The statue, which was life size, represented the figure of a beautiful, grave youth, standing with one foot advanced, as if on the point of stepping forward. His muscular arms hung loosely; his head was slightly turned aside as in the attitude of one who listens for a repetition of some vague sound heard at a distance. His whole pose suggested an alert, yet restrained, watchfulness. The triumph of the sculptor lay in the extraordinary suggestion of life he had conveyed into the marble. His creature lived as many mollusc men never live. Its muscles seemed tense, its body quivering with eagerness to accomplish--what? To attack, to repel, to protect, to perform some deed demanding manfulness, energy, free, fearless strength. "That marble thing could slay if necessary," thought Gerard Fane, with a thrill of the nerves all through him that startled him, and recalled him to himself. He stepped forward to the hearth quietly, and Brune turned and took him by the hand. "I did not hear you," the sculptor said. "The man must have opened the door very gently. Sydney, this is Dr Gerard Fane, who is kindly looking after me." The woman by the fire had risen, and stood in the firelight and the twilight, which seemed to join hands just where she was. She greeted the specialist in a girl's young voice, and he glanced at her with the furtive thought, "Does she know yet?" She looked twenty-two, not more. Her eyes were dark grey, and her hair was bronze. Her figure was thin almost to emaciation; but health glowed in her smooth cheeks, and spoke in her swift movements and easy gestures. Her expression was responsive and devouringly eager. Life ran in her veins with turbulence, never with calm. Her mouth was pathetic and sensitive, but there was an odd suggestion of almost boyish humour in her smile. Before she smiled, Fane thought, "She knows." Afterwards, "She cannot know." "Have you a few moments to spare?" Brune asked him. "Will you have tea with us?" Fane looked at Mrs Brune and assented. He felt a strange interest in this man and this woman. The tragedy of their situation appealed to him, although he lived in a measure by foretelling tragedies. Mrs Brune touched an electric bell let into the oak-panelled wall, and her husband drew a big chair forward to the hearth. As he was about to sit down in it, Gerard Fane's eyes were again irresistibly drawn towards the statue; and a curious fancy, born, doubtless, of the twilight that invents spectres and of the firelight that evokes imaginations, came to him, and made him for a moment hold his breath. It seemed to him that the white face menaced him, that the white body had a soul, and that the soul cried out against him. His hand trembled on the back of the chair. Then he laughed to himself at the absurd fancy, and sat down. "Your husband has been working?" he said to Mrs Brune.