"Pierre Giraud shot him for insulting Giraud's wife, last winter."
"Jove!" exclaimed the lawyer. "Your North believes in swift justice. What was done with the voyageur?"
"He escaped to the wilds," Rex said, "but returned later, and was arrested by the Mounted Police."
Ainsworth indulged in no comment because they had reached the woman painter. She turned, smiling, at their footsteps, and the lawyer stared dazedly at the image of Maud Morris.
"Mercia," said Britton, "this is Ainsworth, the friend of whom I have so often spoken. Ainsworth, let me present my wife!"
The beautiful, girlish figure held out her hand, but the lawyer recoiled, glancing angrily at Rex.
"What trick is this?" he cried, but when he studied the sweet face before him again, his senses received a shock.
He bent forward, using his keen eyes more searchingly, and surveyed her with a scrutiny well nigh rude. It gradually dawned on him that this was not Maud Morris but someone moulded in her likeness with a purer, intensified beauty.
"Forgive me, forgive me!" he burst out impetuously. "I mistook you for a woman who is–who is not fit to be any man's wife." He seized her both hands now and pressed them respectfully and penitentially.
Britton took his wife's arm with an air of jealous ownership while she gazed up at him, a tremulous expression of wonder in her eyes as if the action were new to her and unexplainable.