John and I were sitting here, it lit this picture with a
dazzling glare that made the figure stand out so strangely as to seem
almost alive. It was just after that I found that John had fainted."

The memory was not a pleasant one for either of us and we changed the
subject. "Come," I said, "let us leave the gallery, it is very cold
here."

Though I said nothing more at the time, her words had made a great
impression on me. It was so strange that, even with the little she knew
of this Adrian Temple, she should speak at once of his notoriously evil
life, and of her personal dislike to the picture. Remembering what my
brother had said on the previous night, that in the presence of this man
he felt himself brought face to face with some indescribable wickedness,
I could not but be surprised at the coincidence. The whole story seemed
to me now to resemble one of those puzzle pictures or maps which I have
played with as a child, where each bit fits into some other until the
outline is complete. It was as if I were finding the pieces one by one
of a bygone history, and fitting them to one another until some terrible
whole should be gradually built up and stand out in its complete
deformity.

Dr. Empson spoke gravely of John's illness, and entertained without
reluctance the proposal of Mrs. Temple, that Dr. Dobie, a celebrated
physician in Derby, should be summoned to a consultation. Dr. Dobie came
more than once, and was at last able to report an amendment in John's
condition, though both the doctors absolutely forbade anyone to visit
him, and said that under the most favourable circumstances a period of
some weeks must elapse before he could be moved.

Mrs. Temple invited me to remain at Royston until my brother should be
sufficiently convalescent to be moved; and both she and Constance, while
regretting the cause, were good enough to express themselves pleased
that accident should detain me so long with them.

As the reports of the doctors became gradually more favourable, and our
minds were in consequence more free to turn to other subjects, I spoke
to Mrs. Temple one day about the picture, saying that it interested me,
and asking for some particulars as to the life of Adrian Temple.

"My dear child," she said, "I had rather that you should not exhibit
any curiosity as to this man, whom I wish that we had not to call an
ancestor. I know little of him myself, and indeed his life was of such
a nature as no woman, much