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Even Lennox, coming every few days with a worn-out look and touched with a haggard shadow, made no outward change in her.

“She does not look,” said the elder lady to herself, “like a neglected woman.” And then the sound of the phrase struck her with a sharp incredulous pain. “A neglected woman!” she repeated,–“Beck!”

She did not understand, and was not weak enough to ask questions.

Lennox came and went, and Rebecca gained upon her work until she could no longer say she was behindhand. The readers of her letters and sketches found them fresh and sparkling, “as if,” wrote a friend, “you were braced both mentally and physically by the mountain air.”

But once in the middle of the night Miss Thorne awakened with a mysterious shock to find the place at her side empty, and her niece sitting at the open window in a quiet which suggested that she might not have moved for an hour.

She obeyed her strong first impulse, and rose and went to her.

She laid her hand on her shoulder, and shook her gently.

“Beck!” she demanded, “what are you doing?”

When the girl turned slowly round, she started sit the sight of her cold, miserable pallor.

“I am doing nothing–nothing,” she answered. “Why did you get up? It’s a fine night, isn’t it?”

Despite her discretion, Miss Thorne broke down into a blunder.

“You–you never look like this in the daytime!” she exclaimed.

“No,” was the reply given with cool deliberateness. “No; I would rather die.”

For the moment she was fairly incomprehensible. There was in the set of her eye and the expression of her fair, clear face, the least hint of dogged obstinacy.

“Beck “–she began.

“You ought not to have got up,” said Beck. “It is enough to look ‘like this’ at night when I am by myself. Go back to bed, if you please.”

Miss Thorne went back to bed meekly. She was at once alarmed and subdued. She felt as if she had had a puzzling interview with a stranger.

In these days Lennox regarded his model with morbid interest. A subtle change was perceptible in her. Her rich color deepened, she held herself more erect, her eye had a larger pride and light. She was a finer creature than ever, and yet–she came at his call. He never ceased to wonder at it. Sometimes the knowledge of his power stirred within him a vast impatience; sometimes he was hardened by it; but somehow it never touched him, though he was thrown into tumult–bound against his will. He could not say that he understood her. Her very passiveness baffled him and caused him to ask himself what it meant. She spoke little, and her emotional phases seemed reluctant, but her motionless face and slowly raised eye always held a meaning of their own.

On an occasion when he mentioned his approaching departure, she started as if she had received a blow, and he turned to see her redden and pale alternately, her face full of alarm.

“What is the matter?” he asked brusquely.

“I–hadn’t bin thinkin’ on it,” she stammered. “I’d kinder forgot.”

He turned to his easel again and painted rapidly for a few minutes. Then he felt a light touch on his arm. She had left her seat noiselessly and stood beside him. She gave him a passionate, protesting look. A fire of excitement seemed to have sprung up within her and given her a defiant daring.

“D’ye think I’ll stay here–when ye’re gone–like I did before?” she said.

She had revealed herself in many curious lights to him, but no previous revelation had been so wonderful as was the swift change of mood and bearing which took place in her at this instant. In a moment she had melted into soft tears, her lips were tremulous, her voice dropped into a shaken whisper.

“I’ve allers wanted to go away,” she said. “I–I’ve allers said I would. I want to go to a city somewhar–I don’t keer whar. I might git work–I’ve heerd of folks as did. P’r’aps some un ud hire me!”