Looking away over the dark mass of the orange groves to the distant peaks, he lived over again, in his thoughts, those weeks of comradeship with Sibyl Andres in the hills.  Every incident of their friendship he recalled—­every hour they had spent together amid the scenes she loved—­reviewing every conversation—­questioning searching, wondering, hoping, fearing.

Later, he went out into the rose garden—­her garden—­where the air was fragrant with the perfume of the flowers she tended with such loving care.  In the soft, still darkness of the night, the place seemed haunted by her presence.  Quietly, he moved here and there among the roses—­to the little gate in the Ragged Robin hedge, through which she came and went; to the vine-covered arbor where she had watched him at his work; and to the spot where she had stood, day after day, with hands outstretched in greeting, while he worked to make the colors and lines upon his canvas tell the secret of her loveliness.  He remembered how he had felt her presence in those days when he had laughingly insisted to Conrad Lagrange that the place was haunted.  He remembered how, even when she was unknown to him, her music had always moved him—­how her message from the hills had seemed to call to the best that was in him.

So it was, that, as he recalled these things,—­as he lived again the days of his companionship with her and realized how she had come into his life, how she had appealed always to the best of him, and satisfied always his best needs,—­he came to know the answer to his questions—­to his doubts and fears and hopes.  There, in the rose garden, with its dark walls of hedge and vine and grove, in the still night under the stars, with his face to the distant mountains, he knew that the mountain girl would not deny him—­that, when she was ready, she would come to him.

In the hour when Mr. Taine, with the last strength of his evil life, profanely cursed the woman that his gold had bought to serve his licentious will—­and cursing—­died; Aaron King—­inspired by the character and purity of the woman he loved, and by whom he knew he was loved, and dreaming of their comradeship that was to be—­dedicated himself anew to the ministry of his art and so entered into that more abundant life which belongs by divine right to all who will claim it.

But it was not given Aaron King to know that before Sibyl Andres could come to him he must be tested by a trial that would tax his manhood’s best strength to the uttermost.  In that night of his awakened love, as he dreamed of the days of its realization, the man did not know that the days of his testing were so near at hand.

Chapter XXXI

As the World Sees

It was three days after the incidents just related when an automobile from Fairlands Heights stopped at the home of Aaron King and the novelist.

Mrs. Taine, dressed in black and heavily veiled, went, alone, to the house, where Yee Kee appeared in answer to her ring.