own (Lyon knew it to have no very fine
edge) making a long, abominable gash. Then he plucked it out and dashed
it again several times into the face of the likeness, exactly as if he
were stabbing a human victim: it had the oddest effect--that of a sort
of figurative suicide. In a few seconds more the Colonel had tossed the
dagger away--he looked at it as he did so, as if he expected it to reek
with blood--and hurried out of the place, closing the door after him.

The strangest part of all was--as will doubtless appear--that Oliver
Lyon made no movement to save his picture. But he did not feel as if he
were losing it or cared not if he were, so much more did he feel that he
was gaining a certitude. His old friend _was_ ashamed of her husband,
and he had made her so, and he had scored a great success, even though
the picture had been reduced to rags. The revelation excited him so--as
indeed the whole scene did--that when he came down the steps after the
Colonel had gone he trembled with his happy agitation; he was dizzy and
had to sit down a moment. The portrait had a dozen jagged wounds--the
Colonel literally had hacked it to death. Lyon left it where it was,
never touched it, scarcely looked at it; he only walked up and down his
studio, still excited, for an hour. At the end of this time his good
woman came to recommend that he should have some luncheon; there was a
passage under the staircase from the offices.

'Ah, the lady and gentleman have gone, sir? I didn't hear them.'

'Yes; they went by the garden.'

But she had stopped, staring at the picture on the easel. 'Gracious, how
you _'ave_ served it, sir!'

Lyon imitated the Colonel. 'Yes, I cut it up--in a fit of disgust.'

'Mercy, after all your trouble! Because they weren't pleased, sir?'

'Yes; they weren't pleased.'

'Well, they must be very grand! Blessed if I would!'

'Have it chopped up; it will do to light fires,' Lyon said.

He returned to the country by the 3.30 and a few days later passed over
to France. During the two months that he was absent from England he
expected something--he could hardly have said what; a manifestation of
some sort on the Colonel's part. Wouldn't he write, wouldn't he explain,
wouldn't he take for granted Lyon had discovered the way he had, as the
cook said, served him and deem it only decent to take pity in some
fashion or other on his mystification? Would he plead guilty or would he
repudiate suspicion? The latter cours