with strength of character sufficient to disagree
with him. There was a strand of hair out of
place on the dead woman's brow, and he
gently pushed it back. A bud lifted its head
too high from among the roses on her breast
and spoiled the contour of the chin, so he
broke it off. He remembered these things
later with keen distinctness, and that his hand
touched her chill face two or three times in
the making of his arrangements.

Then he took the impression, and left the
house.

He was busy at the time with some railroad
work, and several days passed before he found
opportunity to develop the plates. He took
them from the bath in which they had lain
with a number of others, and went energeti-
cally to work upon them, whistling some very
saucy songs he had learned of the guide in
the Red River country, and trying to forget
that the face which was presently to appear
was that of a dead woman. He had used
three plates as a precaution against accident,
and they came up well. But as they devel-
oped, he became aware of the existence of
something in the photograph which had not
been apparent to his eye in the subject. He
was irritated, and without attempting to face