It was the picture her father had painted, and "Mr. Temple" had bought.
She looked at it in silence and the tears filled her eyes; then she turned her lovely face to the duke and tried to speak.
"All right, my dear," he said in a low voice. "I like to have it there. It reminds me of old times. Reminds me of the Portmaris days, when, blinded by my own conceit, I thought all women were false and worthless. You have opened my eyes, my dear, and I see more clearly now! There! There!" for her tears fell fast. "That is all past now."
He paused for a moment, then lifted his eyes to her face with a tender regard, and murmured:
Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all its chords with might,
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight—
"I suppose he has told you how it was with me, my dear?"
Leslie's eyes dropped for an instant, then she raised them and looked into his, and her hand closed tightly on his thin one.
"Well," he said with a smile, "you must cut your heart in two, and give one-half to your husband, and the other to—your brother!"