The door stood open. Why? What was the door? Then he remembered what it was, and whither it led. It opened into the ancient Picture Gallery, the very existence of which he had forgotten, though every day he saw the door and the building itself. The Picture Gallery! It was full of the pictures painted in the last few years before the Great Discovery; that is to say, it was full of the life which he had long ago lived--nay, he lived it still. As he stood hesitating without the door, that life came back to him with a strange yearning and sinking of the heart. He had never, you see, ceased to regret it, nor had he ever forgotten it. And now he was tempted to look upon it again. As well might a monk in the old times look upon a picture of fair women years after he had forsworn love. He hesitated, his knees trembling, for merely thinking what was within. Then he yielded to the temptation, and went into the Gallery. The morning sun streamed through the window and lay upon the floor; the motes danced in the sunshine; the Gallery was quite empty; but on the walls hung, one above the other, five or six in each row, the pictures of the Past. In some the pigments were faded; crimson was pale-pink; green was gray; red was brown; but the figures were there, and the Life which he had lost once more flashed upon his brain. He saw the women whom once he had loved so much; they were lying on soft couches, gazing upon him with eyes which made his heart to beat and his whole frame to tremble; they were dancing; they were in boats, dressed in dainty summer costume; they were playing lawn-tennis; they were in drawing-rooms, on horseback, on lawns, in gardens; they were being wooed by their lovers. What more? They were painted in fancy costumes, ancient costumes, and even with no costume at all. And the more he looked, the more his cheek glowed and his heart beat. Where had they gone--the women of his youth? Suddenly he heard the tinkling of a musical instrument. It was a thing they used to call a zither. He started, as one awakened out of a dream. Then he heard a voice singing; and it sang the same song he had heard that night five or six weeks ago--his own song: "The girls they laugh, the girls they cry, 'What shall their guerdon be?-- Alas! that some must fall and die!-- Bring forth our gauds to see. 'Twere all too slight, give what we might.' Up spoke a soldier tall: 'Oh! Love is worth the whole broad earth; Oh! Love is worth the whole broad earth; Give that, you give us all!'" This time, however, it was another voice--a fuller and richer voice--which sang those words. Dr. Linister started again when the voice began. He changed color, and his cheek grew pale.