‘But was the place very—­was it so very squalid?’ said my mother.  ‘Pray describe it to us, Mr. Wilderspin; I am really very anxious.’

‘No!’ I said; ‘I want no description:  I shall go and see for myself.’

’But; Henry, I am most anxious to know about this poor girl, and I want Mr. Wilderspin to tell us how and where he found her.’

’The “poor girl” concerns me alone, mother.  Our calamities—­Winnie’s and mine—­are between us two and God....You engaged her, Wilderspin, of the woman whom I saw at Cyril’s studio, to sit as a model?  What passed when she came?’

‘The woman brought her next day,’ said Wilderspin, ’and I sketched in the face of Pelagia as Isis at once.  I had already taken out the face of the previous model that had dissatisfied me.  I now took out the figure too, for the figure of this new model was as perfect as her face.’

‘Go on, go on.  What occurred?’

’Nothing, save that she stood dumb, like one who had no language save that of another world.  But at the second sitting she had a fit of a most dreadful kind.’

‘Ah!  Tell me quickly,’ I said.  Her face became suddenly distorted by an expression of terror such as I had never seen and never imagined possible.  I have caught it exactly in my picture “Christabel.”  She revived and tried to run out of the studio.  Her mother and I seized her, and she then fell down insensible.’

‘What occasioned the fit?  What had frightened her?’

’That is what I am not quite certain about.  When she entered the studio she fixed her eyes upon a portrait which I had been working upon; but that must have been merely a coincidence.’

‘A portrait!’ I cried.  And Winifred’s scared expression when she encountered my mother’s look of hate in the churchyard came back to me like a scene witnessed in a flash of lightning.  ’The portrait was my mother’s?’

‘It was the face of the kind, tender, and noble lady your mother,’ said Wilderspin gently.

I gave a hurried glance at my mother, and saw the pallor of her face,—­but to me the world held now only two realities, Winifred and Wilderspin; all other people were dreams, obtrusive and irritating dreams.  ‘Go on, go on,’ I said.

‘She recovered,’ continued Wilderspin, ’and seemed to have forgotten all about the portrait, which I had put away.’

‘Did she talk?’

‘Never, Mr. Aylwin,’ said Wilderspin solemnly.  ’Nor did I invite her to talk, knowing whence she came—­from the spirit-world.  At the first few sittings Mrs. Gudgeon came with her, and would sit looking on with the intention of seeing that she came to no harm.  She said her daughter was very beautiful, and she, her mother, never trusted her with men.’

‘God bless the hag, God bless her; but go on!’

’Gradually Mrs. Gudgeon seemed to acquire more confidence in me; and one day, on leaving, she lingered behind the girl, and told me that her daughter, though uncommonly stupid and a little touched in the head, had now learnt her way to my studio, and that in future she should let her come alone, as she believed that she could trust her with me.  She warned me earnestly, however, not to “worrit” the girl by asking her all sorts of questions.’