By ‘getting the place straight

again,’ his widow, of course, meant forgetting the glamour of fear and

foreboding his depressing.creed had temporarily forced upon her; and

Frances, delicately-minded being, did not speak of it because it was

the influence of the man her friend had loved. I felt lighter; a load

was lifted from me. ‘To trace the unfamiliar to the familiar,’ came

back a sentence I had read somewhere, ‘is to understand.’ It was a

real relief. I could talk with Frances now, even with my hostess, no

danger of treading clumsily. For the key was in my hands. I might even

help to dissipate the Shadow, ‘to get it straight again.’ It seemed,

perhaps, our long invitation was explained!

I went into the house laughing—at myself a little. ‘Perhaps after

all the artist’s outlook, with no hard and fast dogmas, is as narrow

as the others! How small humanity is! And why is there no possible and

true combination of all outlooks?’

The feeling of ‘unsettling’ was very strong in me just then, in

spite of my big discovery which was to clear everything up. And at the

moment I ran into Frances on the stairs, with a portfolio of sketches

under her arm.

It came across me then abruptly that, although she had worked a

great deal since we came, she had shown me nothing. It struck me

suddenly as odd, unnatural. The way she tried to pass me now confirmed

my new-born suspicion that—well, that her results were hardly what

they ought to be.

‘Stand and deliver!’ I laughed, stepping in front of her. ‘I’ve

seen nothing you’ve done since you’ve been here, and as a rule you

show me all your things. I believe they are atrocious and degrading!’

Then my laughter froze.

She made a sly gesture to slip past me, and I almost decided to let

her go, for the expression that flashed across her face shocked me.

She looked uncomfortable and ashamed; the colour came and went a

moment in he cheeks, making me think of a child detected in some secret

naughtiness. It was almost fear.

‘It’s because they’re not finished then?’ I said, dropping the tone

of banter, ‘or because they’re too good for me to understand?’ For my

criticism of painting, she told me, was crude and ignorant sometimes.

‘But you’ll let me see them later, won’t you?’

Frances, however, did not take the way of escape I offered. She

changed her mind. She drew the portfolio from beneath her arm instead.

‘You can see them if you really want to, Bill,’ she said quietly, and

her tone reminded me of a nurse who says to a boy just grown out of

childhood, ‘you are old enough now to look upon horror and

ugliness—only I don’t advise it.’

‘I do want to,’ I said, and made to go downstairs with her. But,

instead, she said in the same low voice as before, ‘Come up to my

room, we shall be undisturbed there.’ So I guessed that she had been

on her way to show the paintings to our hostess, but did not care for

us all three to see them together. My mind worked furiously.

‘Mabel asked me to do them,’ she explained in a tone of submissive

horror, once the door was shut, ‘in fact, she begged it of me. You

know how persistent she is in her quiet way. I—er—had to.’

She flushed and opened the portfolio on the little table by the

window, standing behind me as I turned the sketches over-sketches of

the grounds and trees and garden. In the first moment of ‘inspection,

however, I did not take in clearly why my sister’s sense of modesty had

been offended. For my attention flashed a second elsewhere. Another

bit of the puzzle had dropped into place, defining still further the

nature of what I called ‘the Shadow’.