had placed a price far beyond
my reach, she took a step which deserves to go down to history: she
invested her whole inheritance in the purchase of the picture, thus
enabling me to spend my closing years in communion with one of the
world's masterpieces. My dear sir, could Antigone do more?"

The object of this strange eulogy had meanwhile drawn aside one of the
tapestry hangings, and fitted her key into a concealed door.

"Come," said Doctor Lombard, "let us go before the light fails us."

Wyant glanced at Mrs. Lombard, who continued to knit impassively.

"No, no," said his host, "my wife will not come with us. You might
not suspect it from her conversation, but my wife has no feeling for
art--Italian art, that is; for no one is fonder of our early Victorian
school."

"Frith's Railway Station, you know," said Mrs. Lombard, smiling. "I like
an animated picture."

Miss Lombard, who had unlocked the door, held back the tapestry to let
her father and Wyant pass out; then she followed them down a narrow
stone passage with another door at its end. This door was iron-barred,
and Wyant noticed that it had a complicated patent lock. The girl fitted
another key into the lock, and Doctor Lombard led the way into a small
room. The dark panelling of this apartment was irradiated by streams of
yellow light slanting through the disbanded thunder clouds, and in
the central brightness hung a picture concealed by a curtain of faded
velvet.

"A little too bright, Sybilla," said Doctor Lombard. His face had grown
solemn, and his mouth twitched nervously as his daughter drew a linen
drapery across the upper part of the window.

"That will do--that will do." He turned impressively to Wyant. "Do you
see the pomegranate bud in this rug? Place yourself there--keep your
left foot on it, please. And now, Sybilla, draw the cord."

Miss Lombard advanced and placed her hand on a cord hidden behind the
velvet curtain.

"Ah," said the doctor, "one moment: I should like you, while looking at
the picture, to have in mind a few lines of verse. Sybilla--"

Without the slightest change of countenance, and with a promptness which
proved her to be prepared for the request, Miss Lombard began to recite,
in a full round voice like her mother's, St. Bernard's invocation to the
Virgin, in the thirty-third canto of the Paradise.

"Thank you, my dear," said her father, drawing a deep breath as she
ended. "That unapproachable combination of vowel so