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56 had tried to think of that only; but it had come back to him again and again, and—here it was.

He spent an hour over it, and in the end his passionate eagerness had grown rather than diminished. He put his hand up to his forehead and brushed away drops of moisture, his throat was dry, and his eyes strained.

"There's something to be brought out of it yet," he said, as he had said before. "It can be done, I swear!"

The words had scarcely left his lips before he heard behind him a low, but sharp cry—a miserable ejaculation, half uttered.

He had not heard the door open, nor the entering footsteps; but he knew what the cry meant the moment he heard it. He turned about and saw his mother standing on the threshold. If he had been detected in the commission of a crime, he could not have felt a sharper pang than he did. He almost staggered against the wall and did not utter a word. For a moment they looked at each other in a dead silence. Each wore in the eyes of the other a new aspect. She pointed to the model.

"It has come back," she said. "I knew it would."

The young fellow turned and looked at it a little stupidly.

I—didn't mean to hurt you with the sight of it," he said. "I took it out because—because——"

She stopped him with a movement of her head.

"Yes, I know," she said. "You took it out because it has haunted you and tempted you. You could not withstand it It is in your blood."

He had known her through all his life as a patient creature, whose very pains had bent themselves and held themselves in check, lest they should seem for an hour to stand in the way of the end to be accomplished. That