“I did follow her,” said Sedgwick in a low tone.
“For what purpose?”
“To find out who she was.”
“Which you didn’t succeed in doing?”
“She was too quick for me. The blow of the rock had made me giddy, and she got away among the thickets.”
“That’s a pity. One more point of suspicion. Dennett, you say, saw your picture, The Rough Rider. He will tell every one about it, you may be sure.”
“What of it?”
“The strange coincidence of the subject, and the apparent manner of the unknown’s death.”
“People will hardly suspect that I killed her and set her adrift for a model, I suppose,” said the artist bitterly; “particularly as Dennett can tell them that the picture was finished before her death.”
“Not that; but there will be plenty of witch-hangers among the Yankee populace, ready to believe that a fiend inspired both picture and murder in your mind. Why, the very fact of your being an artist would be prima facie evidence of a compact with the devil, to some people. And you must admit a certain diabolical ghastliness in that painting.”