“Yes?” I said; “but I want to come in.” Perhaps there was something in my tone. Anyhow, after a short interval, during which I heard him wheeling his easel about, he unlocked the door himself. I marched straight in, and, quite radiant, nodded to Gogo, who, busy in a corner, gazed at me with a sort of gloomy alarm. “Mayn’t I look?” I said, smiling. “No!” said de Crespigny sharply. I went and held the paper under his nose. “Didn’t you slip this under the wrong door last night?” I asked calmly. “There!” growled Gogo, and throwing down his tools faced about furiously. De Crespigny’s face went mottled, and he began to shake all over. Then suddenly he rallied, and flamed on me, stuttering. “Wha-what right have you to ask? I may address whom I like, without requesting your leave. My-my lady shall be informed what spies she’s got in her house.” “You ass!” roared Gogo. “From me--yes,” I said. “I’m going straight to tell her.” Gogo stumped fiercely, and put himself between me and the door. His master collapsed like a pricked bladder. “You’ll ruin yourself,” he gasped, between tears and bullying. “If you ruin me, you come down too--don’t forget that.” “O, in a noble cause!” I said mockingly: “to open the eyes of my mistress and my friend.” He stamped about in a little impotent frenzy, then came and almost prostrated himself before me. “I--I thought you’d forsaken me,” he cried; “I swear I did, Di; and--and I was as miserable as a dog, and wanted sympathy, I did, in this cursed strait-laced nunnery. Don’t tell on me--don’t; and I’ll go on with your picture here and now.” In a fever of trepidation, he hurried from me, calling on me not to go, and fetched the canvas from the press and brought it to me. “See,” he said, “you little injured innocent--yes, you was quite right to be hurt; but--but it’s you I love, Di--it really is--and”-- The canvas fell from his hand. He stood, gaping, as if in the first shock of a stroke. And I turned; and there was madam standing in our midst, every atom of colour gone from her face. There are some situations, my Alcide, that can only be ended brutally. I don’t know what deadly instinct drove me to the portrait; but to it I ran, and turned it with the easel about. Then, I declare, I felt as if I had committed murder. The wretch, with what fatal purpose I could not tell, had done nothing less than mutilate his own inspiration. In place of the lovely roses of yesterday was the worn, haggard woman of to-day, and the harp in her lap was a tangle of broken strings. I felt for her. Looking in her face, I almost repented my part. There was a dreadful smile on it, as she went very quiet and breathless, and lifted the “Una” from the ground. “It is very pretty,” she said, “but hardly proper to a child of the Good Shepherd.” Then I hated her as I had never done before, and rejoiced in her downfall.