“No, I don’t misunderstand,” answered Kent very gently. “I know there are things that can’t be spoken, not because they are shameful, but because they are sacred. Yet I’ve got to know about her. Here! I have it. When I’m gone, sit down and write it out for me, simply and fully, and send it to my hotel as soon as it is done. You can do that, can’t you?” “Yes, I can do that,” decided Sedgwick, after some consideration. “Good! Then give me some dinner. And let’s forget this grisly thing for a time, and talk of the old days. Whatever became of Harkness, of our class, do you know?” Between them that evening was no further mention of the strange body in Lonesome Cove. CHAPTER III—MY LADY OF MYSTERY _Being a single autobiographical chapter from the life of Francis Sedgwick, with editorial comment by Professor Chester Kent._ Dear Kent: Here goes! I met her first on June 22, at three o’clock in the afternoon. Some wonderful cloud effects after a hard rain had brought me out into the open. I had pitched my easel in the hollow, on the Martindale Road, so as to get that clump of pine against the sky. There I sat working away with a will, when I heard the drumming of hoofs, and a horse with a girl in the saddle came whizzing round the turn almost upon me. Just there the rain had made a puddle of thick sticky mud, the mud-pie variety. As the horse went by at full gallop, a fine, fat, mud pie rose, soared through the air, and landed in the middle of my painting. I fairly yelped. To get it all off was hopeless. However, I went at it, and was cursing over the job when I heard the hoofs coming back, and the rider pulled up close to me. “I heard you cry out,” said a voice, very full and low. “Did I hurt you? I hope not.” “No,” I said without looking up. “Small thanks to you that you didn’t!” My tone silenced her for a moment. Somehow, though, I got the feeling that she was amused more than abashed at my resentment. And her voice was suspiciously meek when she presently spoke again. “You’re an artist, aren’t you?” “No,” I said, busily scraping away at my copperplate. “I’m an archeologist, engaged in exhuming an ancient ruin from a square mile of mud.” She laughed; but in a moment became grave again. “I’m so sorry!” she said. “I know I shouldn’t come plunging around turns in that reckless way. May I—I should like to—buy your picture?” “You may not,” I replied. “That isn’t quite fair, is it?” she asked. “If I have done damage, I should be allowed to repair it.” “Repair?” said I. “How do you propose to do it? I suppose that you think a picture that can be bought for a hundred-dollar bill can be painted with a hundred-dollar bill.” “No; I’m not altogether a Philistine,” she said, and I looked up at her for the first time. Her face—(_Elision and Comment by Kent_: _I know her face from the sketches. Why could he not have described the horse? However, there’s one point clear: she is a woman of means._)