hich she was
at work. Her skin was stainless as a lily save here and there where the
golden fleck of a freckle marred its whiteness. Her reddish hair,
braided in strands, was wound flatly around her head. There was a
purity in her face, a Mystery that was holy to him. He crossed over to
her side and lit the lamp for her.

"Who suggested your coming? Rainsford?"

"Nobody. I wanted to come, just."

He threw himself down on the sofa near her. "I can't work!" he
exclaimed. "I've not been able to do anything for weeks. I reckon I'm no
good. I'm going to let the whole thing go."

Molly folded her sewing and laid it on the table. "Would you show me
what you've been workin' at, Tony?"

The softness of her brogue had not gone, but she had been a rapid pupil
unconsciously taught, and her speech had improved.

"I've destroyed most of my work," he said, hopelessly; "but this is
something of the new scheme I've planned."

He went over to the other part of the studio and uncovered the clay in
which he had begun to work, and mused before it. He took some clay from
the barrel, mixed it and began to model. Molly watched him.

"I get an idea," he murmured; "but when I go to fix it it escapes and
eludes me. It has no form. I want a group of figures in the foreground
and the idea of distance and far-away on the other side."

"It will be lovely, Tony," she encouraged him. "I mind the day we walked
in the cemetery for the first time and you looked at the angel so long."

"Yes." He was kneeling, bending forward, putting the clay on with his
thumb.

"Ever since then"--Molly's tone was meditative--"that angel seems like a
friend to me. Many's the time when there's a hard thing to do he seems
to open the door and I go through, and it's not so hard."

She was imaginative, Fairfax knew it. She was superstitious, like the
people of her country. The things she said were often full of fancy,
like the legends and stories of the Celts; but now he hardly heard her,
for he was working, and she went back to her task by the lamp, and,
under the quiet of her presence and its companionship, his modelling
grew. He heard her finally stir, and the clock struck seven, and they
had had no supper. Until she crossed the floor, he did not speak. Then
he turned--

"I'll work on a little longer. I want to finish this hand."

"Take your time, Tony. I'll be going home slowly, anyway."

She was at the door, stood in it, held it half-open, her arm out al