And he worked at the head on his knees, like Fra Angelico at his ecstatic pictures of saints, and he coloured it most beautifully--but still, not as if it were the head of a living maiden, but as of one who had died in the freshness of youth. When he succeeded, he smiled and closed his eyes for ever.
XII
After long wanderings, the bust has found a resting-place in the museum at Lille. Full of a dreamy pathos, it stands in its gla.s.s case--an atonement for Love betrayed--in memory of the bitterest repentance.
As the embodiment of an old legend, it interests us and seems to say: "A tear for Blanche of Montalme; for Henri de Lancy--a prayer!"