"It would be an added joy, little girl," Thornly insisted, but Janet would not consider it.
"So please go now," she had pleaded finally. "Go and think and think. Perhaps by and by—who can tell? Just now it must be only my Cap'n Daddy."
Thus with the courage and patience of her nature the girl had set aside her own love and yearning; and Thornly took to the Hills and the unfinished picture of "The Pimpernel."
The glorious face upon the canvas changed and assumed character according as the master's mood swayed him.
One day it would shine forth with the sweet questioning of joyous girlhood. Then Thornly, remembering how the question had been answered on a certain summer day when ignorance died and knowledge was born, wiped away the expression while his heart grew heavy within him.
Then he would paint her as he recalled her on that black night upon the beach when, her uplifted face touched by the fleeting rays of the white moon, she had asked him if he needed her to help him finish his picture.
No! no! He could not paint her so. That was no face for a flower wreath—and the flowers he must have!
Again he painted her as he had last seen her. The love light shining in her eyes while courageously she put her joy from her until her duty to Billy was ended, and her lover had had time to think.
Thornly had thought! Never in his life had he thought so deeply and intensely, and from out the thought and love the soul of Janet had evolved and become fixed upon the canvas. "It is a masterpiece!" cried the artist in the man, as he gazed upon the glorious face.
"It is my woman!" responded the man in the artist. "My Spirit of the dunes with the strength of the Hills and the mystery of the sea."