"Unequalled! unapproachable!" exclaimed Surrey, at last.

"I have seen its equal," she answered, very quietly, yet with a shiver
of excitement in the tones.

"When? where? how? I will take a journey to look at him. Who is he?
where did he grow?"

For response she put her hand into the pocket of her gown, and took out
a velvet case. What could there be in that little blue thing to cause
such emotion? As Surrey saw it in her hand, he grew hot, then cold, then
fiery hot again. In an instant by this chill, this heat, this pain, his
heart was laid bare to his own inspection. In an instant he knew that
his arms would be empty did they hold a universe in which Francesca
Ercildoune had no part, and that with her head on his heart the world
might lapse from him unheeded; and, with this knowledge, she held
tenderly and caressingly, as he saw, another man's picture in her hand.

His own so shook that he could scarcely take the case from her, to open
it; but, opened, his eyes devoured what was under them.

A half-length,--the face and physique superb. Of what color were the
hair and eyes the neutral tints of the picture gave no hint; the brow
princely, breaking the perfect oval of the face; eyes piercing and full;
the features rounded, yet clearly cut; the mouth with a curious
combination of sadness and disdain. The face was not young, yet it was
so instinct with magnificent vitality that even the picture impressed
one more powerfully than most living men, and one involuntarily
exclaimed on beholding it, "This man can never grow old, and death must
here forego its claim!"