“Why aren’t you painting?” she asked Archibald.

“Because,” he said, “I am not going to paint the moor any more.  It gets away from me—­it is too vast——­ It has a primal human quality, and yet it is not alive.”

“It sometimes seems alive to me,” she said, “when I look off over it—­it seems to rise and fall as if it—­breathed.”

“That’s the uncanny part of it,” Archibald agreed, “and I am going to give it up.  I am not going to paint it——­ I want to paint you, Becky.”

“Me?  Why do you want to do that?”

He flashed a glance at her.  “Because you are nice to look at.”

“That isn’t the reason.”

“Why should you question my motives?” he demanded.  “But since you must have the truth—­it is because of a fancy of mine that I might do it well——­”

“I should like it very much,” she said, simply.

“Would you?” eagerly.

“Yes.”

She had on her red cape, and a black velvet tam pulled over her shining hair.

“I shall not paint you like this,” he said, “although the color is—­superlative——­ Ever since you read to me that story of Randy Paine’s, I have had a feeling that the real story ought to have a happy ending, and that I should like to make the illustration.”

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“Why shouldn’t the girl care for the boy after he came back?  Why shouldn’t she, Becky Bannister?”

Her startled gaze met his.  “Let’s sit down here,” he said, “and have it out.”

There was a bench on the edge of the bluff, set so that one might have a wider view of the sea.

“There ought to be a happy ending, Becky.”

“How could there be?”

“Why not you—­and Randy Paine?  I haven’t met him, but somehow that story tells me that he is the right sort.  And think of it, Becky, you and that boy—­in that big house down there, going to church, smiling across the table at each other,” his breath came quickly, “your love for him, his for you, making a background for his—­genius.”

She tried to stop him.  “Why should you say such things?”

“Because I have thought them.  Last night in the storm—­I couldn’t sleep.  I—­I wanted to be a dog in the manger.  I couldn’t have you, and I’d be darned if I’d help anyone else to get you.  You—­you see, I’m a sort of broken reed, Becky.  It—­it isn’t a sure thing that I am going to get well.  And if what I feel for you is worth anything, it ought to mean that I must put your happiness—­first.  And that’s why I want to make the picture for the—­happy ending.”

Her hand went out to him.  “It is a beautiful thing for you to do.  But I am not sure that there will be a—­happy ending.”

“Why not?”

She could not tell him.  She could not tell—­that between her and her thought of Randy was the barrier of all that George Dalton had meant to her.

“If you paint the picture,” she evaded, “you must finish it at Huntersfield.  Why can’t you and Louise come down this winter?  It would be heavenly.”