. Oh, Van, you look dreadfully. It is
too bad to make you get up so early."

"No, no," protested Vandover. "I was only too glad to come. I didn't
sleep well last night. I hope I haven't kept you waiting."

"I've only just come," answered Turner. "But I think it is time to go
in."

The little organ was muttering softly to itself as they entered. It was
very still otherwise. The morning sun struck through the stained windows
and made pretty lights about the altar; besides themselves there were
some half dozen other worshippers. The little organ ceased with a long
droning sigh, and the minister in his white robes turned about, facing
his auditors, and in the midst of a great silence opened the communion
service with the words: "Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of
your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbours--"

As Vandover rose with the rest the blood rushed to his head and a
feeling of nausea and exhaustion, the dregs of his previous night's
debauch, came over him again for a moment, so that he took hold of the
back of the pew in front of him to steady himself.

Chapter Five

In the afternoons Vandover worked in his studio, which was on Sacramento
Street, but in the mornings he was accustomed to study in the life-class
at the School of Design.

This was on California Street over the Market, an immense room
partitioned by enormous wooden screens into alcoves, where the
still-life classes worked, painting carrots, grapes, and dusty brown
stone-jugs.

All about were a multitude of casts, the fighting gladiator, the
discobulus, the Venus of Milo, and hundreds of smaller pieces, masks,
torsos, and the heads of the Parthenon horses. Flattened paint-tubes and
broken bits of charcoal littered the floor and cluttered the chairs and
shelves. A strong odour of turpentine and fixative was in the air,
mingled with the stronger odours of linseed oil and sour, stale French
bread.

Every afternoon a portrait class of some thirty-odd assembled in one of
the larger alcoves near the door. Several of the well-known street
characters of the city had posed for this class, and at one time Father
Elphick, the white-haired, bare-headed vegetarian, with his crooked
stick and white clothes, had sat to it for his head.

Vandover was probably the most promising member of the school. His style
was sketchy, conscientious, and full of strength and decision. He worked
in large lines, broad surfaces and masses of