n't, then, let the life of the man you have loved be darkened by
feeling that he has darkened yours. Stand up, lift your head, and
you'll see how your sorrow will have to lie down at your feet as
shadows lie."

When Denin ended his letter, he found that in trying to help Barbara,
he had helped and heartened himself. He had unfolded a flag and waved
it to the sky.

He went out, though it was after midnight, and posted the letter.
Later, he was able to sleep as he had not slept since the night he
wrote the last words of his book. As usual he dreamed of Barbara, but
this time it was a new dream. He saw himself painting her portrait; and
when he waked in the sunrise he wondered why he had never tried to
paint such a likeness from memory. He could see her as clearly before
him as though she had come to the door, opened it, and looked at him.

The thought gave him something more to live for. He would do the
picture, and so bring Barbara herself to the Mirador where, guessing
nothing of the truth, she sent her thoughts to John Sanbourne.

CHAPTER X

It seemed to Denin that he knew the day and even the moment when his
letter reached Barbara.

He was working on her portrait, to which he gave every instant of his
spare time between dawn and dusk. A strange, elusive impression of a
girl it was; a girl in white looking through a half-open door. She
stood in shadow, but leaning forward a little so that her eyes and hair
and a long fold of her dress caught the light. Denin's portrait work
before had been done with charcoal or colored chalk. Such mediums were
too crude, however, for this labor of his love. He was trying pastels,
and had expected to make many false starts and failures. But he had
only to open the door to see the girl standing just outside, looking
straight at him with smoke-blue eyes under level brows and warm shadow
of copper-beech hair; so after all he could not go wrong with his work.
He had but to paint what he saw, and the picture took life quickly, as
his book had taken life, because it was easier to go on than to stop.
One evening, he was straining his eyes for the last ray of daylight,
when a blue flash seemed to leap from the eyes of the portrait. He
could hardly believe that it was only an illusion of an overworked
optic nerve. It was as if Barbara had somehow found out about the
portrait, and compelled it to speak for her, to tell him something she
wished to say.

"She has got the letter!" w