It was a beautiful sketch of a half-length figure, and represented
Stafford in the garb of a monk, gazing up with eager eyes, full of the
vision of the Eternal City beyond the skies. It was the face of a
devotee and a visionary, and yet it was full of strength and resolution;
and there was in it the look of a man who had put aside all except the
service and the contemplation of the Divine.

Ayre forgot to sneer, and Eugene murmured:

"Glorious! What a subject! And, old fellow, what an artist!"

"That is good," said Morewood quietly. "It's fine, but as a matter of
painting the other is still better. I caught him looking like that one
morning. He came out before breakfast, very early, into the garden. I
was out there, but he didn't see me, and he stood looking up like that
for ever so long, his lips just parted and his eyes straining through
the veil, as you see that. It may be all nonsense, but--fine, isn't it?"

The two men nodded.

"Now for the other," said Ayre. "By Jove! I feel as if I'd been in
church."

"The other I got only three or four days ago. Again I was a Paul
Pry,--we have to be, you know, if we're to do anything worth doing,--and
I took him while he sat. But I dare say you'd better see it first."

He took another and smaller picture and placed it on the easel, standing
for a moment between it and the onlookers and studying it closely. Then
he stepped aside in silence.