His perplexed and jarring thoughts gradually ceased their discord as he became absorbed in his loved and familiar tasks. Sweet and low at first, and in the faint, broken suggestion of his kindling fancy, the symphonic poem he had heard in the garden began again, but at last his imagination made it almost real. He listened once more to Ida's girlish, plaintive voice blending with the murmur of the brook, the sighing wind and rustling leaves, and the occasional trill of a bird. He leaned back in his chair, and his eyes became full of deep and dreamy pleasure. Gradually a heavy frown contracted his brow, and his face grew white and stern as he repeated words that she once had spoken to him: "I meant to compel your respect, and I thought there was no other way." "Pharisee, fool that I was! If I had been kind and trustful at the time her family wronged her, she would not now shrink from me as if I summed up in my person the whole of that wretched experience. Even Stanton appreciated my unutterable folly, for he said: "You looked at her in a way that would have frozen even Jezebel herself," and now whenever I glance towards her she is reminded of that accursed stare. Would it be possible, in painting her likeness for Mr. Eltinge, to make her face so noble, womanly, and pure, that she would recognize my present estimate of her character, and so forgive me in very truth?" The care and earnestness with which he filled in the outlines of his sketch proved how zealously he would make the effort. In the afternoon he drove over to the garden again, and made a careful drawing of the tree and of Mr. Eltinge sitting beneath it, for Ida, and he determined to go to the city the following day the he might avail himself of the resources of his studio, and by the aid of this hasty sketch make as fine a crayon picture as would be possible, before her return on Saturday. The old gentleman's heart was naturally warm towards his protege, whom they both missed greatly, and he spoke of her often. He could not help noticing that the artist was ever an excellent listener at such times and would even suspend his work for a moment that he might not lose a word. "It seems to me he takes a wonderful deal of interest in her for a man who is seeking to engage himself to another lady," mused Mr. Eltinge. "I think the other lady had better be looking after him."