his. "It does not dazzle you! You do not see the vibrations?" "I am getting my eyes accustomed to it," stammered Dalny. "I cannot take it all in at once." He was hunting around in his mind for something to say--something that would not break the old man's heart. "No! You cannot deceive me. I had hoped better things of you, Mr. Dalny. It is not your fault that you cannot see." The old man had crossed to the door of his studio, had thrown it open, and stood as if waiting for Dalny to pass out. "Yes, but let me look a little longer," protested Dalny. The situation was too pathetic for him to be offended. "No--no--please excuse us--we are very happy, Louise and I, and I would rather you left us alone. I will come for you some other time--when my picture has been sent away. Please forgive my sister and me, but _please_ go away." Weeks passed before Dalny saw either one of the old people again. He watched for them, his door ajar, listening to every sound; but if they passed up and down the stairs, they did so when he was out or asleep. He had noticed, too, that all was still overhead, except a light tread which he knew must be the faded sister's. The heavier footfall, however, was silent. One morning the janitor opened Dalny's door without knocking and closed it softly behind him. He seemed laboring under some excitement. "He's up at St. Luke's Hospital; they took him there last night," he said in a whisper, jerking his thumb toward the ceiling. "Who?" "'Old Sunshine.'" "Crazy?" "No; ill with fever; been sick for a week. Not bad, but the doctor would not let him stay here."