ng the air with their fresh fragrance. But,
perhaps, she loved it best on A day like this, with the breakers on the
beach below, racing in like white horses, and with the winter gulls, dark
against the brightness of the morning.

"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