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 *cially strong at best, and this, together with Marrion's sudden flight, preyed sharply on his mind, and he suffered a sort of nervous prostration.

"My picture! my masterpiece is unfinished! it can never be finished without him!" was the substance of his raving.

Never before had Cherokee seen such woe in his countenance. She knew the painting was almost completed, and that he could finish it from the picture he had of Marrion, taken purposely to aid him, even when the model was there; but to mention anything so as to manage a way out of the pit into which he imagined he had fallen merely infuriated him, and did no good.

"Marrion must come back to me; send for him; tell him I cannot win without him," he cried, scarcely above a whisper, he was so weak. Never before had the one desire of man's life been strained through his face and speech like this.

Cherokee was deeply moved, yet she could not understand how he could charge Marrion with double-dealing and treachery, with conduct so entirely at variance with the whole tenor of his gracious life. How could he think that Willard Frost, that crafty, remorseless villain, could pur