“Are you joking now, or are you unintentionally funny?” asked Crowdie. “I don’t think it’s very funny to be talking about people having no souls,” said Katharine. “Do you think every one has a soul, Miss Lauderdale?” asked Griggs, beginning to walk about again. “Yes--of course. Don’t you?” Griggs looked at her a moment in silence, as though he were hesitating as to what he should say. “Can you see the soul, as you did the defect in my eyes?” asked Katharine, smiling. “Sometimes--sometimes one almost fancies that one might.” “And what do you see in mine, may I ask? A defect?” He was quite near to her. She looked up at him earnestly with her pure girl’s eyes, wide, grey and honest. The fresh pallor of her skin was thrown into relief by the black she wore, and her features by the rich stuff which covered the high back of the chair. There was a deeper interest in her expression than Griggs often saw in the faces of those with whom he talked, but it was not that which fascinated him. There was something suggestive of holy things, of innocent suffering, of the romance of a virgin martyr--something which, perhaps, took him back to strange sights he had seen in his youth. He stood looking down into her eyes, a gaunt, world-worn fighter of fifty years, with a strong, ugly, determined but yet kindly face--the face of a man who has passed beyond a certain barrier which few men ever reach at all. Crowdie dropped his hand, holding his brush, and gazing at the two in silent and genuine delight. The contrast was wonderful, he thought. He would have given much to paint them as they were before him, with their expressions--with the very thoughts of which the look in each face was born. Whatever Crowdie might be at heart, he was an artist first. And Hester watched them, too, accustomed to notice whatever struck her husband’s attention. A very different nature was hers from any of the three--one reserved for an unusual destiny, and with something of fate’s shadowy painting already in all her outward self--passionate, first, and having, also, many qualities of mercy and cruelty at passion’s command, but not having anything of the keen insight into the world spiritual, and material, which in varied measure belonged to each of the others. “And what defect do you see in my soul?” asked Katharine, her exquisite lips just parting in a smile. “Forgive me!” exclaimed Griggs, as though roused from a reverie. “I didn’t realize that I was staring at you.” He was an oddly natural man at certain times. Katharine almost laughed. “I didn’t realize it either,” she answered. “I was too much interested in what I thought you were going to say.”