Denin's bedroom the smiling visitant was safe. No one but himself
ever went there. And with the heavy frame firmly clamped to the door
panels, the effect of the girl gazing out into the room was thrillingly
intensified for Denin. Thus hung, the portrait was opposite his camp
bed; and when he waked at sunrise, Barbara and he looked at each other.

The picture had been in its place for a day when her letter came, a
very thick letter; and with the envelope uncut he went up to sit before
her likeness and read what she had to say to John Sanbourne.

"You are a lifeline thrown to me!" he read. "I grasp it thankfully. I
wonder if you will think me a silly, sentimental creature, if I tell
you that even before I opened your letter a strong golden current
seemed to come out through the envelope into my fingers, and up my arm?
If you were just an ordinary friend, a man, living near me, I shouldn't
be able to say this to you, or tell you that I put your letter like a
talisman inside my dress, so as to keep it near me, and not lose the
sense of its influence after I had read it three times over. But to
_you_ at your distance I can tell many things that are sacred, because
I'm only a shadow to you, not a flesh-and-blood woman, with all my
faults and foolishnesses under your eyes to be judged. I'm a shadow to
you, and I don't mind being a shadow, because it gives me freedom and
liberty. Yet I mustn't abuse that liberty, and deceive you, my friend
so far off--and so near. I'm afraid that I have deceived you already,
and asked for your sympathy, your help, under false pretenses. Perhaps
if you'd known the real truth about me and my life, you would have
written me a terribly different letter. Whenever I am feeling the
comfort of it most, suddenly that thought pierces through me, very cold
and deadly, like a spear of ice. I _want_ the comfort--oh, how I want
it!--and so, to make sure whether I have the right to take it or not, I
am going to tell you everything. You will not be bored, or think me
egotistic. I know you well enough, through your book and your letters,
to be sure of that. When you have read this, you will be able to judge
whether I can dare to claim the consolation you offer me, and whether I
have a right to comfort myself with those thoughts, about the only man
I have loved or shall ever love. Because, I have given another man a
place in my outer life.

"What thought comes into your mind when you read those
words--cold-hea