“Never mind that assumed dignity; I know the reason as well as you could tell me. This letter I found on the studio floor gives the villain away,” and thrusting it at her, he demanded: “Read it aloud.” She nervously unfolded it and read: “MY DEAR LATHAM: I presume you know I too was painting the ‘Athlete.’ My model is a failure, a disappointment. Come to New York at once, and pose for me at your own price. Yours, anxiously, WILLARD FROST.” When she finished the letter she could not find a suitable answer, so she did not answer at all. Robert did not like silence, he liked to have things explained, cleared up. He looked at his wife with grave severity, and demanded: “You knew this was what called him away.” “I did not,” was her truthful and emphatic reply. “Oh, God!” in a frenzy, “just to think how I trusted him; his word and honor were dear to my very soul; but now--now I hate him, I curse him; if I ever prayed, I might pray that the train would be wrecked and dash him to his eternal, just reward.” “Robert, Robert!” the gentle voice pleaded, “hold him not guilty without defense; he is still your friend.” “Hush! tell me nothing. It is a plain case of villainy; he has been bought off; he has robbed me of my future,” and Robert quit the table and went at once to his room. The insanity of drink held festival in his delirious brain. The next few hours found him in a deplorable condition. The reaction from his fit of inebriety had been a severe shock to his system, not especially strong at best, and this, together with Marrion’s sudden flight, preyed sharply on his mind, and he suffered a sort of nervous prostration. “My picture! my masterpiece is unfinished! it can never be finished without him!” was the substance of his raving. Never before had Cherokee seen such woe in his countenance. She knew the painting was almost completed, and that he could finish it from the picture he had of Marrion, taken purposely to aid him, even when the model was there; but to mention anything so as to manage a way out of the pit into which he imagined he had fallen merely infuriated him, and did no good. “Marrion must come back to me; send for him; tell him I cannot win without him,” he cried, scarcely above a whisper, he was so weak. Never before had the one desire of man’s life been strained through his face and speech like this. Cherokee was deeply moved, yet she could not understand how he could charge Marrion with double-dealing and treachery, with conduct so entirely at variance with the whole tenor of his gracious life. How could he think that Willard Frost, that crafty, remorseless villain, could purchase the manhood of Marrion Latham. If Robert had only known how much that friend had suffered and borne for him, he would have worshipped where he now condemned. “Cherokee,” he called from the bed, “what am I to do?”