When I had
finished Mr. D'Arcy was silent, and was evidently lost in thought. At
last he said,
'"My story, I perceive, cannot begin where yours breaks off. I first
became acquainted with you in the studio of a famous painter named
Wilderspin, one of the noblest-minded and most admirable men now
breathing, but a great eccentric."
'"Why, Mr. D'Arcy, I never was in a studio in my life until to-day,"
I said.
'"You mean, Miss Wynne, that you were not consciously there," he
said. "But in that studio you certainly were, and the artist, who
reverenced you as a being from another world, was painting your face
in a beautiful picture. While he was doing this you were taken
seriously ill, and your life was despaired of. It was then that I
brought you into the country, and here you have been living and
benefiting by the kind services of Mrs. Titwing for a long time."
'"And you know nothing of my history previously to seeing me in the
London studio?" I asked.
'"All that I could ever learn about that," said he, in what seemed to
me a rather evasive tone, "I had to gather from the incoherent and
rambling talk of Wilderspin, a religious enthusiast whose genius is
very nearly akin to mania.
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