"You—you said you were a painter!" she gasped when she felt Norval was near her.
"And you think I'm not?" Something in the voice startled her, she looked at him.
"You said you painted houses and barns and——"
"People sometimes and trees. I spoke the truth, but you think I'm no painter?"
"Why, I've been—I've been thinking I was dreaming until just now. See these woods," she was gazing at the unfinished thing on the easel, "They are my woods. I know the very paths, they are back of the lumber cutting. See! is there a face, somewhere in the dark, a face back of those silver birches, is there?"
Norval, with the Joan of Arc conception in mind, had painted those woods while Donelle's face had haunted him.
"Can you see a face?" he asked. He was close to the girl now, so close that her young body touched him.
"Is it only a fancy?"
"Look again, Donelle. Whose face?"
"I—I do not know!"