For a few years things went on like this, and then appeared a gorgeous Rubens-like canvas, whereon Pericles reclined at the feet of Aspasia: and in a day, in an hour, the mighty master of all the secrets of colour revealed himself, and the world knew that William Crawford was a great painter. After that day the men who had called Crawford a dull, plodding fellow, offered him monstrous bribes for the revelation of his "secret." He smiled at their ignorance. He had no secret except his genius. His mystic cabala lay in the two virtues that had made the law of his life--unremitting industry, undeviating temperance. In the chill early light of morning, in the warm glow or noon, in the deepening shadows of evening, in the artificial light of the night school at the Academy, William Crawford had toiled for twenty years, finding no drudgery too hard, no monotonous repetition of study too wearisome. And now at eight-and-thirty, he found himself a great man, and he knew that his hand was to be trusted, and that his feet were surely planted on the mountain he had climbed so patiently. Alas, there are so many blessings in this life that come too late! Many a vessel laden with the gold of Ophir only nears the shore when her owner lies dead upon the sands. When William Crawford tasted the first fruits of success, the wife--to have purchased whose happiness he would have sold his heart's blood--had been dead ten years. She had felt the cruel hand of poverty, and had withered under that bitter gripe; but she had never complained. She had borne all meekly for his sake--for his sake. Now, when people offered him large prices for his pictures, he felt half inclined to refuse their commissions in utter bitterness of heart. "You should have bought my 'Pyramus and Thisbe' twelve years ago," he would have cried. "A fifty-pound cheque would have done that for me then which all the kings and princes of this earth could not do now. It would have brought a smile to the face of my wife."