"There were three artists that he fastened upon--Watteau!--I have seen him recoil from the subjects (he was already balancing whether he should become a religious) and then go back again and again to the pictures, feeding himself upon them. Then there were two or three Rembrandts, and two or three Tintorets. One Tintoret Entombment I remember--a small picture. I never could get him away from it. He told me once that it was like something painted in powdered gems and then dipped in air. I believe he got the expression from some book he was reading," said Helbeck, with the good-humoured smile of one who does not himself indulge in the fineries of language.... "When we came home I borrowed a couple of pictures for him from a friend in Lancashire, who has good things. One was a Rembrandt--'The Casting-out of Hagar'--I have his copy of it in my room now--the other was a Tintoret sketch. He worked at them for days and weeks, pondering and copying them, bit by bit, till he was almost ill with excitement and enthusiasm. But you see the result in what he does." And Helbeck smiled upon the artist with the affectionate sympathy of an elder brother. He and Laura were standing together one morning at the west end of the chapel, while Williams, in his blouse and mounted on a high stool, was painting a dozen yards away. "And then he gave it up!" said Laura under her breath. "Who can understand that?" Helbeck hesitated a little. His face was crossed for a moment by the shadow of some thought that he did not communicate. Then he said, "He came--as I told you--to think that it was right and best for him to do so. An artist, darling, has to think of the Four Last Things, like anybody else!" "The Four Last Things!" said Laura, startled. "What do you mean?" "Death--Judgment--Heaven--and Hell." The words fell slowly from the half-whispering voice into the quiet darkness of the chapel. Laura looked up--Helbeck's eyes, fixed upon the crucifix over the altar, seemed to receive thence a stem and secret message to which the whole man responded. The girl moved restlessly away. "Let us go and see what he is doing."