The painting--or rather wash-drawing in black-and-white--hung over the grand-piano in the light of the west windows. It was globular in form, and represented, Simeon explained, the "War of Light and Darkness." One-half of the globe was darkly shaded, curiously fretted by the lighter half. Above sat a snow-white eagle. Beneath, with prodigious wings outspread, and eyes gleaming like points of fire, hovered a mysterious bat. "Look closer," commanded Simeon. Narrower scrutiny brought out, even in the darker half of the globe, a multitude of intertwined forms, outlined with pen and ink. Those of the lighter hemisphere were beautiful as angels, with faint stars in their hair. All were singing. The others, the denizens of the dark, were twisted and contorted in agony, and each was drawn with such certainty of prearrangement that the line which formed the arm of one outlined the head of another. There were hundreds of them, and the whole work was as intricate in design as the engraving on a bank-note, and so packed with symbolism--according to Simeon's exegesis--that one might study it for days. "Observe," said he, "the innumerable faces formed by the line which divides the two worlds. Take these glasses." Kate, by means of the powerful instrument which he thrust upon her, was able to detect hundreds of other faces invisible to the unaided eye. "It is wonderful. Who did it?" "A Swedish servant-girl," answered Simeon, loudly, addressing every one in the room. "She couldn't write her name; but when the spirit of Raphael controlled her she could do this with her eyes shut. There's nothing like that picture in the world. It cannot be duplicated by any artist in the flesh." "That's no dream," murmured Britt. Pratt hurried them on, past many other equally wonderful paintings, to his library, and as his guests filed in he faced them. "The things I am about to show you have no equal anywhere. They have taken years to collect, and have cost me more than a hundred thousand dollars. I can show you but a few." The library was a splendid room, rich with the light of the western sun, whose arrangement instantly struck Kate Rice as unusual, for the book-shelves were precisely like those of a butler's pantry. They began at about four feet from the floor and reached entirely to the ceiling, and were filled with splendid, neglected books, while beneath a broad shelf, at their base, were rows of little brass knobs, each of which indicated a shallow drawer. Each drawer had a lock and a small plate which bore a letter and a number, not unlike the cabinet of a numismatist.