manded, "you had studied under Marston. You knew him,
and yet, when you saw Saxon, you had no recognition."

M. Herve nodded his head with grave assent.

"That was my first incredulous thought when I heard of this miracle,"
he admitted; "yet, only for a moment. After all, that was inevitable.
They were different. Now, bearded, ill, depleted, I fancy he may once
more look the man I knew--that man whose hair was a mane, and whose
morbid timidity gave to his eyes a haunted and uncertain fire. When I
saw Saxon, it is true I saw a man wounded and unconscious; his face
covered with blood and the dirt of the street, yet he was, even so,
the man of splendid physique--the new man remade by the immensity of
your Western prairies--having acquired all that the man I had known
lacked. He was transformed. In that, his Destiny was kind--she gave it
not only to his body, but to his brush. He was before a demi-god of
the palette. Now, he is the god."

"Do you chance to know," asked Steele suddenly, "how his hand was
pierced?"

"Have you not heard that story?" the Frenchman asked. "I am
regrettably responsible for that. We sought to make him build the
physical man. I persuaded him to fence, though he did it badly and
without enthusiasm. One evening, we were toying with sharpened foils.
Partly by his carelessness and partly by my own, the blade went
through his palm. For a long period, he could not paint."

Frederick Marston was not at once removed from the lodgings in the
_Rue St. Jacques_. Absolute rest was what he most required. When he
awoke again, unless he awoke refreshed by sufficient rest, Dr. Cornish
held out no hope. The strain upon enfeebled body and brain had been
great, and for days he remained delirious or unconscious. Dr. Cornish
was like adamant in his determination that he should be left
undisturbed for a week or more.

Meanwhile, the episode had unexpected results. The physician who had
come to Paris fleeing from a government he had failed to overturn, who
had taken an emergency case because there was no one else at hand,
found himself suddenly heralded by the Paris press as "that
distinguished specialist, Dr. Cornish, who is effecting a miraculous
recovery for the greatest of painters."

During these days, Steele was constantly at the lodgings, and with
him, sharing his anxiety, was M. Herve. There were many callers to
inquire--painters and students of the neighborhood, and the greater
celebrities from the more