led the natural life, and its breath had
failed him and he was no more. Some time, she knew, in this dull
brooding, she might try to whip herself up into an expected grief; but
now, in the bare honesty of the moment, she accepted the event as it
was.

"Osmond has been great," said Peter.

She started back to life.

"What has he done?"

"Everything. He's been Electra's right-hand man. I'll run down to see
him a minute presently."

He hoped Rose would send some word of appreciative thanks. Old Osmond,
he knew, would like it. But she got up and gave him her hand, in her
grave affectionate way, and said good-night. She remembered how Osmond
and her father had met in contest, and she knew Osmond would not seek
her until Markham MacLeod was wholly gone.

XXVII

Peter met his brother midway in the field, and waited for him.

"I'll go with you," he said.

"No," said Osmond, "I'm not going now. Come back to the shack."

"You're a regular night-owl," said Peter, as they turned. "When I don't
find you after dark, I know you're in the woods, prowling. What makes
you?"

"It's a good place to think things out,--and swear over 'em."

"What things, old man? You know I wouldn't tell. Nothing would tempt me
to."

Osmond laughed a little.

"If you care so much as that, I'll tell you," he said, with a sudden
harshness for himself in retrospect. "I go into the woods to think about
life, my life, my difference from other fellows."

They sat down on the bench at the door, and a whippoorwill, calling,
made the distance lonely. Peter had no answer for the truth he had
evoked. It was too harsh. Only a woman could have met it, and that with
kisses, not with words.

"Do you know," he said abruptly, "what all this makes me want?--this
horrible excitement?"

"No, boy."

"It makes me want to paint. I want to paint everything I see: Markham
MacLeod lying there in that bed of fern, Rose with all the life washed
out of her, and you now, your face coming out of the dark. Everything's
been unreal to me since it happened--except paint--and you."

"Poor old chap!" said Osmond. But he fled on from that concurrent
sympathy to a dearer plea. "Paint, Pete," he urged. "Let all the rest
go. Let MacLeod die. But you paint."

Peter was looking at him now, fascinated. The pale face out of the dark
was all one glowing life. Peter wondered at him, his strength, his
beauty. Again he felt as he had that morning, as if he had never kno