She couldn't bear the fact that, on
varnishing days, one could always get near enough to see his
pictures. Poor woman! She's just a fragment groping for other
fragments. Stroud is the only whole I ever knew."
"You ever knew? But you just said--"
Gisburn had a curious smile in his eyes.
"Oh, I knew him, and he knew me--only it happened after he was
dead."
I dropped my voice instinctively. "When she sent for you?"
"Yes--quite insensible to the irony. She wanted him vindicated--and
by me!"
He laughed again, and threw back his head to look up at the sketch
of the donkey. "There were days when I couldn't look at that
thing--couldn't face it. But I forced myself to put it here; and now
it's cured me--cured me. That's the reason why I don't dabble any
more, my dear Rickham; or rather Stroud himself is the reason."
For the first time my idle curiosity about my companion turned into
a serious desire to understand him better.
"I wish you'd tell me how it happened," I said.
He stood looking up at the sketch, and twirling between his fingers
a cigarette he had forgotten to light.
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