Miranda had a trick of seeing pictures. She was not given to arguments and inferences; but a word, a sentence, would strike upon her hearing, and at once a curtain was rolled up somewhere in her mind, and she saw men moving to and fro and things happening as upon a lighted stage. Such pictures made up her arguments, her conclusions, even her motives; and it was because of their instant vividness that she was so rapidly moved to sympathy and dislike. So now there was set before her eyes the picture of a man riding down the hill of Tangier at night in the civilisation of evening dress, and, as she looked, it melted into another in which the same man, clad in vile rags, with his hands bound, was flogged forwards under a burning sun into the barbaric inlands of Morocco. She saw that brutal party, the five gaolers, the one captive, straggle past the tent village. She guessed at Ralph's despairing glance as though it was directed towards herself, she saw the scrap of paper flutter white upon the dark soil. And as she contemplated this vision, she heard M. Fournier speaking again to her; but the sound of his voice had changed. He was no longer telling his story; he was pleading with a tenderness which had something grotesquely pathetic, when she considered who it was for whom he pleaded. His foreign accent became more pronounced, and the voluble words tumbled one over the other. "So M. Warriner does not ask you for money; that sees itself, is it not? Nor even does he ask you for help. Be sure of that, Madame; read the note again. He would not come to you for help; he is not so mean; he has too much pride;" and as Mrs. Warriner smiled, with perhaps a little bitterness, M. Fournier, noticing her smile, became yet more astonishing and intricate in his apologies. "He take your money, oh yes, I know very well, while he is with you; but then you get his company in exchange. That make you both quits, eh? But once he has gone away, he would not come back to you for money or help at all. He has so much pride. Oh no! He just take it from the first person he meet, me or anyone else. He has so much pride; besides, it would be simpler. No! It is I who come to you. He often speak to me of you--oh, but in the highest terms! And I say to myself: That dear Ralph, he is difficult to live with. He is not a comfortable friend. We know that, Mrs. Warriner and I, but we both love him very much--" "No!" The emphatic interruption fairly startled M. Fournier. Miranda had risen from her seat and stood over him. He would not have believed that so gentle a face could have taken on so vigorous an expression. He stammered a protest. Miranda repeated her denial: "No, no, no!" she cried. "Let us be frank!"