"Don't step on the flowers, Nick. Where are your manners?" Donelle gave a laugh and Nick made wide circles. And so they came to the wood-cabin and went inside. Donelle left the door open for she meant to make a rousing fire, and the day was too fine to be shut out. Nick pattered around the room for a few moments and then curled up in the window seat.
"There, now," said Donelle at last, "I think everything is right and cosey, I can finish that book."
So she took the story she and Norval had been reading and, buried in the deep chair, with her back to the door, she was soon absorbed.
She heard a step outside, smiled, and made believe she was asleep.
Someone entered, saw her, and quickly drew conclusions; bitter, cruel conclusions, but conclusions that drove an almost defeated sense of duty to the fore.
"Good morning. Is this Mr. Norval's—" there was a pause—"studio?"
Donelle sprang up as if she had been shot. A thin, desperately sick-looking woman in rich velvet and furs confronted her. The incongruous garments, the strangely haunting name, made Donelle stare.
"Is this Mr. Norval's—studio? I asked." The thin, sharp voice seemed to awaken Donelle at last.
"No," she replied, "this cabin is where Mr. Richard Alton paints his pictures."
"Indeed! He's changed his name, I see. I—" and now the stranger came in and closed the door after her, closed it with an air of proprietorship—"I am Mrs. James Norval," she said, sitting down. "And you, I suppose, are—let me see if I can recall your name, it is rather an odd one. Now I have it, Donelle Morey. That's right, isn't it?"