This thought cut her to the heart, and without moving her lips she
addressed a series of questions to the silent portrait, which still gazed
steadily and serenely at her from its plain frame.

Once it seemed as if the full lips of the pictured face quivered, once
that the eyes moved. A chill ran through her veins, she began to be
afraid, yet could not leave the portrait, and stood gazing upward with
dilated eyes.

She did not stir, but her breath came quicker and quicker, and her eyes
seemed to grow keener.

A shadow rested on the dead Eva's high forehead. Had the artist intended
to depict some oppressive anxiety, or was what she saw only dust, that
had settled on the colors?

She pushed a chair towards the portrait and put her foot on the seat,
pushing her dress away in doing so. Blushing, as if other eyes than the
painted ones were gazing down upon her, she drew it over the white
stocking, then with a rapid movement mounted the seat. She could now
look directly into the eyes of the portrait. The cloth in Maria's
trembling hand passed over Eva's brow, and wiped the shadow from the rosy
flesh. She now blew the dust from the frame and canvas, and perceived
the signature of the artist to whom the picture owed its origin. "Artjen
of Leyden," he called himself, and his careful hand had finished even the
unimportant parts of the work with minute accuracy. She well knew the
silver chain with the blue turquoises, that rested on the plump neck.
Peter had given it to her as a wedding present, and she had worn it to
the altar; but the little diamond cross suspended from the middle she had