With the strange reticent instinct which artists sometimes feel about their finest works, he had finished it in secret, working at night alone, and when it was done he had put it away.

It was his greatest feat, he had said to himself, and, as from time to time he took it out and looked at it, he gradually grew less and less inclined to show it to any one, resolving to leave it in its case, until it should be found after his death.

It had seemed priceless to him, and he would not sell it.

With a fantastic eccentricity of reasoning he regarded it as a sacred thing, to part with which would be a desecration.

So he kept it.
Then, taking it out again, it had seemed less good to him, as his mind became occupied with other things, and he had fancied he should do better yet.