"Frank, you don't doubt me, do you? There is nothing in the world I could weigh against you and your love, but we must be reasonable. If you had a very strong presentiment that you would be drowned as we sailed home I should very likely be dreadfully uncomfortable, but I wouldn't have you walk back instead for anything. There are many things of which we know nothing--presentiments, fears, all the horrors, in fact--and it would be like children to take them into our reckoning or let them direct us. It is for your sake, not mine, that I want you to go on with that portrait. If I followed my inclination I should say, 'Tear it up and let us sit here together for ever and ever.'" Frank leaned forward and spoke entreatingly. "Margy, tell me to tear it up--ah, do, dear, and you may do with me whatever you wish--only tell me to destroy it!" Margery shook her head hopelessly. "Don't disappoint me, Frank," she said. "I care for nothing in the world compared to you; but what reason could I give for doing this? I think you often get excited and upset over your work, but that is worth while, because you do good work and you are not permanently upset. You wouldn't give up being an artist for that. And if I saw any reason for telling you to stop this, I would do it. It is because I care for you and all your possibilities that I tell you to go on with it." Margery thought for a moment of the portrait and the terrible likeness it bore to her husband, and she hesitated. But no; the whole thing was too fantastic, too vague. She did not even know what she was afraid of. "It isn't the pleasant or the easy course I am taking," she continued. "That wasn't a pleasant look on your face when you shouted at me to give you your palette this morning?" Frank looked puzzled. "What did I do?" he asked. "When did I shout at you?" "This morning, just before we came out. You shouted awfully loud, and you looked like Macbeth. It is just because I don't want you to look like Macbeth permanently that I insist on your going on with it. I want you to get Macbeth out of your system. That fantastic idea of yours, that you would run a risk, was the original cause of all this nonsense, and when you have finished the picture and seen that you have run no risk, you will know that I am right." Frank stood up. "To-morrow may be too late," he said. "Do you really tell me to go on with it?" "Frank, dear, don't be melodramatic. You were just as nice as you could be all the way up here. Yes, I tell you to go on with it." Frank's arms dropped by his side, and for a moment he stood quite still. The leaves whispered in the trees, and the rippling stream tapped against the boat. Then for a moment the breeze dropped, and the boat swung round with the current. The water made no sound against it as it moved slowly round, and there was silence--tense, absolute silence. Then Margery lay back in the boat and laughed. Her laugh sounded strange in her own ears.