Many minutes passed. There was not a sound, not a movement in the room. Brood, kneeling beside the outstretched figure of his unintended victim, was staring at the graying face with wide, unblinking eyes. He looked at last upon features that he had searched for in vain through all the sullen years. There was blood on his hands and on his cheek, for he had listened at first for the beat of the heart. Afterward his agonised gaze had gone to the bloodless face. There it was arrested. A dumb wonder possessed his soul. He knelt there petrified by the shock of discovery. In the dim light he no longer saw the features of Matilde, but his own, and his heart was still. In that revealing moment he realised that he had never seen anything in Frederic's countenance save the dark, never-to-be-forgotten eyes, and they were his Matilde's. Now those eyes were closed. He could not see them, and the blindness was struck from his own. He had always looked into the boy's eyes, he had never been able to seek farther than those haunting, inquiring eyes, but now he saw the lean, strong jaw and the firm chin, the straight nose and the broad forehead, and none of these was Matilde's. These were the features of a man, and of but one man. He was seeing himself as he was when he looked into his mirror at twenty-one. All these years he had been blind; all these years he had gone on cursing his own image. In that overpowering thought came the realisation that it was too late for him to atone. His mind slowly struggled out of the stupefied bondage of years. He was looking at his own face. Dead, he would look like that! Matilde was gone for ever, the eyes were closed, but he was there; James Brood was still there, turning grayer and grayer of face all the time. All the pent-up rage of years rushed suddenly to his lips and an awful curse issued, but it was delivered against himself. He started to rise to his feet, his mind bent on the one way to end the anguish that was too great to bear. The revolver! It had been cruel, it should be kind. His heart leaped. He had a few seconds to live, not longer than it would take to find the weapon and place it against his breast--just so long and no longer would he be compelled to live. He had forgotten the woman. She was standing just beyond the body that stretched itself between them. Her hands were clasped against her breast and her eyes were lifted heavenward. She had not moved throughout that age of oblivion. He saw her and suddenly became rigid. Slowly he sank back, his eyes distended, his jaw dropping. He put out a hand and saved himself from falling, but his eyes did not leave the face of the woman who prayed, whose whole being was the material representation of prayer. But it was not Yvonne, his wife, that he saw standing there. It was another Matilde!