For by this time the
true character of her father and brother had been revealed and I
found myself bound to the daughter of a convicted criminal.
"But I could not forget her. The look with which she had left me was
branded into my consciousness. Night and day it floated before me,
till to escape it I resolved to fasten it upon canvas, if by that
means I might succeed in eliminating it from my dreams.
"The painting you have seen this night is the result. Born with an
artist's touch and insight that under other circumstances might,
perhaps, have raised me into the cold dry atmosphere of fame, the
execution of this piece of work, presented but few difficulties to my
somewhat accustomed hand. Day by day her beauty grew beneath my
brush, startling me often with its spiritual force and significance
till my mind grew feverish over its work, and I could scarcely
refrain from rising at night to give a touch here or there to the
floating golden hair or the piercing, tender eyes turned, ah, ever
turned upon the inmost citadel of my heart with that look that slew
my father before his time and made me, yes me, old in spirit even in
the ardent years of my first manhood.
"At last it was finished and she stood before me life-like and real in
the very garments and with almost the very aspect of that never to be
forgotten moment.
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