o have her look.
If you have finished your coffee, come up to my little atelier. I wish
you could see the picture by daylight, but you may be able to get an
idea of it from the candles." And as Mr. Yorke led the way, he added,
confidentially, "I should really like to have your opinion."

The atelier to which Yorke had alluded as "little" was, so well as
Tristrem could discern in the darkness, rather spacious than otherwise.
He loitered in the door-way until his companion had lighted and arranged
the candles, and then, under his guidance, went forward to admire. The
picture, which stood on an easel, was really excellent; so good, in
fact, that Tristrem no sooner saw the face of the sphinx than to his
ears came the hum of insects, the murmur of distant waters. It was Viola
Raritan to the life.

"She guarded her secret, indeed," he muttered, huskily. And when Yorke,
surprised at such a criticism, turned to him for an explanation, he had
just time to break his fall. Tristrem had fallen like a log.

As he groped back through a roar and turmoil to consciousness again, he
thought that he was dead and that this was the tomb. "That Monkenkloster
must have been too much for him," he heard Yorke say, in German, and
then some answer came to him in sympathetic gutturals. He opened his
eyes ever so little, and then let the lids close down. Had he been in a
nightmare, he wondered, or was it Viola? "He's coming too," he heard
Yorke say. "Yes, I am quite right now," he answered, and he raised
himself on his elbow. "I think," he continued, "that I had better get to
my room."

"Nonsense. You must lie still awhile."

For the moment Tristrem was too weak to rebel, and he fell back again on
the lounge on which he had been placed, and from which he had half
arisen. Was it a dream, or was it the real? "There, I am better now," he
said at last; "I wonder, I----Would you mind ordering me a glass of
brandy?"

"Why, there's a carafon of it here. I thought you had had too much of
that wine."

Some drink was then brought him, which he swallowed at a gulp. Under its
influence his strength returned.

"I am sorry to have put you to so much trouble," he said collectedly to
Yorke and to a waiter who had been summoned to his assistance; "I am
quite myself now." He stood up again and the waiter, seeing that he was
fully restored, withdrew. When the door closed behind him, Tristrem went
boldly back to the picture.

It was as Yorke had described