"I have come to ask you a favor," he said. Mr. Etheridge nodded. "What is it?" Lord Leycester laughed his rare laugh. "I am trembling in my shoes," he said. "My tongue cleaves to my mouth with nervousness----" The old painter glanced round at him, and his face relaxed into a smile as his eyes rested on the bold, handsome face and easy grace of the speaker. "Yes, you look excessively frightened," he said. "What is it?" It was noticeable that, excepting in his first greeting, the old man had not given him the benefit of his title; he had known him when Leycester had been a boy, running in and out of the cottage, always followed by a pack of dogs, and generally doing some mischief. "I want you to do a little scene for me." The old man groaned and looked at his picture firmly. "You know the glade in the woods opening out opposite the small island. I want you to paint it." "I am sorry," began the old man. Lord Leycester went on, interrupting him gently: "Have you seen it lately?" he said, and as he spoke Stella came into the room enticing the mastiff after her, with a handful of biscuits she had taken from the cheffonier. "It is very beautiful. It is the loveliest bit on the whole river. Right up from the stream it stretches green, with the young Spring leaves, to the sky above the hill. In the open space between the trees the primroses have made a golden carpet. I saw two kingfishers sailing up it as I stood and looked this morning, and as I looked I thought how well, how delightfully you would put it on canvas. Think! The bright green, the golden foreground, the early Summer sky to crown the whole, and reflected in the river running below." Mr. Etheridge paused in his work and listened, and Stella, kneeling over the dog, listened too, with down-bent face, and wondered how the painter could stand so firm and obstinate. To her the voice sounded like the sweetest music set to some poem. She saw the picture as he drew it, and in her heart the music of the words and voice found an echoing harmony. Forgotten was the other man's warning; vain it would have been if he had repeated it at that moment. As well associate the darkness of a Winter's night with the bright gladness of a Summer's morning, as think of evil in connection with that noble face and musical voice. Mr. Etheridge paused, but he shook his head. "Very fine, very temptingly put; you are a master of words, Leycester; but I am immovable as a rock. Indeed your eloquence is wasted; it is not an impressionable man whom you address. I, James Etheridge, am on this picture. I am lost in my work, Lord Leycester." "You will not do it?" The old man smiled. "I will not. To another man I should present an excuse, and mask my refusal. With you anything but a simple 'no' is of no avail." Lord Leycester smiled and turned away. "I am sorry," he said. "I meant it for a present to my sister Lilian." Again Stella's eyes turned toward him. This man--infamous!