A dead silence followed his words, and the peculiar stillness and heaviness of the atmosphere struck him with a vague alarm. He lifted his eyes,--the Princess Ziska met his gaze steadily, but there was something in her aspect that moved him to wonderment and a curious touch of terror. The delicate rose-tint of her cheeks had faded to an ashy paleness, her lips were pressed together tightly and her eyes seemed to have gained a vivid and angry lustre which Medusa herself might have envied. “Did you ever try to conjure with that name?” she asked. “Never,” he replied, forcing a smile and remonstrating with himself for the inexplicable nature of his emotions. She went on slowly: “In my creed--for I have a creed--it is believed that those who have never taken the sacred name of Christ to their hearts, as a talisman of comfort and support, are left as it were in the vortex of uncertainties, tossed to and fro among many whirling and mighty forces, and haunted forever by the phantoms of their own evil deeds. Till they learn and accept the truth of their marvellous Redemption, they are the prey of wicked spirits who tempt and lead them on to divers miseries. But when the great Name of Him who died upon the Cross is acknowledged, then it is found to be of that transfiguring nature which turns evil to good, and sometimes makes angels out of fiends. Nevertheless, for the hardened reprobate and unbeliever the old laws suffice.” Gervase had stopped the quick movement of his “fusin,” and looked at her curiously. “What old laws?” he asked. “Stern justice without mercy!” she answered; then in lighter accents she added: “Have you finished your first outline?” In reply, he turned his canvas round to her, showing her a head and profile boldly presented in black and white. She smiled. “It is clever; but it is not like me,” she said. “When you begin the coloring you will find that your picture and I have no resemblance to each other.” He flushed with a sense of wounded _amour propre_. “Pardon, madame!--I am no novice at the art of painting,” he said; “and much as your charms dazzle and ensnare me, they do not disqualify my brain and hand from perfectly delineating them upon my canvas. I love you to distraction; but my passion shall not hinder me from making your picture a masterpiece.” She laughed. “What an egoist you are, Monsieur Gervase!” she said. “Even in your professed passion for me you count yourself first,--me afterwards!” “Naturally!” he replied. “A man must always be first by natural creation. When he allows himself to play second fiddle, he is a fool!”