"Do you think she is well now, and--and at peace?" "No." "What reason have you to doubt her well-being?" "I cannot tell you." The man looked at her searchingly, as if he would read her very soul, and then turned away with a word of leave-taking,--"Good-night." "Stay a moment. I have something to tell you. I do not know why I am forced to speak to you of the last interview she had in this room, but I must do so. Before she left,--on the night when she cried out in the court-room,--you remember?" Did he remember? Ah, Heaven! only too well he remembered the last words she had ever spoken to him,--valiant words, full of love and protection. "That night Mr. Galbraith came to see her. It was very late, and they had a long conversation. I could only hear their voices from the next room; and then she called me to her, and told us both all her sad story,--all that had passed between you and her. She took all blame upon herself, and would have made us both acknowledge that you had been right and just in acting as you did." "And was I not just?" "Just, perhaps; but how ungenerous! What have you to do with justice? You, who never painted till you painted her; you, who were so cold and unfeeling till her smile made you human for a little time. Then your own selfish egotism froze you again." "Thank you for what you have told me, and good-by. I shall not see you soon again. You were very good to her; bless you for it! Every one was good to her,--every one but me, it seems." "You speak as if she were dead." He did not hear her last words. He was already out of earshot, taking leave of his hostess. When he was alone with the stars he could think better than in that heated room, with that dear vine-crowned face before his eyes, with Barbara’s voice in his ears. He saw how Barbara misjudged him. He knew that most men and women would have held him as she did; and yet he had thought that he was right. He had fought the good fight, and he had conquered. What mattered it if all the world saw in him a monster of selfishness? He had chosen poverty, hard work, and loneliness, when wealth, worldly success, and a painless love might have been his. Sybaris had been open to him; and he had turned his back upon the perfumed island for an attic, a crust, and a mistress who demanded all, and had yielded nothing but hope.