In the darkness he struggled blindly to his feet; and he saw the
stars through the glass roof all ablaze in the midnight sky; saw the
infernal flicker of pale flames in the obscurity around him, heard a
voice calling for help--his own voice--

Then something stirred in the darkness; he listened, stared,
striving to pierce the obscurity with fevered eyes.

Long since the cloths that swathed the clay figures in the studio
had dried out unnoticed by him. He gazed from one to another,
holding his breath. Then his eyes rested upon the altar piece, fell
on the snowy foot, were lifted inch by inch along the marble folds
upward slowly to the slim and child-like hands--

"Oh, God!" he whispered, knowing he had gone mad at last.

For, under the carven fingers, the marble folds of the robe over the
heart were faintly glowing from some inward radiance. And, as he
reeled forward and dropped at the altar foot, lifting his burning
eyes, he saw the child-like head bend toward him from the slender
neck--saw that the eyes were faintly blue--

"Mother of God!" he screamed, "my mind is dying--my mind is dying!
. . . We were boys, he and I. . . . Let God judge him. . . . Let him
be judged . . . mercifully. . . . I am worse than he. . . . There is
no hell. I have striven to fashion one--I have desired to send him
thither--Mother of God--Cecile--"

Under his fevered eyes he was confusing them, now, and he sank down
close against the pedestal and laid his f ace against her small cold