"Paul!" she called, softly.
There was no reply.
"He has stepped out for a moment," she thought; "he will be back presently."
She approached the face on the easel, cautiously, as though it were alive.
"I wonder who she is," she muttered; "I have seen her somewhere before or I have dreamed it. He said it was his masterpiece. I hate her!"
She seated herself before the picture, studying it silently. Little by little a fear invaded her bosom a strange fear, such as she had never known before. A fear of this portrait, of the lonely room, of the weapons upon the wall. It seemed to her that something horrible was about to happen.
She started up and began to pace up and down the room to drive away this feeling. Why did the artist not come? She parted back the draperies and looked into the room beyond. He could not have gone far; his coat was hanging upon the rack, and his velvet studio jacket was gone. Entering, she approached the coat and put her hand against it in a sort of caress.
How she loved him! She seemed to have forgotten or forgiven the offered insult of yesterday. Turning back the garment she touched her lips to the silk lining where it had covered his heart. As she did so she noticed the tinted edge of a narrow envelope in the inner pocket. In an instant she was seized with a passion of curiosity. All her jealousy and suspicions of the sweet-faced girl in gray came rushing back. She listened at the curtained arch for a moment, but there was no sound of approaching footsteps; then, her eyes flashing, and her cheeks flaming guiltily, she snatched the delicate missive from its concealment, and with trembling hands tore it from its covering. In another instant her suspicions were verified. The woman reading seemed suddenly to have become deranged.
"Coward! liar! cur!" she screamed.
She tore the letter in halves, crumpled it in her hands, and flung it upon the floor. Then suddenly becoming calm she gathered up the pieces hastily and concealed them in her bosom. A look of peculiar cunning had come into her eyes.
"So he is going to meet her," she muttered, savagely; "but they will not meet alone. I, too, will go to No. 74 West L Street, east side." Then she hesitated. "Perhaps I would not be admitted," she thought.
Plans for overcoming this obstacle flashed through her brain like lightning. She seized upon what appeared to her the most feasible.
"If I will counterfeit her," she said, feverishly; "I will disguise myself."
She hurried back into the studio and stood for a moment before the easel. Yes, yes; she could do it. Her figure was much the same, dress gray and plain, hair low upon the forehead a veil would make it complete.
"Oh," she muttered, "how I hate your baby face! Look! I will kill you, you fool you fool!"
Again that sickening, fascinating terror of this unknown woman came upon her. Hastily turning from the portrait she listened a second for the artist's step. As she did so her eye caught the weapons on the wall. Without a moment's hesitation she plucked the jewel-hilted stiletto from its place, and concealing it beneath her cloak hurried from the house.
An hour later the artist burst into the studio. His bloodshot eyes, and face blackened with travel, made him almost unrecognizable. Hurrying through to his room beyond he glanced eagerly at the
clock. It was on the stroke of five.
"Just time to make myself presentable and reach the place by six," he thought.
Then, turning, he surveyed himself in a mirror.
"Good heavens, what a spectacle I am! People must have thought I was a maniac and they were not far from wrong but I am all right now. I am going to Eva and confess my villainy, and ask her forgiveness. I will swear my faith to her. She will forgive me she must forgive me. And as for Evelin, all is over with her after what passed last night. Last night! was it only last night? It seemed an age."
He made a quick motion as if to drive away an unpleasant memory, then throwing off his outer garments he opened the door of a little dressing-room.
"I will bathe, and confess, and be born again," he said, with a little laugh.
Twenty minutes afterward he emerged a new man in reality as far as outward appearances were concerned. Cleanly shaven and scrupulously attired, no one would have recognized in him the dusty, wild-looking figure of an hour before. He glanced at the clock.
"Yes I have plenty of time," he thought. "No. 74 West L Street, east side; I will look at her letter again to make sure. Bless her sweet face! I can hardly wait until I see it again. If she only is not ill, but good God, it is gone!"
He had looked in the breast pocket of his street coat, that still hung on the rack; it was empty. He stood holding the coat, with a puzzled expression on his face, trying to think.
"I know I put it in that pocket I recollect it distinctly," he said, aloud; "perhaps it fell out when I took off my coat."
He looked hastily about the floor, then hurried out into the studio, searching rapidly and carefully. His face grew more and more troubled. Could anyone have come in during his absence and picked it up? Perhaps Harry had been here; if so, it was safe. As he stood there reflecting, trying to solve the mystery, he was looking directly at the weapons upon the wall. All at once he noticed that there was something different about their arrangement. Something was missing. It was the dagger! Then it all came to him. "Evelin!" he shouted. "Good God!"