The hours given to the first sittings were silent hours, but that was not remarkable. Saxon always worked in silence, though there were times when he painted with gritted teeth because of thoughts he read in the face he was studying--thoughts which the model did not know her face revealed. At times, Mrs. Horton sat in the shade near by, and watched the hand that nursed the canvas with its brush, the steady, bare forearm that needed no mahlstick for support and the eyes that were narrowed to slits as he studied his tones and wide as he painted. Sometimes, Steele lingered near with a novel which he read aloud, but it happened that in the final sittings there was no one save painter and model. It was now late in July, and the canvas had begun to take form with a miraculous quality and glow. Perhaps, the man himself did not realize that he could never again paint such a portrait, or any landscape that would be comparable with it. Some men write love-letters that are wonderful heart documents, but they write them in black and white, with words. Saxon was not only writing a love-letter, but was painting all that his resolve did not let him say. He was putting into the work pent-up love of such force that it was almost bursting his heart. Here on canvas as through some wonderful safety-valve, he was passionately converting it all into the vivid eloquence of color. It had been his fancy, since the picture had become something more than a strong, preliminary sketch, that Duska should not see it until it neared completion, and she, wishing to have her impression one unspoiled by foretastes, had assented to the idea. Each day after the posing ended, and while he rested, and let her rest, the face of the canvas was covered with another which was blank. Finally came the time to ask her opinion. The afternoon light had begun to change with the hint of lengthening shadows. The out-door world was aglow with gracious weather and the air had the wonderful, almost pathetic softness that sometimes comes to Kentucky for a few days in July, bringing, as it seems, a fragment strayed out of Indian Summer and lost in the mid-heat of the year. The man stood back and covered the portrait, then, when the girl had seated herself before the easel, he stepped forward, and laid his hand on the covering. He hesitated a moment, and his fingers on the blank canvas trembled. He was unveiling the effort of his life, and to him she was the world. If he had failed! Then, with a deft movement, he lifted the concealing canvas, and waited. For a moment, the girl looked with bated breath, then something between a groan and a stifled cry escaped her. She turned her eyes to him, and rose unsteadily from her seat. Her hands went to her breast, and she wavered as though she would fall. Saxon was at her side in a moment, and, as he supported her, he felt her arm tremble. "Are you ill?" he asked, in a frightened voice.