The refractory creation of her spirit was a small panel in oils: a subject picture, more or less symbolical, such as she did not often attempt:--a broken hillside, of Himalayan character: bare blocks of granite, dripping with recent rain, their dark corners and interstices alight with shy wild flowers and ferns: a stone-set path zigzagging among them, and half-way up the path, the figures of a man and woman: the man ahead, upon a jutting ledge of rock, half turning with down-stretched hand to draw the woman up after him, his vigorous form backed by a sky of driving cloud. Of the woman's face, as she lifted it to his, nothing could be seen save the outline of cheek and brow. Her bowed shoulders and the lines of her figure expressed effort, tinged with weariness. Below her, the topmost half of a deodar sprang upward, a suggestion of wind in its drooping bows: and through torn grey cloud, a sun-ray, striking across the two figures, waked coppery gleams in the woman's dark hair, and points of brightness on drenched rock and fern. All these things were as yet conveyed rather than expressed: the figures, in particular, being still little more than studies suggesting both the strain and exhilaration of ascent. On a strip of cardboard propped above the canvas, four lines were scribbled in pencil. "Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day? From morn till night, my friend." Quita read and pondered the words for the hundredth time: but the hint of melancholy in them only increased her vague feeling of annoyance, and the lines deepened between her brows. It was her first serious attempt at a picture after four months of idleness, and 'amateur scribblings'--so she designated them in her letters to Michael; and for the time being brain and hand seemed to have lost their cunning. She needed the stimulant of criticism, of discussion, to oil the wheels and set the machine going afresh. If only Michael were here, how they would have argued and squabbled, to their souls' content, over values, and proportions and effects of light and shade; and what a fine day's work would have sprung from it all! "I really think I must get him down here for a week or two," she thought. "Just to give me a fillip in the right direction." Fired by the notion, she made one or two ineffectual dabs at the woman's draperies: then, flinging down brush and palette, sank into a deep, cushioned chair sacred to her husband, as a small table bearing ash-tray, pipes, and a pile of corrected proofs, bore witness. She glanced through them lazily, with softened eyes: then, as if drawn by a magnet, her gaze returned to the picture.