She had passed as suddenly and unexpectedly out of his life as she had entered it. He had not seen her since that day in the court-room. And now she was gone, back to the Old World, to Venice the mysterious, the silent, to the old Palazzo Fortunio, with its lofty halls and marble corridors, back to the old home, which he knew could never be home to her again. All the color seemed to have faded out of his life; she had taken it with her. He suffered deeply, impatiently, angry at himself for suffering, yet powerless to forget the pain which the letter had given him. He picked it up again from the floor when he came back to the lonely studio, and marked that though the letter was crushed and torn, the device of the golden Psyche was still intact. On the following day he found some consolation in his picture. He came back to it after his vigil with an uncherished grief, with less enthusiasm than before; but from that hour until he had laid the last stroke of paint on the canvas, his hand faltered not, if his imagination sometimes flagged. He could not serve both love and art. He had chosen his mistress, and would be faithful to his choice. He dared not think, while he painted, of the woman whose influence had so warmed his frozen existence. To do so seemed an infidelity to his Art,--a breach of faith which would not escape its merited punishment. So he resolutely put her from his mind, and labored day and night upon his great picture. Summer and autumn were past, and the first month of winter was drawing to its close, when Graham finished his picture. He had painted it as he always did his best works, without interruption. From the morning on which he had made the first rough chalk sketch, until the day when he reluctantly drew the fine veil of varnish over his work, he had hardly looked at any other canvas. He was not satisfied with it,--what true artist ever is satisfied with his work?--and yet he was convinced that it was the best he had yet accomplished. He had sometimes realized what he had sacrificed for this picture; and as he touched in the crimson line of sunset, the fancy came to him, that the sky was stained with heart’s-blood. His few brother artists--there was but a handful of them in the city--and his pupils requested him to set a day for them to see the new picture, and Graham had consented. The young sculptor, who had the next room, threw open the door which separated the two studios, and both rooms were in holiday trim. Northcote had been in the country all the previous day, gathering flowers and ferns with which to deck the bare apartment. He placed a jar of roses before the picture with a reverent face; he loved the artist whose light purse had for the last two years kept a roof over his head and life in his body.