He rose. His knees shook. He felt queer and dizzy. It had been a long time of mental strain. Lady Tintagel turned on a light behind her, and moved the despatch-box. He took his seat beside her on the couch. A packet of faded photographs were in her hand. “This is the first. Your mother gave it to me; my baby Nigel; six months old. She used to call you her little Black Prince, because of your dark eyes and regal bearing.” He took the faded picture and bent over it. The bright eyes of the baby had survived the yellowing process of sixty years. They held a look of baby omniscience as they stared into the haunted eyes of the man who bent and looked. The little figure sat erect, one finger lifted as if solemnly pointing a moral. The mother, on whose lap the baby sat, was so much absorbed in watching its expression, that her back was turned. He could see only a gracious figure and smoothly braided hair. “Aged three,” said Lady Tintagel, passing another. The same bright eyes, now merry with childish laughter, and half hidden in a mass of tumbled curls. Bare legs, white socks, strap shoes, a wooden horse. The marvel was that he stayed still ten seconds to be photographed. He must have whooped and run, the moment it was over. “Aged seven,” said Lady Tintagel. “I love him in his kilt.” A graceful little figure in full Highland dress; standing, as if just arrested in a dance, one hand above his head; his dark eyes shining, his curls escaping from the Glengarry bonnet. The man’s hand shook, as he laid it down. “No more just now,” he said, thickly. “I don’t—see very clearly.” “Just the last,” she insisted, “the last of all; that you may understand how it was that Thomas knew you.” She drew out a cabinet portrait and placed it in his hands. Beneath it was written: “_Nigel, one week before I lost him. August, 1883._” A man in flannels, carrying a pair of sculls over his shoulder; smiling that he should be caught by a photographer on his way to the boats; his whole face and figure radiating health and happiness; a look of well-being, of honest, genial love to all mankind; of innate goodness, purity, strength—a man made for love and for companionship; a man to whom a woman would trust herself, body and soul, and never regret it. No contrast could have been more marked than that between the man portrayed and the man who now looked at the portrait; but the contrast was one of heart, mind, and character, not of outward semblance. For, as he looked, seeing only the portrait, in a room growing suddenly black, he knew he looked upon himself—himself, as he might have been; himself, as he once was. Lady Tintagel returned the others to their place of safety. She fitted them all in with loving care; then turned to take the last. “Can you wonder——” she began; then paused dismayed. The man beside her tried to rise, groped blindly for support, then swayed slowly forward, and fell senseless at her feet.