"I am sure," he said, "that there are better days coming for you. On my soul I think it."
"But he is here," she said. "What for? I cannot think there will be anything but misery when he crosses my path."
"That duel," he rejoined, the instinct of fairness natural to an honorable man roused in him; "did you ever hear more than one side of it?"
"No; yet sometimes I have thought there might be more than one side. Fairfax Detlor was a coward; and whatever that other was,"—she nodded to the picture—"he feared no man."
"A minute!" he said "Let me make a sketch of it."
He got to work immediately. After the first strong outlines she rose, came to him and said, "You know as much of it as I do—I will not stay any longer."
He caught her fingers in his and held them for an instant. "It is brutal of me. I did not stop to think what all this might cost you."
"If you paint a notable picture and gain honor by it, that is enough," she said. "It may make you famous." She smiled a little wistfully. "You are very ambitious. You needed, you said to me once, a simple but powerful subject which you could paint in with some one's life' blood—that sounds more dreadful than it is * * * well? * * * You said you had been successful, but had never had an inspiration"—
"I have one!"
She shook her head. "Never an inspiration which had possessed you as you ought to be to move the public * * * well? * * * do you think I have helped you at all? I wanted so much to do something for you."