ll did not know, himself.

Where the road crosses, for the last time, the tumbling stream from the
heart of the hills, they halted; and for one night slept again at the foot
of the mountains. The next day they arrived at their little home in the
orange grove. To Aaron King, it seemed that they had been away for years.

When the traces of their days upon the road had been removed, and they
were garbed again in the conventional costume of the world; when their
outfit had been put away, and a home found for patient Croesus; the artist
went to his studio. The afternoon passed and Yee Kee called dinner; but
Aaron King did not come. Then Conrad Lagrange went to find him. Softly,
the older man pushed open the studio door to see the painter sitting
before the portrait of Mrs. Taine, with the package of his mother's
letters in his hand.

Without a sound, the novelist withdrew, leaving the door ajar. Going to
the corner of the house, he whistled low, and in answer, Czar come
bounding to him from the porch. "Go find Aaron, Czar," said the man,
pointing toward the studio. "Go find Aaron."

Obediently, with waving tail, the dog trotted off, and pushing open the
door entered the room; followed a few moments later by his master.

Conrad Lagrange smiled as he saw that the easel was without a canvas. The
portrait of Mrs. Taine was turned to the wall.

Chapter XXIV

James Rutlidge Makes a Mistake

When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had said, "good-by," to their friends,
at Sibyl Andres' home, that evening; and had returned to spend their last
night at the camp in the sycamores; the girl's mood was again the mood of
one oppressed by a haunting, foreboding fear.

Sibyl could not have expressed, or even to herself defined, her fear. She
only knew that in the presence of James Rutlidge she was frightened. She
had tried many times to overcome her strange antipathy; for Rutlidge,
until that day in the studio, had never been other than kind and courteous
in his persistent efforts to win her friendship. Perhaps it was the
impression left by the memory of Myra Willard's manner at the time of
their first meeting with him, three years before, in Brian Oakley's home;
perhaps it was because the woman with the disfigured face had so often
warned her against permitting her slight acquaintance with Rutlidge to
develop; perhaps it was something else--some instinct, possible, only, to
one of her pure, unspoiled nature--whatever it was,