He looked at her in unaffected wonder, thinking to himself that it could be no ordinary sorrow that caused so young and lovely a woman to spend her life in seclusion. He had rarely, if ever, seen a more beautiful woman. She was tall, with a finely formed figure, full of gracious, graceful curves, that made every movement seem like a note of richest harmony. She had a lovely Spanish face, dark, beautiful, dreamy, but inexpressibly sad; there were purple rings around her dark eyes, as though she wept much and watched more; there was no light in the faint, sad smile that rippled over her lips. As one sees sometimes a perfect flower, over which saddest blight has fallen, so was she blighted in her youth, in her beauty, by some terrible sorrow, the nature of which no one could guess from her face. He was thinking intently of her, wondering so deeply what her history was, that he was not aware that she had spoken to him twice without receiving any answer. When he discovered it, for the second time during the interview, his face flushed hotly at his own awkwardness. He tried to bring the interview to a more businesslike conclusion. “I am afraid, Mrs. Payton,” he said, “that you find me very stupid. I had a dreadful trouble years ago, and it has made me unlike every one else.” He saw a gleam of kindly sympathy light up her dark eyes. “Trouble?” she repeated, wearily. “I think every one in the wide world has that. I never hear of anything else. Trouble? I ask myself sometimes why we were created to do nothing save suffer. Do you remember those lines of Barry Cornwall’s? “We toil through pain and wrong; We fight and fly; We have, we love, and then ere long Stone dead we lie. “There you have life--a little pain, a little wrong, a little love, then stone dead we lie.” Words could no more describe the melancholy of her voice than they could the beauty of her face. “You are very young,” he said, pityingly, “to know so much more of sorrow than of joy.” Then she seemed suddenly to remember that she was talking to a stranger, one whom a few moments before she hardly saw. She, too, grew slightly confused, and abruptly changed the conversation. “As landlord and tenant,” she said, “we ought to have some agreement, I suppose. I do not wish to cause you any heavy expense, and if my whim be gratified, I am perfectly willing to defray a just share of the expense.” “You want a pretty window?” said Kenelm, suddenly. “I will give you a design.” He took his pencil, drawing a sheet of paper near him, with a few bold, graceful strokes, he completed the design of a very handsome window. He showed it to her. “Yes,” she said, “that is what I want. How quick you are to seize upon an idea! To make that perfect there should be purple passion flowers around these fluted pillars.”