night."

"A _dream_?" the girls exclaimed. "What was it?"

"I'll get to that presently," he said. "But first I want to tell you
what Monsieur said about it. A day or two after I was taken to that room
I asked him whose portrait it was. He said he would tell me all about it
some time, but that all he could say at present was that the child had
been one of the world's heroic martyrs. That, of course, didn't give
_me_ much information, but it made me a little more interested, and I
used to lie and stare at it by the hour, wondering how in the world a
youngster of six or seven could have been what he said.

Then came the time when I took that turn for the worse, and they
thought it was all up with me. I had a terrible fever and was delirious,
too, I guess. And that wretched picture haunted me the whole time.
Sometimes it seemed to be coming toward me rapidly, growing larger and
larger, and the eyes would glow like balls of fire. I used to scream out
loud, because it somehow seemed as if it would wrap itself round me and
crush me. Then it would seem to retreat way off where I could hardly see
it, and almost disappear through the wall. At other times it would turn
over, hang upside down, and cut up all sorts of antics. And all the time
I couldn't seem to take my eyes from it.

The last night that I was so very ill I had an awful dream about it. I
thought that suddenly I looked at it, and a queer change had happened to
the whole thing. Instead of the youngster being dressed up in that natty
little silk coat with lace frills at his neck and wrists and the
jewelled star on his chest and the little riding-whip, his clothes were
all queer and ragged. He had a bright red cap of some kind on his head,
and his hair was matted and tangled. Instead of being plump and smiling,
he was thin and half-starved looking, and the tears were running down
his cheeks. And while I looked, he suddenly held out his arms to me, as
if for help. I felt as if I must get right out of bed and give him some
assistance,--I simply _must_. And I guess I tried, too, for I remember
the nurses held me down. Even after I was much better, I couldn't seem
to get over the horror of that dream. I hated to look at the picture
after that, for fear I'd see it again the same way."

"But you also said," Sue reminded him, "that Monsieur acted queerly

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