“Yet some subtle instinct, which I cannot pretend to divine or explain, constantly warned me to beware of this man.  But I was ashamed and angry at myself for linking even imaginary evil with so frank and generous a nature.  I defied destiny, turned a deaf ear to the whisperings of my good genius, and continued the one-sided friendship—­for I never even pretended to myself that I had any genuine liking for the man.

“One day, when we had become very familiar, he ran up to see me about something, I forget what, and not finding me in the outer apartments, penetrated to my private room.  There, upon that easel, Will Lennox first saw the woman you saw with him to-night—­the picture which you are now looking at—­and he fell as desperately in love with it, in his way, as I had done in the Guadalupe woods with the reality.  I cannot tell you how much it cost me to restrain my anger.  He, however, never noticed I was angry.  He had but one object now—­to gain from me the name and residence of the original.

“It was no use to tell him it was a fancy picture, that he was sighing for an imagination.  He never believed it for a moment.  I would not sell it, I would not copy it, I would not say where I had painted it; I kept it to my most sacred privacy.  He was sure that the girl existed, and that I knew where she lived.  He was very rich, without an occupation or an object, and Jessy’s pure, lovely face haunted him day and night, and supplied him with a purpose.

“He came to me one day and offering me a large sum of money, asked me finally to reveal at least the locality of which I had painted the picture.  His free, frank unembarrassed manner compels me to believe that he had no idea of the intolerable insult he was perpetrating.  He had always been accustomed to consider more or less money an equivalent for all things under the sun.  But you, Jack, will easily understand that the offer was followed by some very angry words, and that his threat to hunt the world over to find my beauty was not without fear to me.

“I heard soon after that Will Lennox had gone to the South.  I had neither hidden nor talked about my former life and I was ignorant of how much he knew or did not know of it.  He could trace me easily to New Orleans; how much further would depend upon his tact and perseverance.  Whether he reached Guadalupe or no, I am uncertain, but my heart fell with a strange presentment of sorrow when I saw his name, a few weeks afterward, among the European departures.

“The next thing I knew of Will Lennox was his marriage to some famous Scotch beauty.  Jack, do you not perceive the rest?  The Scotch beauty was Jessy Lorimer.  I feared it at the first.  I knew it this afternoon.”

“Will you call there?”

“I have no power to resist it.  Did you not notice how eagerly she pressed the invitation?”

“Do not accept it, Petralto.”

He shook his head, and remained silent.  The next afternoon I was astonished on going up to his rooms to find Will Lennox, sitting there.  He was talking in that loud, happy, demonstrative way so natural to men accustomed to have the whole world minister unto them.