ned man
had lived through what he had 'n' then wouldn't die, it was time to
kill him.' Seems like it sorter 'counts fur Dusk; she don't git her
cur'usness from her own folks; Nath an' Mandy's mighty clever, both on
'em."

"Perhaps it does 'count for Dusk," Rebecca said, after telling the tale
to Lennox. "It must be a fearful thing to have such blood in one's
veins and feel it on fire. Let us," she continued with a smile, "be as
charitable as possible."

When the picture was fairly under way, Lennox's visits to the Harneys'
cabin were somewhat less frequent. The mood in which she found he had
gradually begun to regard his work aroused in Rebecca a faint wonder. He
seemed hardly to like it, and yet to be fascinated by it. He was averse
to speaking freely of it, and still he thought of it continually.
Frequently when they were together, he wore an absent, perturbed air.

"You do not look content," she said to him once.

He passed his hand quickly across his forehead and smiled, plainly with
an effort, but he made no reply.

The picture progressed rather slowly upon the whole. Rebecca had thought
the subject a little fantastic at first, and yet had been attracted by
it. A girl in a peculiar dress of black and white bent over a spring
with an impatient air, trying in vain to catch a glimpse of her beauty
in the reflection of the moonlight.

"It 's our spring, shore," commented "Mis'" Dunbar. "'N' its Dusk--but
Lord! how fine she's fixed. Ye're as fine as ye want to be in the
picter, Dusk, if ye wa'n't never fine afore. Don't ye wish ye had sich
dressin' as thet thar now?"

The sittings were at the outset peculiarly silent. There was no untimely
motion or change of expression, and yet no trying passiveness. The girl
gave any position a look of unconsciousness quite wonderful. Privately,
Lennox was convinced that she was an actress from habit--that her
ease was the result of life-long practice. Sometimes he found his own
consciousness of her steady gaze almost unbearable. He always turned
to meet her deep eyes fixed upon him with an expression he could not
fathom. Frequently he thought it an expression of dislike--of secret
resentment--of subtle defiance. There came at last a time when he
knew that he turned toward her again and again because he felt that he
must--because he had a feverish wish to see if the look had changed.

Once when he did this he saw that it _had_ changed. She had moved a
little, her eyes were d