Wilderspin, in his eccentric way, had always declared that the model was not the woman’s daughter.  He did not think her, as I did, to have been kidnapped; he believed her to be not a creature of flesh and blood at all, but a spiritual body sent from heaven by his mother in order that he might use her as a model.  As to the woman Gudgeon, who laid claim to be her mother, he thought she was suffering from a delusion—­a beneficent delusion—­in supposing the model to be her daughter.  And now he thought that this beautiful phantom from the spirit-world had been recalled because his picture was complete.  When I entered the studio he was just starting for the second time, as he told me, to the woman’s house, in the belief that the body of the girl which he had seen lying on a mattress was a delusion—­a spiritual body, and must by this time have vanished.

I had reasons for wishing to prevent his going there and being again brought into contact with the woman before I saw her myself.  From my first seeing the woman and the model, I had found it impossible to believe that there could be any blood relationship between them, for the girl’s frame from head to foot was as delicate as the woman’s frame from head to foot was coarse and vulgar.

Naturally, therefore, it occurred to me that this was an excellent opportunity to find out the truth of the matter.  I determined to go and bully the impudent hag into a confession; but of course Wilderspin was the last man I should choose to accompany me on such a mission.  Your relative, Cyril Aylwin, was, as I believed, on the Continent, expecting Wilderspin to join him there, or I might have taken him with me.

I have always had great influence over Wilderspin, and I easily persuaded him to remain in the studio while I went myself to the woman’s address, which he gave me.  I knew that if the model were really dead she would have to be buried by the parish at a pauper funeral, that is to say, lowered into a deep pit with other paupers.  It was painful to me to think of this, and I determined to get her buried myself.  So I took a hansom and drove to the squalid court in the neighbourhood of Holborn, where the woman lived.

On reaching the house, I found the door open.  Wilderspin had described to me the room occupied by Mrs. Gudgeon, so I went at once upstairs.  I found the model upon a mattress, her features horribly contorted, lying in the same clothes apparently in which she had fallen when seized.

In an armchair in the middle of the room was Mrs. Gudgeon, in a drunken sleep so profound that I could not have roused her had I tried.  While I stood looking at the girl, something in the appearance of her flesh—­its freshness of hue—­made me suspect that she was still alive, and that she was only suffering from a seizure of a more acute kind than any the woman had yet seen.  As I stood looking at these two it occurred to me that should the model recover from the seizure this would be an