The beautiful face of the reclining figure was dreamily hopeless and dejected, yet pathetically patient; and, in the strange amber light reflected from a sunset sea, the fringy shadow of a cluster of fern-leaves seemed to quiver over the pale brow and still mouth, and floating raven hair, where the green snake glided with crest erect and forked tongue within an inch of one delicate, pearly ear. The gray stones of the lichen-spotted wall, the graceful sweep of the shrouding drab drapery, whose folds clung to the form and thence swung down from the edge of the rocky battlement, the mouldering ruins leaning against the quiet sky in the rear, and the glassy stretch of topaz-tinted sea in the foreground, were all painted with pre-Raphaelite exactness and verisimilitude, and every detail attested the careful, tender study, with which the picture had been elaborated. Was it by accident or design that the woman on the painted wall bore a vague, mournful resemblance to the owner and creator? Dr. Grey glanced from Durer's "Melancholy" to the canvas on the easel; then his fascinated eyes dwelt on the dainty features of the artist, and he thought involuntarily of another Coleridgean image,--of the "pilgrim in whom the spring and the autumn, and the melancholy of both, seemed to have combined." "Mrs. Gerome, in this wonderful embodiment of Coleridge's fragmentary ideal you have painted your own portrait." "No, sir. Look again. My 'Melancholia' has a patient face, hinting of possible peace. When I design its companion, 'Desolation,' I may be pardoned if my canvas reflects what always fronts it." "May I ask when you wrought out this extraordinary conception?" "During the past month. The last touch was given this morning, and the paint is not yet dry on that cluster of purplish seaweed clinging to the base of the battlement. Last night I dreamed that Coleridge stood looking over my shoulder and while I worked he touched the sea, and it flushed a ruby red brighter than laudanum; and then he leaned down, and with a pencil wrote _Dele_ across the fragment in his Sibylline Leaves.' To-day I tried the effect of the hint, but the amber water mellows the woman's features, and the ruby light rendered them sullen and rigid." "Were I to judge from the _bizarre_ themes that you select, I should be tempted to fear that the wizard spell of opium evoked some of these strangely beautiful creations of your brush. What suggested this picture?" "You merely wish to complete your diagnosis of my psychological condition? If so, there is no reason why I should hesitate to tell you that while I was playing one of Chopin's _Nocturnes_ the significance of the Polish '_Zael_' perplexed me. In striving to analyze it, Coleridge's 'Melancholy' occurred to my mind, and teased and haunted me until I wrought it out palpably. My work there means more than his fragment, and includes something which I suppose Chopin meant by that insynonymous word '_Zael_.'"