It was a strange meeting; but we who profess to tell the truth must tell strange things, or we shall be liars.
In poor little Susan's letter there was some allusion to a bust of Innocence which the young artist had begun, but of which he had said nothing in his answer to her.

He had roughed out a block of marble for that impersonation; sculpture was a delight to him, though secondary to his main pursuit.

After his memorable adventure, the image of the girl he had rescued so haunted him that the pale ideal which was to work itself out in the bust faded away in its perpetual presence, and--alas, poor Susan! in obedience to the impulse that he could not control, he left Innocence sleeping in the marble, and began modelling a figure of proud and noble and imperious beauty, to which he gave the name of Liberty.
The original which had inspired his conception was before him.

These were the lips to which his own had clung when he brought her back from the land of shadows.

The hyacinthine curl of her lengthening locks had added something to her beauty; but it was the same face which had haunted him.