The painter's reply struck away his uncertainty, and set him face to face with a most definite dread. "I shall have models," said Sir Graham, "for all the figures except for little Jack. I can draw him from memory. I can reproduce his face. It never leaves me." "What!" said Uniacke. "You will paint an exactly truthful portrait of him then?" "I shall; only idealised by death, dignified, weird, washed by the sad sea." "The Skipper watched you while you were painting. He saw all you were doing." "Yes. And I think he'll come again." "But then--he'll--he'll see--" The clergyman stopped short. "See--see what?" Sir Graham asked. "Himself," Uniacke replied, evasively. "When you paint him with the ropes dropping from his hands. May it not agitate, upset him, to see himself as he stands ringing those bells each night? Ah! there they are!" It was twilight now, cold, and yellow, and grim; twilight of winter. And the pathetic, cheerless appeal of the two bells stole out over the darkening sea. "Perhaps it may agitate him," Sir Graham said. "What then? To strike a sharp blow on the gates of his mind might be to do him a good service. A shock expelled his reason. Might not a shock recall it?" "I can't tell," Uniacke said. "Such an experiment might be dangerous, it seems to me, very dangerous." "Dangerous?" Uniacke turned away rather abruptly. He could not tell the painter what was in his mind, his fear that the mad Skipper might recognise the painted face of the dead boy, for whom he waited, for whom, even at that moment, the bells were ringing. And if the Skipper did recognise this face that he knew so well--what then? What would be the sequel? Uniacke thought of the doctor's letter. He felt as if a net were closing round him, as if there could be no escape from some tragic finale. And he felt too, painfully, as if a tragic finale were all that he--he, clergyman, liar, trickster,--deserved. His conscience, in presence of a shadow, woke again, and found a voice, and told him that evil could not prevail for good, that a lie could not twist the course of things from paths of sorrow to paths of joy. Did not each lie call aloud to danger, saying, "Approach! approach!" Did not each subterfuge stretch out arms beckoning on some nameless end? He seemed to hear soft footsteps. He was horribly afraid and wished that, in the beginning of his acquaintance with Sir Graham, he had dared consequence and spoken truth. Now he felt like a man feebly fighting that conqueror, the Inevitable, and he went in fear. Yet he struggled still. "Sir Graham," he said, on the following day, "forgive me, but I feel it my duty to urge you not to let that poor fellow watch you at work. It is not safe. I do not think it is safe. I have a strong feeling that--that the shock of seeing--" "Himself?" "Exactly!--might be dangerous." "To him?" "Or to you. That is my feeling. Possibly to you. He is not sane, and though he seems harmless enough--"