Alys returned in a few moments, and with a swift step. Her face was radiant. She too held her head high, but as if she lifted her face to drink in some magic elixir of the night. This was the first time she had seen Rush since he had immersed himself in the case, and now he had come to her unasked, and as naturally as in the old days when weary with work and the sordid revelations of the courts. Her mercurial spirits, which had hung low in the scale for weeks, had gone up with a rush that filled her with a reckless unreasoning happiness. Perhaps intimacy with Mrs. Balfame had disillusioned him in little ways. Perhaps he had discovered the truth for himself and despised her for a cold-blooded liar where he might have forgiven her honest admission of the actual crime. It would be just like his exaggerated idealism. There never was any love that could not be killed by transgression of some pet prejudice, some violation of secret fastidiousness. At all events, he was here and with every appearance of spending a long evening. What did the rest matter? He was still standing as she entered, staring at a water colour of a bit of the woods west of Elsinore. The trees were stately and old, the shadows green and shot with the gold of some stray beam of the sun dancing down through that heavy canopy with Puckish triumph. A rocky brook crossed the glade, and behind was a subtle suggestion of the uninterrupted forest, deserted and absolutely still. Rush had recognised the spot. "My village, Rennselaerville, is on the other side," he said, turning a boyish face to Alys. "I have been fourteen again for a few moments. Last summer I only got a day off now and again to loaf in those woods. I wish I had been with you when you painted this." She unhooked the picture and handed it to him. "Please let me give it to you. I'd like so much if you would hang it in one of your rooms,--say behind your desk,--so that when you are tired or puzzled you can wheel about and lose yourself for a moment. I am sure it wouldn't be a bad substitute for the real thing." She spoke with a shy eagerness and an entire absence of coquetry. He put out both hands for the picture. "I should think it wouldn't. It is just like you to think of it. Indeed I will accept it." And he remembered how many cases he had forgotten under her kindly tact, both in this cool green studio and that other room of woodland shades in the cottage. He was wondering if he had not been a conceited ass and misconstrued an increasing warmth of friendship in this fine impulsive creature, when he remembered Miss Austin's insinuations and sat down abruptly, recalled to the object of his visit.