The picture progressed rather slowly upon the whole. Rebecca had thought the subject a little fantastic at first, and yet had been attracted by it. A girl in a peculiar dress of black and white bent over a spring with an impatient air, trying in vain to catch a glimpse of her beauty in the reflection of the moonlight. “It 's our spring, shore,” commented “Mis'” Dunbar. “'N' its Dusk--but Lord! how fine she's fixed. Ye're as fine as ye want to be in the picter, Dusk, if ye wa'n't never fine afore. Don't ye wish ye had sich dressin' as thet thar now?” The sittings were at the outset peculiarly silent. There was no untimely motion or change of expression, and yet no trying passiveness. The girl gave any position a look of unconsciousness quite wonderful. Privately, Lennox was convinced that she was an actress from habit--that her ease was the result of life-long practice. Sometimes he found his own consciousness of her steady gaze almost unbearable. He always turned to meet her deep eyes fixed upon him with an expression he could not fathom. Frequently he thought it an expression of dislike--of secret resentment--of subtle defiance. There came at last a time when he knew that he turned toward her again and again because he felt that he must--because he had a feverish wish to see if the look had changed. Once when he did this he saw that it _had_ changed. She had moved a little, her eyes were dilated with a fire which startled him beyond self-control, her color came and went, she breathed fast. The next instant she sprang from her chair. “I wont stand it no longer,” she cried panting: “no longer--I wont!” Her ire was magnificent. She flung her head back, and struck her side with her clinched hand. “No longer!” she said; “not a minute!” Lennox advanced one step and stood, palette in hand, gazing at her. “What have I done?” he asked. “What?” “What?” she echoed with contemptuous scorn. “Nothin'! _But d'ye think I don't know ye?_” “Know me!” he repeated after her mechanically, finding it impossible to remove his glance from her. “What d'ye take me me fur?” she demanded. “A fool? Yes, I was a fool--a fool to come here, 'n' set 'n' let ye--let ye despise me!” in a final outburst. Still he could only echo her again, and say “Despise you!” Her voice lowered itself into an actual fierceness of tone. “Ye've done it from first to last,” she said. “Would ye look at her like ye look at me? Would ye turn half way 'n' look at her, 'n' then turn back as if--as if--. Aint there”--her eyes ablaze--“aint there no _life_--to me?” “Stop!” he began hoarsely. “I'm beneath her, am I?” she persisted. “Me beneath another woman--Dusk Dunbar! It's the first time!” She walked toward the door as if to leave him, but suddenly she stopped. A passionate tremor shook her; he saw her throat swell. She threw her arm up against the logs of the wall and dropped her face upon it sobbing tumultuously.