"I believe it," said the Dane. "The man is dying. He has only one thought--to go directly to the one who, surviving him, guarded his secrets and his life. He seized his portrait; he tore it from its hook with all his strength; he devoured it with his eyes; he drank it in with a look, if I may be allowed the expression. To this picture of the being whom he loved he spoke; he cried to him; telling him his last wishes; dictating to him his thoughts of vengeance. At this supreme moment his energy was increased a hundredfold, I know not what intensity of life was concentrated on this image, and gathering all his failing forces in a last look the man who wished to live; the man weakened by illness, dying, assassinated, put into that last regard the electric force, the fire which fixed the image (confused, no doubt, but recognizable since you have traced the resemblance) upon the retina. A phantom, if you wish, which is reflected in the dead man's eye." "And," repeated Bernardet, who wished to be perfectly assured in regard to the question, "it is not only the image of a living being, it is, to use your words, the phantom even of a painting which was retained on the retina?" "I do not reply to you: 'That is possible!' It is you who say to me: 'I have seen it!' And you have seen it, in truth, and the form, vague though it may be, the painted figure permits you to find in a passer-by the man whose picture the retina had already shown you!" "Oh! well! Doctor," said the little Bernardet, "I shall tell that, but they will deny it. They will say that it is impossible!" Dr. Erwin smiled. He seemed to be looking, with his deep blue eyes, at some invisible perspective, not bounded by the rooms of little room.