It took her a minute or two to send the telegram satisfactorily, but eventually she wrote: "Nothing is wrong, but please come. Frank is rather trying." She left the office and walked back quickly up the village, only to run into Mrs. Greenock, at the corner by the vicarage. Though she was anxious to get back, it was impossible not to exchange a few words. "And how does the portrait get on?" asked that estimable woman. "I had such a deeply interesting conversation with Mr. Trevor about it when we dined at your house. Is it wonderful? Is it a revelation? Does it show us what he is, not only what he looks like?" "Frank's very much excited about it," said Margery, "which is always a good sign. I think he is satisfied." "And when will it be finished?" asked Mrs. Greenock. "Your husband was so good as to tell me I might see it when it was done. I am looking forward to an intellectual as well as an artistic treat." "It ought to be done to-morrow," said Margery. "He has been working very hard." "A giant," murmured Mrs. Greenock--"a gigantic personality. Are you walking home? May I not accompany you a little way? I too have been hard at work to-day, and I have come out to get a breath of fresh air, and perhaps an idea or two." Mrs. Greenock walked with Margery up to the lodge-gates, beguiling the tedium of the way with instructive discourse, and kept her several moments longer there, bidding her observe the exquisite glow in the western sky where the sun had already gone down. Margery saw with annoyance that Mrs. Greenock had been quite right--the sun had already set, and the twilight was falling in darker and darker layers over the earth when she reached the house. She went quickly up the passage leading to the studio and opened the door. Frank was standing on the other side of the room, with his face turned towards her, a piece of crumpled paper in his hands. The shadow cast from the window fell on the right side of his face, but in the dim light she could see that there was that expression of guilt and horror on it which she had seen there twice before. "Why, Frank," she said, "you can't paint by this light!" Something stirring at her elbow made her turn round quickly. Frank was sitting in a deep chair in the shadow, staring blankly before him. She had mistaken the portrait for her husband. * * * * * For a moment neither of them spoke or moved. Then Frank got out of the chair where he was sitting and crossed the room to where the horrible fac-simile of himself stood against the wall, and putting himself unconsciously, Margery felt, into the same attitude, turned to her. "I have worked quickly to-night," he said. "I have almost finished." Margery looked suddenly back at the portrait, and noticed with a cold, growing horror that she had been the victim of some illusion. The light from the window cast no shadow at all on to it, and the shadow on the face was painted on the left side, not the right.