Litchfield enquirer., 1879-05-29
''You read that ?" she asked him when she first saw it. .'-

'eYou read that ?" she asked him when she first saw it.
 sYes."
 She leaned forward, her look curious, bewil- dered, even awed. ......t. .. .s..
 "And you believe in-God ?"
 'Yes"
 She resumed her former position but she did not remove her eyes from his face and uncen- sciously she put her hand up to her swelling throat.
 When at length the sitting was over and she left her chair he was standing before the easel. He turned to her and spoke hesitantly.
 "Will you come and look at it ?" he asked. She went and stood where he bade her and looked. He watched her anxiously while she did so For the first moment there was amazement in her face, then some mysterious emotion he could not comprehend-a dull red crept slowly over brow and cheek. She turned upon him. Monsieur ]" she cried, ,passionately. 'You mock me l It is bad picture" He fell back pace, staring at her and sud- denly trembling with the shock.
 "A bad picture P he echoed. 'I mock you -I?"
 ''It IS my face," she said, pointing to it, ''but you have made it what am not It is the face of good woman of a woman who might be saint! Does not that mock me ?" He turned to it with troubled, dreamy look.
 1t is what I have Seen in your face," he said in soft, absent voice. ''It is truth to to me-
 ''It is what no other has seen," she said. ''I tell you it mocks me-" 1t need not mock you," he answered. ''I l.~x,> sk T I>ol eolA sA It is of yourself-yourself." Myself p she said ':Do you think, Mon- sieur, that the men who have painted me be. fore would know it ?" She gave it another glance and a shrill laugh burst from her, but the next instant it broke off and ended in another sound. She fell up on her knees by the empty chair, her open hands flung outward, her sobs almost strangling her.
 He stood quite near her, looking down. "I have not thought of anything but my york;" he said. "Why should IF" The following Sunday night the artist Mas: son met ill going downstairs closely led figure coming up He knew t and spoke.
 "What, Natalie ?" he said "You? One might fancy you had been to church"
 ''I have been," she returned in cold voice -''to the church of the Americans in the Rue de Berri''
 He shrugged his shoulders. ''Has it done you good?" he asked. ''No," she answered. and walked past him leaving him to look after her and think the matter over.
 She went to her own apartment and locked herself in. Having done so, she lighted every candle and lamp-fooding the place with a garish mockery of brightness. She sang as she did it-a gay, ,shrill air from some opera 6oufe. IF I.o .l~ n eyes and cheeks famed as if touched by some here and there dragging rich dress from a trunk, and jewels and faces from their places of safe keeping, and began to attire herself in them. The simple black robe she had worn to the chapel lay on the floor. As she moved to and fro she set her feet upon it again, and as she felt it beneath her tread harsh smile tonched he, lips.
 ''I shall not wear you again." she stepped her song once to say.
 In half an hour she had made her toilette She stood before her glass, a blaze of color and jewels For a moment she sang no more. From one of the rooms below there float ed up to her sounds of rotous merriment.
 ''This is myself" she said land this is no other"
 She opened her door and ran down the stair case swiftly and lightly. The founder of the feast whose sounds she had heard was a fool ish young fellow who adored her madly. He was rich, and wicked, and simple. Because he had heard of her return he had taken an apartment in the house. She heard his voice aoove the voices of the rest.
 In the moment she had flung open the dOor of the salon and stood upon the threshold.
 At sight of her there arose rapturous shout of delight.
 ;of
 But instantaneously it died away. One sec- ond she stood there, brilliant, smiling defiant The next, they saw that a mysterious change had seized upon her. She had become deathly white, and was waving them from her with a wild gesture.
 ''I am not coming!" she cried breathlessly "No! No! Nol"
 And the next instant they could only gaze at each others terror-stricken faces, at the place she had left vacant-for she was gone.
 She went up the stairs blndly and uncer- tainly. When sine reached the turn of the fourth floor where the staircase was bare and unighted, she staggered and sank against the balustrades, her face upturned.
 Fl cannot go back" she whispered to the darkness and silence above. ''Do you hear 1 cannot! And it is you-you who restrain me-.
 But there were no traces of her passion in her face when she went to the little studio the next day nsnal When the artist opened the door for her. it struck him that she Was calm even to coldness.
 Instead of sitting down, she went to the ea- sel and stood before it,
 Monsieur" she said, '1 have discovered where your mistake lies. You have tried to ed, though it exists no longer. That is your mistake. It has never existed at all. 1 re- member no youth, no childhood. Life began for me as it will end. It was my fate that it should. 1 was born in the lowest quarter of Paris. knew only poverty, brutality and crime. My beauty simply raised me beyond their power. Where should gain what you have insisted in bestowing upon me-"
 He simply stood still and looked at her.
 God knows!" he answered at length. 'T do not"
 "God.' she returned, with her bitter little laugh. ''Yes-God!"
 Then she went to her place, and said no more.
 But the next Sunday she was at the Amer ican chapel again, and the next, and the next. She could scarcely have told why herself. She did not believe the doctrines she heard preached, and she did not expect to be con- verted to belief in them. Often, as the ser vice proceeded, faint smile of derisioh curved her lips; but from her seat in the obscure cor ner she had chosen she could see thin, dark face and stopping figure, and could lean back against the wall with a sense of repose.
 ''It is quiet here" was her thought. ''One can be quiet and that is much"
 'What is the matter with her?" the men who knew her began to ask one another. But it was not easy for them to discover how the subtle change they saw had been wrought. They were used to her caprices and to occa- sional fits of sullenness, but they had never seen her in just such mood as she was now. She would bear no jests from them, she would not join in their gayeties. Sometimes for days together she shut herself up in her room and they did not see her at all.
 The picture progressed but slowly. Some times the artists hand so trembled with weak ness that he could not proceed with his work. More than once Natalie saw the brush sud denly fall from his nerveless fingers. He was very weak in these days and the spot of hec- tic red glowed brightly on his cheek.
 'I am poor fellow at best," he would say to her, 'and now am at my worst. 1 am afraid shall be obliged to rest sooner than