The effect of her refusal on the artist was singular in the extreme. At first he trembled, in every limb, and I could distinctly see drops of perspiration glistening on his brow. Then, as he realised all the bitterness of his position, and that the lovely woman before him was lost to him forever and ever, and that if they were to live a thousand years on the earth she would still be as cold to him as she was at that moment, he lifted his arms with a slow motion and extended them towards her, and for some moments he maintained this position, petrified to rigidity, staring at her with ghastly look and glassy eye. His attitude was the very apotheosis of despair. I marvelled at his emotion. My own sense of disappointment on hearing Daphne express her determination to remain faithful to George was exquisitely bitter, but, bitter as it was, it was apparently but a tithe of the pain felt by the artist. Several times he tried to speak, but no words came from his dry lips. It was painful to see him going through the mockery of speaking, yet unable to produce a sound. It was as if the dead, touched by some galvanic apparatus, were trying to assume the mechanism of life, and when at last he did speak his strange hollow voice aided the illusion. "Miss Leslie, you surely cannot--cannot mean _that_!" "Indeed I do," was the cold reply. Scarcely able to keep his feet, the artist moved backward till he touched the trunk of a tree, where he leaned for support. The sight of his misery touched Daphne to the quick, and she cried impulsively: "O Mr. Vasari, I am sorry for you; but I cannot love you. I cannot forget George. Believe me, it pains me to have to say this. Try to think it is for the best." She placed her hand timidly on his arm; but he swung it off with so dark an expression on his face that I had almost thrown myself between them. "I want not your pity," he exclaimed scornfully, turning the fire of his eyes on her, "if I cannot have your love!" And, ignoble at heart, he began now to sneer at the prize he found beyond his reach. "And so," he continued in a bitter tone, "rather than accept the love of one who can immortalise you by his pencil you prefer to be a living cenotaph whose sad aspect testifies the esteem set upon her by her first lover!" Dropping his sneering tone for one of fierce anger, he added: "You must have some less fanciful reason for rejecting me than this absurd attachment to--to a shadow. Tell me, do you not love another?" "Mr. Vasari, you have no right to question me thus. You have received your answer, and this meeting may as well end, since it seems now that insult is to be my portion." And she turned proudly to go.