The widow sat before the picture in perfect silence. There was no affectation in her love of art; and seated before the painter's work, she seemed unconscious of the painter's presence. But it was not so with her niece, who gave utterance to all those rapturous exclamations peculiar to persons of her sex and age. "Oh, how lovely, Mr. Crawford!" cried this young lady; "your Dido is a most exquisite creature, and I am sure your picture will be _the_ picture of the year. I had no idea the Carthaginian costume was so becoming, or that Carthaginians ever had that lovely golden hair. Isn't she beautiful, Aunt Georgina?" "Go and amuse yourself in Mr. Crawford's garden, Helen," Mrs. Champernowne exclaimed impatiently. "If _I_ am to enjoy this picture, I must see it in peace. Your 'how lovelys' and 'how beautifuls!' are most distracting. You are always going into raptures about hyacinths; you can look at Mr. Crawford's hyacinths and go into raptures about them." "I should very much like to see the garden," the young lady replied discreetly; and having received the painter's permission, she flitted away through the open window and disappeared in the trellised walk in which Philip Foley had nursed his despair. The widow sat for some minutes after her niece's departure still silent, with her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes fixed on the canvas in solemn contemplation. At last she drew a long breath, a sigh of relief, as of one who had been held for a while breathless and spell-bound: and then the painter ventured to speak to her. "Are you satisfied?" he asked nervously. She turned to look at him with eyes that were dim with tears. "It is great," she said, in a voice so subdued as to be almost a whisper; "it is worthy of you. I am proud of your triumph. I cannot tell you how proud I am." Never until that moment had he seen tears in the eyes of his siren; never until that moment had he lost command of himself; never until then had sober common-sense failed to pluck him backward with a relentless hand when he faltered on the brink of folly; but the tears in Georgina Champernowne's eyes were too much for common-sense. For the last six months the painter had known that the moment must come sooner or later when his own rash hand would destroy the airy fabric of his folly. The fatal moment came to-day, and he was powerless to struggle against his destiny. He gave one furtive glance towards the garden, where Miss Vicary's light-silk dress glanced hither and thither among the flower-beds, and then he laid his hand on the back of the widow's chair and bent his head to speak to her. "Do you know how dangerous it is for you to speak to me like that?" he asked. "Dangerous? How or why dangerous?"