here is something there I don't mean to
keep, and don't wish to destroy, without consulting some of you."

Amy followed him quietly out of the house toward the building where her
father had spent so many hours, and which she held in strictest
veneration. Did it not still enclose the "great picture" which even she
had never seen, and which had been kept screened from the sight of all?

So she still expected to find the white curtain undisturbed; and as she
entered the studio, paused--amazed. The canvas covered the end of the
apartment; but after one hasty glance Amy shielded her eyes in a
distress that was almost terror.

"Hmm. It _is_ very realistic, isn't it? The thing is horrible. I don't
wonder that Cuthbert's wits got scattered, working on it. It would drive
me crazy in a week, and I'm a hard, matter-of-fact man. I kept it,
because by right I might have kept everything that was here. I supposed
I was getting something worth while. But this! I don't want it. I
couldn't sell it. I hate to destroy it. What's to be done?"

"Oh, I wish I hadn't seen it!"

"So do I. I see it sometimes in the night and then I can't sleep. I
mean I imagine I see it, for I never come here after dark. It's a
wonderful picture, sure enough. A horrible one."

The canvas fascinated Amy. It depicted a great fire. It was ugly in
extreme. The big, bare building was in flames, everywhere. The windows
seemed numberless, and at almost every window a face; on these faces all
the gamut of fright, appeal, and unutterable despair. They were
human--_living_. The girl felt impelled to run and snatch them from
their doom; also the impulse to hide her eyes, that she might not see.

Mr. Wingate had taken a chair before the painting, and was looking at it
critically.

"I tell you that's a marvellous thing, and it's as dreadful as masterly.
There's only one way I can see by which a man could get any money out of
it: that's by cutting out the separate faces and selling them singly. A
body might endure to see one such countenance in his collection, but not
more; or, it might be destroyed altogether. It explains why Cuthbert
never recovered from the shock of the accident he was in. He never lost
sight of it. He must have begun this while it was fresh in his brain,
and he did his utmost to keep it fresh. Poor Salome, she had a hard
life."

"She had a happy life. She loved my father. He loved her. Whatever he
did was right, just right in her eyes. You needn