She walked over to the tree where paper and pencils lay, leaving them alone, and though she was a woman, and young—­though she knew that she was most foully betraying a girl whose youth and innocence might have pleaded for her, she had not even a passing thought of pity.  “Let Allan win the fortune if he can.  He will make better use of it than she could.”

“You are so good to me,” murmured the young artist, his dark eyes flashing keenly for one-half a minute over that beautiful face.  “I am at a loss for words.”

Allan Lyster was gifted with a most musical voice, and he understood perfectly well how to make the most use of it.  The pathos with which he said those words was wonderful to hear.

“I am glad to see you,” she said.  “Your sister tells me you think of going abroad.”

“Has she told you why?” he asked eagerly.

Marion’s face grew crimson.  The beautiful eyes dropped from his.  She drew back ever so little, but another keen, sharp glance told him she was not angry; only shy and timid.

“You are so good to me,” he continued, with passionate eagerness, “that I am not afraid to tell you.  I must go; life here is torture to me; it is torture to see you, to hear you speak, to worship you with a heart full of fire, and yet to know that the sun is not farther from me than you, to know that if I laid my life at your feet you would only laugh at me and think me mad.  It is torture so great that exile and death seem preferable.”

He saw her lips quiver, and her eyes, half raised, had in them no angry light.

“You are a great lady,” he said, “rich, noble, powerful.  I am a poor artist.  I have but one gift—­that is genius.  And I have dared, fired by such a beauty as woman never had before, to raise my eyes to you.  They are dazzled, blinded, and I must suffer for my rashness; and yet—­”

He paused, gave another keen glance, felt perfectly satisfied that what he was saying was well received, then went on: 

“Artists before now have loved great ladies, and by their genius have immortalized them.  But I am mad to say such things.  This is the age of money-worship, and art is no longer valued as in those times.”

“I do not value money,” she said, in a clear, sweet voice.  “I value many things a thousand times more highly.”

“You are an angel!” he cried.  “Even though my love tortures me, I would not change it for the highest pleasures other men enjoy.  The poets learn by suffering what they teach in song; so it will be with me.  Sorrow will make me a great artist; whereas, if I had been a happy man, I might never, perhaps, have risen much above the common level.  I am resigned to suffer all my life.”

“I do not like to hear you speak so,” she said.  “Life will not be all suffering.”

“I have raised my eyes, looked at the sun, and it has dazzled me,” he said.  “Ah, lady, I have had such dreams, of love that overleaped all barriers, as Art has rendered loveliness immortal for all time.  I have dreamed of loves such as Petrarch had for Laura, Dante for Beatrice, and I wake to call myself mad for indulging in such dreams.”