He took it from her hand and looked. At the foot of it was written, “The Last Shot at Maungatabu.”
His hand trembled for a moment; then he placed the drawing back in the portfolio, and with averted face she rose from the table and walked to the window.
For a moment or two she stood there irresolutely, and then with the colour mantling her brow she came over to him.
“I must ask your pardon now. I forgot that—that—that——”
“That I have Maori blood in my veins. Yes, I have, my father was a Pakeha Maori,{*} my mother a woman of one of the Waikato tribes. She died when I was very young.” Then, in a curiously strained voice, he said: “Miss Torringley, may I ask a favour of you? Will you give me that sketch?”
* A white man who had adopted Maori life and customs.
She moved quickly to the table, and untied the portfolio again.
“Which, Dr. Rauparaha? The last——”
“Yes,” he interrupted, with sudden fierceness, “the Last Shot at Maungatabu.”
She took it out and came over to him. “Take it, if you wish it; take them all, if you care for them. No one but myself ever looks at them.... And now, after what you have told me, I shall never want to look at them again.”