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She returned the look coldly.

“It is mine!” he said.

She inclined her head, with a stately gesture, to the open paper on the table beside her.

He seized it in trembling fingers. He shook it toward her. “It is mine. You see–it is mine!”

“It is yours, Herr Pirkheimer.” She spoke with level coolness. “I had read the paper.”

With a grunt of satisfaction, he turned again to the canvas. A smothered oath broke from his lips. He leaned forward, incredulous. His round eyes, bulging and blue, searched every corner. They fell on the wet brush and bit of color. He turned on her fiercely. “Jezebel!” he hissed, “you have painted it out. I saw him sign it–years ago–twenty-five years!”

She smiled serenely. “It may have been some other one,” she said sweetly. Her glance took in the scattered canvases.

He shook his head savagely. “I will have no other,” he shouted; “I should know it in a thousand!”

“Very well.” Her voice was as tranquil as her face. “Shall I have it sent to the house of the honored Herr Pirkheimer?”

He glared at her. “I take it with me,” he said. “I do not trust it out of sight.”

She bowed in acquiescence. Standing in her widow’s garments, with downcast eyes and gentle resignation, she waited his withdrawal.

He eyed her curiously. The years had touched her lightly. There were the same plump features, the same surface eyes, and light, abundant bands of hair. He heaved a round sigh. He thought of the worn face outside the city wall. He gathered the canvas under his arm, glaring about the low room. “There was a pair of antlers,” he muttered. “They might go in my collection. You will want to sell them.”

The downcast eyes did not leave the floor. “They are sold,” she said, “to Herr Umstaetter.” A little smile played about the thin lips.

“Sold! Already!” The round eyes bulged at her. “My God!” he shouted fiercely, “you would sell his very soul, if he had left it where you could!”

She raised the blue eyes and regarded him calmly. “The estate is without condition,” she said.

He groaned as he backed toward the door. The canvas was hugged under his arm. At the door he paused, looking back over the room. His small eyes winked fast, and the loose mouth trembled.

“He was a great man, Agnes,” he said gently. “We must keep it clean–the name of Duerer.”

She looked up with a little gesture of dismissal. “It is I who bear the name,” she said coldly.

When he was gone she glanced about the room. She went over to a pile of canvases and turned them rapidly to the light. Each one that bore the significant monogram she set aside with a look of possession. She came at last to the one she was searching. It was a small canvas–a Sodom and Gomorrah. She studied the details slowly. It was not signed. She gave a little breath of satisfaction, and took up the brush from the bench. She remembered well the day Albrecht brought it home, and his childish delight in it. It was one of Joachim Patenir’s. Albrecht had given a Christ head of his own in exchange for it. The brush in her fingers trembled a little. It inserted the wide-spreading A beneath Lot’s flying legs, and overtraced it with a delicate D. She paused a moment in thought. Then she raised her head and painted in, with swift, decisive strokes, high up in one corner of the picture, a date. It was a safe date–1511–the year he painted his Holy Trinity. There would be no one to question it.

She sat back, looking her satisfaction.

Seventy-five guldens to account. It atoned a little for the loss of the Christ.

III

The large drawing-room was vacant. The blinds had been drawn to shut out the glare, and a soft coolness filled the room. In the dim light of half-opened shutters the massive furniture loomed large and dark, and from the wall huge paintings looked down mistily. Gilt frames gleamed vaguely in the cool gloom. Above the fireplace hung a large canvas, and out of its depths sombre, waiting eyes looked down upon the vacant room.