"There was no one else. At first I came only on Saturdays, just to see that things were all right. Then—" he lifted his head, and returned her look, "then the books pulled me back. I couldn't help it. And I got in the way of coming oftener."

"I see. Very often?"

"Every day, I guess. But they don't know it at home," he added hastily.

"I know that too," she said, and, in answer to his glance of interrogation: "I've just come from there. I heard Mrs. Tracy was ill, and I looked in to see if there was anything I could do." She went on, a gleam of irony beneath her lashes: "Laura Lou seemed to think you were in New York."

The blood rose to Vance's face and burned its way slowly to his temples. "I … she's been sick too… . I knew she'd just get fretting if she thought I came here often … like this… ."

Halo Tarrant stood before him pale and grave as a young judge; he felt that his fate trembled in the balance. "She'll despise me for it, too," he thought, with a pang which blotted out his other apprehensions. She made no answer, but presently she said: "I hadn't seen Laura Lou for a year. How very beautiful she's grown."

Vance, in his surprise, could produce only an inarticulate murmur. There was no answer in his vocabulary to such amenities, especially when they were unexpected; and he stood abashed and awkward. At length he faltered out: "I guess you think I oughtn't to be here at all."

"Well, I won't betray you," she rejoined, still gravely. For a moment or two neither spoke; then she moved toward the table, and resting her long hand on it (yes, he thought, it was certainly like the hands in the picture), she bent over his manuscript. "You do your work here?"

"Yes. Down home there's no place but the dining room. And they're always coming in and disturbing me."

Mrs. Tarrant tossed off her hat, and seated herself in the carven armchair. The severity of her gaze had softened. Vance leaned with folded arms in the window recess. From where he stood her head, with its closely folded hair and thin cheeks, was just below that of the portrait, and though the eyes were different he felt again the subtle resemblance between the two women. "You do look like her!" he exclaimed.

She glanced up, narrowing her short-sighted eyes. "Like poor Cousin Elinor? I suppose you and she are getting to be great friends, aren't you?"

"Yes." He laid his hand on the page at her elbow. "This is about her."

"About Elinor?"

He nodded excitedly. "I'm writing her life—trying to."

His visitor looked at him with astonishment. "Her life—Elinor Lorburn's?"