astonishment:

"Hello! Someone has torn them down and smashed them. What an
extraordinary thing to do!"

The pictures, mostly engravings, but with here and there a painting,
were strewn about. Ashton-Kirk carefully gathered them up and spread
them upon the table. They were by various hands, but unquestionably
represented the same person--a handsome, resolute looking man in the
uniform of an officer in the army of Washington.

"General Anthony Wayne," said Ashton-Kirk, softly.

There was something in the tone that made Pendleton look at him
swiftly. The splendid head was bent over the portraits; eagerness
blazed in the dark eyes; the keen face was rigid with interest.

"Some drunken freak, do you think?" asked Pendleton, more to hear his
friend's view than anything else.

But Ashton-Kirk shook his head.

"On the contrary, the thing seems full of a vague meaning," said he.
"There were seventeen pictures upon the walls of this room; fourteen
have been torn down and destroyed; the other three are undisturbed."

Pendleton gazed at the pictures that remained upon the walls. Two were
of fine looking houses of the colonial type; the third was the
portrait of a man--a man of repulsive, sneering face, heavy with evil
lines and with unusually small eyes.