"Yes, yes! As God is my witness, Janet, that is my desire." "Then I will help. Oh! forgive me! Come, please, come, only"--here she smiled pitifully--"please leave the door open! It shall never matter again; nothing can change things now." Thornly staggered to his feet and half extended his hand to draw the girl in; then something stayed him. "I cannot paint to-day, Janet," he whispered. "Something is changed. Perhaps the old longing will return, but I must not trust myself until I know. Go, little Pimpernel, you are the greater artist of us two!" "I'm very sorry the day is spoiled," she returned brokenly; "if I had only known more, it would have been different. It seems as if I cannot ever forgive myself." She turned, and went sadly over the hills with never a backward look. And Thornly gazed after her with yearning eyes. She was taking with her--what? Inspiration? Yes, but something deeper and more vital was passing with that vanishing form. What was it? What had occurred to change the summer sunlight to drearest gray? CHAPTER VII Late August hung heavily over Quinton. The city folks, who counted their year's playtime by two weeks' vacation, had come and gone, in relays. The artists, never tiring of the changing charms of this new-found beauty-spot, gave no heed to the passing season. Only cold, and acute bodily suffering could attract their attention. Good, poor, and indifferent revelled in the inspiration-haunted Hills and magnificent sweep of shore. The natives counted their gains with bated breath and dreamed visions of future summers that made them dizzy. Poor Susan Jane was the only woman, apparently, upon the mainland, who had swung at anchor through all the changed conditions. Susan, who once had been the ruling spirit of the village and Station! Susan, whose sharp tongue and all-seeing eye had governed her kind! Susan had been obliged to gather such bits of driftwood as had floated to her chair, during the history-making season,--and draw such pleasure from it as she could. The strain had worn upon the paralyzed body. The active mind had stretched and stretched for material until the helpless frame weakened. The sharp tongue was two-edged now, and gossip that reached Susan Jane assumed the blackest color. Her searching eyes saw through everything, and gripped all secrets. David's songs, as he mounted the winding stairs, took on a soberer strain. Sometimes he omitted, even at the top, his hilarious outburst to the "lobster pots;" and his sigh and laugh combination was an hourly occurrence. Janet noticed it all. She was alive to the atmospheric chill of the village, though in no wise understanding it. She was troubled and fretted by many things, but she went her way. The money she had earned by posing she dealt out in miserly fashion to Susan Jane; while at the same time she assumed many household cares to ease David, whom she loved.