I bowed slightly, and my Uncle Rupert did the same, withdrawing the hand which I had affected not to see. God forbid that my hand should touch his, even in the most casual fashion. "Well, Arbuthnot, we----" Sir Francis broke off in his pleasant speech, with his eyes riveted on the wall behind me. Slowly his face grew rigid with anger, and his thick eyebrows were contracted in a stern frown. "Who has touched that picture?" he asked, in a cold, measured tone, which I had never heard from him before. Rupert Devereux's eyes followed his father's shaking forefinger, and I saw a change pass over his face also. His dark eyes filled with a troubled, fearful light, and he shrank back a pace, as though to escape from the sight of the handsome boyish face which laughed down on him from the massive frame. To my eyes, inspired by knowledge, guilt was written in his pale face as plainly as nature could write, and a passionate anger which had lain sleeping within me for many weary months leapt out, burning and fierce, kindled by his presence. I forgot that I was Mr. Arbuthnot, the land agent; I forgot Maud's presence; I forgot everything save that I stood face to face with the man who had blighted my father's name and honour. That one maddening thought alone held me, and it was only by a great effort that I restrained myself from flying at his throat like a mad bull-dog. I don't think that Sir Francis noticed my agitation. In fact, I am sure that he did not; for I was standing just outside the streak of light which the moon, shining softly in through the diamond-paned window, was casting upon the polished floor. "Mr. Arbuthnot," he said, firmly, "might I trouble you--or Francis, you are nearest! Be so good as to turn that picture with its face to the wall." Francis Devereux dropped Lady Olive's arm, and advancing, laid his hands upon the frame. Then the devil broke loose within me, and seizing him by the collar as though he had been a baby, I threw him on his back upon the floor. "Dare to lay a finger upon that picture, you or any one else here," I cried, passionately, "and I will kill you!" CHAPTER XXIII IN THE PICTURE GALLERY It is strange that, although so many years have passed, that scene remains as though written with letters of fire into my memory--vivid and clear. Word for word, I can remember every sentence that was spoken; and the different expressions on the face of each I could, if I were a painter, faithfully reproduce. Sir Francis gazed at me speechless in a sort of helpless apathy, Maud and Lady Olive looked horrified and thunderstruck, and my Uncle Rupert, with face as pale as death, was shaking from head to foot, with eyes riveted upon me in a sort of fascinated bewilderment, as though I were one risen from the dead. Sir Francis seemed to be the first to recover himself. "Arbuthnot! Arbuthnot!" he exclaimed; "what does this mean?" I pointed to my uncle, and he seemed to shrink back from my outstretched hand.