o tell the housekeeper that he wanted
to see her, and then to go to the frame-maker and ask him to send two of
his men round at once. It seemed to him that as the man left the room
his eyes wandered in the direction of the screen. Or was that merely his
own fancy?

After a few moments, in her black silk dress, with old-fashioned thread
mittens on her wrinkled hands, Mrs. Leaf bustled into the library. He
asked her for the key of the schoolroom.

"The old schoolroom, Mr. Dorian?" she exclaimed. "Why, it is full of
dust. I must get it arranged, and put straight before you go into it. It
is not fit for you to see, sir. It is not, indeed."

"I don't want it put straight, Leaf. I only want the key."

"Well, sir, you'll be covered with cobwebs if you go into it. Why, it
hasn't been opened for nearly five years, not since his lordship died."

He winced at the mention of his grandfather. He had hateful memories of
him. "That does not matter," he answered. "I simply want to see the
place--that is all. Give me the key."

"And here is the key, sir," said the old lady, going over the contents
of her bunch with tremulously uncertain hands. "Here is the key. I'll
have it off the bunch in a moment. But you don't think of living up
there, sir, and you so comfortable here?"

"No, no," he cried, petulantly. "Thank you, Leaf. That will do."

She lingered for a few moments, and was garrulous over some detail of
the household. He sighed, and told her to manage things as she thought
best. She left the room, wreathed in smiles.

As the door closed, Dorian put the key in his pocket, and looked round
the room. His eye fell on a large, purple satin coverlet heavily
embroidered with gold, a splendid piece of late seventeenth-century
Venetian work that his grandfather had found in a convent near Bologna.
Yes, that would serve to wrap the dreadful thing in. It had perhaps
served often as a pall for the dead. Now it was to hide something that
had a corruption of its own, worse than the corruption of death
itself--something that would breed horrors and yet would never die. What
the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on
the canvas. They would mar its beauty, and eat away its grace. They
would defile it, and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still
live on. It would be always alive.

He shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told Basil
the true reason why he had wished to hide the picture