first glanced over its contents distractedly, then with an interest so intense that he was no longer aware of the impropriety of his action.

“By Jove!” he cried. “What is this?”

“It’s an epic of the French Revolution,” Reginald replied, not without surprise.

“But, man, do you know that I have discovered my motive in it?”

“What do you mean?” asked Ernest, looking first at Reginald and then at Walkham, whose sanity he began to doubt.

“Listen!”

And the sculptor read, trembling with emotion, a long passage whose measured cadence delighted Ernest’s ear, without, however, enlightening his mind as to the purport of Walkham’s