how they had fared in the interval,
and learned that they had thought of returning to England, but had
somehow never done so.

"I am sorry not to see my aunts again," Mrs. Lombard said resignedly;
"but Sybilla thinks it best that we should not go this year."

"Next year, perhaps," murmured Miss Lombard, in a voice which seemed to
suggest that they had a great waste of time to fill.

She had returned to her seat, and sat bending over her work. Her hair
enveloped her head in the same thick braids, but the rose color of her
cheeks had turned to blotches of dull red, like some pigment which has
darkened in drying.

"And Professor Clyde--is he well?" Mrs. Lombard asked affably;
continuing, as her daughter raised a startled eye: "Surely, Sybilla,
Mr. Wyant was the gentleman who was sent by Professor Clyde to see the
Leonardo?"

Miss Lombard was silent, but Wyant hastened to assure the elder lady of
his friend's well-being.

"Ah--perhaps, then, he will come back some day to Siena," she said,
sighing. Wyant declared that it was more than likely; and there ensued
a pause, which he presently broke by saying to Miss Lombard: "And you
still have the picture?"

She raised her eyes and looked at him. "Should you like to see it?" she
asked.

On his assenting, she rose, and extracting the same key from the same
secret drawer, unlocked the door beneath the tapestry. They walked down
the passage in silence, and she stood aside with a grave gesture, making
Wyant pass before her into the room. Then she crossed over and drew the
curtain back from the picture.

The light of the early afternoon poured full on it: its surface appeared
to ripple and heave with a fluid splendor. The colors had lost none of
their warmth, the outlines none of their pure precision; it seemed to
Wyant like some magical flower which had burst suddenly from the mould
of darkness and oblivion.

He turned to Miss Lombard with a movement of comprehension.

"Ah, I understand--you couldn't part with it, after all!" he cried.

"No--I couldn't part with it," she answered.

"It's too beautiful,--too beautiful,"--he assented.

"Too beautiful?" She turned on him with a curious stare. "I have never
thought it beautiful, you know."

He gave back the stare. "You have never--"

She shook her head. "It's not that. I hate it; I've always hated it. But
he wouldn't let me--he will never let me now."

Wyant was startled by her use of the present tense. Her look sur