And that painting stood before him now in flesh and blood, its crudeness gone, but the marvelous spirit it had breathed remaining.

Shrouded in her tumbled hair, her lips a little parted, every line of her slender body vibrant with an emotion which seemed consuming her, her beautiful eyes aglow with its fire, he saw in her, as Conne must have seen at another time, the soul of the great North itself.

She seemed to him to breathe of the God's country far down the Three Rivers; of its almost savage fearlessness; its beauty, its sunshine, and its storm; its tragedy, its pathos, and its song.

In her was the courage and the glory of that North.

He had seen; and now he felt these things, and the thrill of them swept over him like an inundation.
He had heard her soft laugh, she had made fun of him when he thought he was dying; she had kissed him, she had fought for him, she had clung in terror to his hand when the lightning flashed; and now she stood with her little hands clenched in her hair, like a storm about to break.