As he uttered the last sentence he drew his hand from the artist's grasp,
rushed back into the studio, and with streaming eyes pressed his lips to
the palette, the handle of the brush, and his ruined picture; then he
dashed past Coello into the street.

The artist longed to go to his child; but the king detained him in the
park. At last he was permitted to return to the Alcazar.

Isabella was waiting on the steps, before the door of their apartments.
She had stood there a long, long time.

"Father!" she called.

Coello looked up sadly and gave an answer in the negative by
compassionately waving his hand.

The young girl shivered, as if a chill breeze had struck her, and when
the artist stood beside her, she gazed enquiringly at him with her dark
eyes, which looked larger than ever in the pallid, emaciated face, and
said in a low, firm tone:

"I want to speak to him. You will take me to the picture. I must see
it."

"He has thrust his maul-stick through it. Believe me, child, you would
have condemned it yourself."

"And yet, yet! I must see it," she answered earnestly, "see it with
these eyes. I feel, I know--he is an artist. Wait, I'll get my