tudio, in
which the sculptor and his wife almost lived.

He was unwearied in his attendance upon the sick man, unwavering in his
attempts to soothe his sufferings. But, in reality, and almost against
his will, the doctor numbered each breath his patient drew, noted with a
furious eagerness each sign of failing vitality, bent his ear to catch
every softest note in the prolonged _diminuendo_ of this human symphony.

When Fane saw Mrs Brune leaning over her husband, touching the damp brow
with her cool, soft fingers, or the dry, parched lips with her soft,
rosy lips, he turned away in a sick fury, and said to himself:--

"He is dying, he is dying. It will soon be over."

For with a desperate love had entered into him a desperate jealousy, and
even while he ministered to Brune he hated him.

And the statue, with blind eyes, observed the drama enacted by those
three people, the two men and the woman, till the curtain fell and one
of the actors made his final exit.

Fane's nerves still played him tricks sometimes. He could not look at
the statue without a shudder; and while Brune imaginatively read into
the marble face love and protection, the doctor saw there menace and
hatred. He came to feel almost jealous of the statue, because Sydney
loved it and fell in with her husband's fancy that his life was fast
ebbing into and vitalising the marble limbs, that his soul would watch
her from the eyes that were now without expression and thought.

When Fane entered the studio, he always involuntarily cast a glance at
the white figure--at first, a glance of shuddering distaste, then, as he
acknowledged to himself his love for Sydney, a glance of defiance, of
challenge.

One evening, after a day of many appointments and much mental stress and
strain, he drove up to Ilbury Road, was admitted, and shown as usual
into the studio. He found it empty. Only the statue greeted him silently
in the soft lamplight, that scarcely accomplished more than the defining
of the gloom.

"My master is upstairs, sir," said the footman. "I will tell him you are
here."

In a moment Sydney entered, with a lagging step and pale cheeks. Without
thinking of the usual polite form of greeting, she said to Fane, "He is
much worse to-day. There is a change in him, a horrible change. Dr Fane,
just now when I was talking to him it seemed to me that he was a long
way off. I caught hold of his hands to reassure myself. I held them. I
heard him speaking, but