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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12672 ***
+
+A SPINNER IN THE SUN
+
+BY
+
+MYRTLE REED
+
+1906
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+     I.  "THE FIRE WAS KIND"
+    II.  MISS MEHITABLE
+   III.  THE PEARLS
+    IV.  "FROM THE DEPTHS OF HIS LOVE"
+     V.  ARAMINTA
+    VI.  PIPES O' PAN
+   VII.  THE HONOUR OF THE SPOKEN WORD
+  VIII.  PIPER TOM
+    IX.  HOUSECLEANING
+     X.  RALPH'S FIRST CASE
+    XI.  THE LOOSE LINK
+   XII.  A GREY KITTEN
+  XIII.  THE RIVER COMES INTO ITS OWN
+   XIV.  A LITTLE HOUR OF TRIUMPH
+    XV.  THE STATE OF ARAMINTA'S SOUL
+   XVI.  THE MARCH OF THE DAYS
+  XVII.  LOVED BY A DOG
+ XVIII.  UNDINE
+   XIX.  IN THE SHADOW OF THE CYPRESS
+    XX.  THE SECRET OF THE VEIL
+   XXI.  THE POPPIES CLAIM THEIR OWN
+  XXII.  FORGIVENESS
+ XXIII.  UNDINE FINDS HER SOUL
+  XXIV.  TELLING AUNT HITTY
+   XXV.  REDEEMED
+  XXVI.  THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL
+
+
+
+
+A Spinner in the Sun
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+"The Fire was Kind"
+
+The little house was waiting, as it had waited for many years.  Grey
+and weather-worn, it leaned toward the sheltering hillside as though to
+gather from the kindly earth some support and comfort for old age.
+Five-and-twenty Winters had broken its spirit, five-and-twenty Springs
+had not brought back the heart of it, that had once gone out, with
+dancing feet and singing, and had returned no more.
+
+For a quarter of a century, the garden had lain desolate.  Summers came
+and went, but only a few straggling blooms made their way above the
+mass of weeds.  In early Autumn, thistles and milkweed took possession
+of the place, the mournful purple of their flowering hiding the garden
+beneath trappings of woe.  And at night, when the Autumn moon shone
+dimly, frail ghosts of dead flowers were set free from the thistles and
+milkweed.   The wind of Indian Summer, itself a ghost, convoyed them
+about the garden, but they never went beyond it.  Each year the panoply
+of purple spread farther, more surely hiding the brave blooms beneath.
+
+Far down the path, beside the broken gate, a majestic cypress cast
+portentous gloom.  Across from it, and quite hiding the ruin of the
+gate, was a rose-bush, which, every June, put forth one perfect white
+rose.  Love had come through the gate and Love had gone out again, but
+this one flower was left behind.
+
+Brambles grew about the doorstep, and the hinges of the door were deep
+in rust.  No friendly light gleamed at night from the lattice, a beacon
+to the wayfarer or a message of cheer to the disheartened, since the
+little house was alone.  The secret spinners had hung a drapery of
+cobwebs before the desolate windows, as though to veil the loneliness
+from passers-by.  No fire warmed the solitary hearth, no gay and
+careless laughter betrayed the sleeping echoes into answer.  Within the
+house were only dreams, which never had come true.
+
+A bit of sewing yet lay upon the marble-topped table in the
+sitting-room, and an embroidery frame, holding still a square of fine
+linen, had fallen from a chair.  An open book was propped against the
+back of the chair, and a low rocker, facing it, was swerved sharply
+aside.  The evidence of daily occupation, suddenly interrupted, was all
+there--a quiet content, overlaid by a dumb, creeping paralysis.
+
+The March wind blew fiercely through the night and the little house
+leaned yet more toward the sheltering hill.  Afar, in the village, a
+train rumbled into the station; the midnight train from the city by
+which the people of Rushton regulated their watches and clocks.
+Strangely enough, it stopped, and more than one good man, turning
+uneasily upon his pillow, wondered if the world might have come to its
+end.
+
+Half an hour afterward, a lone figure ascended the steep road which led
+to the house.  A woman, fearless of the night, because Life had already
+done its worst to her, stumbled up the stony, overgrown way.  The moon
+shone fitfully among the flying clouds, and she guided herself by its
+uncertain gleams, pausing now and then, in complete darkness, to wait
+for more light.
+
+Ghost-like, a long white chiffon veil trailed behind her, too securely
+fastened to her hat to be blown away.  Even in the night, she watched
+furtively and listened for approaching footsteps, one hand holding the
+end of her veil in such a way that she might quickly hide her face.
+
+Outside the gate she paused, irresolute.  At the last moment, it seemed
+as if she could never enter the house again.  A light snow had fallen
+upon the dead garden, covering its scarred face with white.  Miss
+Evelina noted quickly that her garden, too, was hidden as by chiffon.
+
+A gust of wind made her shiver--or was it the veiled garden?  Nerving
+herself to her necessity, she took up her satchel and went up the path
+as one might walk, with bared feet, up a ladder of swords.  Each step
+that took her nearer the house hurt her the more, but she was not of
+those who cry out when hurt.  She set her lips more firmly together and
+continued upon her self-appointed way.
+
+When she reached the house, she already had the key in her uncertain
+fingers.  The rusty lock yielded at length and the door opened noisily.
+Her heart surged painfully as she entered the musty darkness.  It was
+so that Miss Evelina came home, after five-and-twenty years.
+
+The thousand noises of an empty house greeted her discordantly.  A
+rattling window was answered by a creaking stair, a rafter groaned
+dismally, and the scurrying feet of mice pattered across a distant
+floor.
+
+Fumbling in her satchel, Miss Evelina drew out a candle and a box of
+matches.  Presently there was light in the little house--a faint
+glimmering light, which flickered, when the wind shook the walls, and
+twinkled again bravely when it ceased.
+
+She took off her wraps, and, through force of habit, pinned the
+multitudinous folds of her veil to her hair, forgetting that at
+midnight, and in her own house, there were none to see her face.
+
+Then she made a fire, for the body must be warmed, though the heart is
+dead, and the soul stricken dumb.  She had brought with her a box
+containing a small canister of tea, and she soon had ready a cup of it,
+so strong that it was bitter.
+
+With her feet upon the hearth and the single candle flickering upon the
+mantel shelf, she sat in the lonely house and sipped her tea.  Her
+well-worn black gown clung closely to her figure, and the white chiffon
+veil, thrown back, did not wholly hide her abundant hair.  The horror
+of one night had whitened Miss Evelina's brown hair at twenty, for the
+sorrows of Youth are unmercifully keen.
+
+"I have come back," she thought.  "I have come back through that door.
+I went out of it, laughing, at twenty.  At forty-five, I have come
+back, heart-broken, and I have lived.
+
+"Why did I not die?" she questioned, for the thousandth time.  "If
+there had been a God in Heaven, surely I must have died."
+
+The flames leaped merrily in the fireplace and the discordant noises of
+the house resolved themselves into vague harmony.  A cricket, safely
+ensconced for the Winter in a crevice of the hearth, awoke in the
+unaccustomed warmth, piping a shrill and cheery welcome, but Miss
+Evelina sat abstractedly, staring into the fire.
+
+After all, there had never been anything but happiness in the
+house--the misery had been outside.  Peace and quiet content had dwelt
+there securely, but the memory of it brought no balm now.
+
+As though it were yesterday, the black walnut chair, covered with
+haircloth, stood primly against the wall.  Miss Evelina had always
+hated the chair, and here, after twenty-five years, it confronted her
+again.  She mused, ironically, upon the permanence of things usually
+considered transient and temporary.  Her mother's sewing was still upon
+the marble-topped table, but the hands that held it were long since
+mingled with the dust.  Her own embroidery had apparently but just
+fallen from the chair, and the dream that had led to its
+fashioning--was only a dream, from which she awoke to enduring agony.
+With swift hatred, she turned her back upon the embroidery frame, and
+hid her face in her hands.
+
+Time, as time, had ceased to exist for her.  She suffered until
+suffering brought its own far anodyne--the inability to sustain it
+further,--then she slept, from sheer weariness.  Before dawn, usually,
+she awoke, sufficiently rested to suffer again.  When she felt faint,
+she ate, scarcely knowing what she ate, for food was as dust and ashes
+in her mouth.
+
+In the bag that hung from her belt was a vial of laudanum, renewed from
+time to time as she feared its strength was waning.  She had been
+taught that it was wicked to take one's own life, and that God was
+always kind.  Not having experienced the kindness, she began to doubt
+the existence of God, and was immediately face to face with the idea
+that it could not be wrong to die if one was too miserable to live.
+Her mind revolved perpetually in this circle and came continually back
+to a compromise.  She would live one more day, and then she would free
+herself.  There was always a to-morrow when she should be free, but it
+never came.
+
+The fire died down and the candle had but a few minutes more to burn.
+It was the hour of the night when life is at its lowest--when souls
+pass out into the great Beyond.  Miss Evelina took the vial from her
+reticule and uncorked it.  The bitter, pungent odour came as sweet
+incense to her nostrils.  No one knew she had come.  No one would ever
+enter her door again.  She might die peacefully in her own house, and
+no one would know until the walls crumbled to dust--perhaps not even
+then.  And Miss Evelina had a horror of a grave.
+
+She drew a long breath of the bitterness.  The silken leaves of the
+poppies--flowers of sleep--had been crushed into this.  The lees must
+be drained from the Cup of Life before the Cup could be set aside.
+Every one came to this, sooner or later.  Why not choose?  Why not
+drain the Cup now? When it had all been bitter, why hesitate to drink
+the lees?
+
+The monstrous and incredible passion of the race was slowly creeping
+upon her.  Her eyes gleamed and her cheeks burned.  The hunger for
+death at her own hands and on her own terms possessed her frail body to
+the full.  "If there had been a God in Heaven," she said, aloud,
+"surely I must have died!"
+
+The words startled her and her hand shook so that some of the laudanum
+was spilled.  It was long since she had heard her own voice in more
+than a monosyllabic answer to some necessary question.  Inscrutably
+veiled in many folds of chiffon, she held herself apart from the world,
+and the world, carelessly kind, had left her wholly to herself.
+
+Slowly, she put the cork tightly into the vial and slipped it back into
+her bag.  "Tomorrow," she sighed; "to-morrow I shall set myself free."
+
+The fire flickered and without warning the candle went out, in a gust
+of wind which shook the house to its foundations.  Stray currents of
+air had come through the crevices of the rattling windows and kept up
+an imperfect ventilation.  She took another candle from her satchel,
+put it into a candlestick of blackened brass, and slowly ascended the
+stairs.
+
+She went to her own room, though her feet failed her at the threshold
+and she sank helplessly to the floor.  Too weak to stand, she made her
+way on her knees to her bed, leaving the candle in the hall, just
+outside her door.  As she had suspected, it was hardest of all to enter
+this room.
+
+A pink and white gown of dimity, yellowed, and grimed with dust, yet
+lay upon her bed.  Cobwebs were woven over the lace that trimmed the
+neck and sleeves.  Out of the fearful shadows, mute reminders of a lost
+joy mocked her from every corner of the room.
+
+She knelt there until some measure of strength came back to her, and,
+with it, a mad fancy.  "To-night," she said to herself, "I will be
+brave.  For once I will play a part, since to-morrow I shall be free.
+To-night, it shall be as though nothing had happened--as though I were
+to be married to-morrow and not to--to Death!"
+
+She laughed wildly, and, even to her own ears, it had a fantastic,
+unearthly sound.  The empty rooms took up the echo and made merry with
+it, the sound dying at last into a silence like that of the tomb.
+
+She brought in the candle, took the dimity gown from the bed, and shook
+it to remove the dust.  In her hands it fell apart, broken, because it
+was too frail to tear.  She laid it on a chair, folding it carefully,
+then took the dusty bedding from her bed and carried it into the hall,
+dust and all.  In an oaken chest in a corner of her room was her store
+of linen, hemmed exquisitely and embroidered with the initials: "E. G."
+
+She began to move about feverishly, fearing that her resolution might
+fail.  The key of the chest was in a drawer in her dresser, hidden
+beneath a pile of yellowed garments.  Her hands, so long nerveless,
+were alive and sentient now.  When she opened the chest, the scent of
+lavender and rosemary, long since dead, struck her like a blow.
+
+The room swam before her, yet Miss Evelina dragged forth her linen
+sheets and pillow-slips, musty, but clean, and made her bed.  Once or
+twice, her veil slipped down over her face, and she impatiently pushed
+it back.  The candle, burning low, warned her that she must make haste,
+
+In one of the smaller drawers of her dresser was a nightgown of
+sheerest linen, wonderfully stitched by her own hands.  She hesitated a
+moment, then opened the drawer.
+
+Tiny bags of sweet herbs fell from the folds as she shook it out.  It
+was yellowed and musty and as frail as a bit of fine lace, but it did
+not tear in her hands.  "I will wear it," she thought, grimly, "as I
+planned to do, long ago."
+
+At last she stood before her mirror, the ivory-tinted lace falling away
+from her neck and shoulders.  Her neck was white and firm, but her
+right shoulder was deeply, hideously scarred.  "Burned body and burned
+soul," she muttered, "and this my wedding night!"
+
+For the first time in her life, she pitied herself, not knowing that
+self-pity is the first step toward relief from overpowering sorrow.
+When detachment is possible, the long, slow healing has faintly, but
+surely, begun.
+
+She unpinned her veil, took down her heavy white hair, and braided it.
+There was no gleam of silver, even in the light--it was as lustreless
+as a field of snow upon a dark day.  That done, she stood there,
+staring at herself in the mirror, and living over, remorselessly, the
+one day that, like a lightning stroke, had blasted her life.
+
+Her veil slipped, unheeded, from her dresser to the floor.  Leaning
+forward, she studied her face, that she had once loved, then swiftly
+learned to hate.  Even on the street, closely veiled, she would not
+look at a shop window, lest she might see herself reflected in the
+plate glass, and she had kept the mirror, in her room covered with a
+cloth,
+
+Since the day she left the hospital, where they all had been so kind to
+her, no human being, save herself, had seen her face.  She had prayed
+for death, but had not been more than slightly ill, upborne, as she
+was, by a great grief which sustained her as surely as an ascetic is
+kept alive by the passion of his faith.  She hungered now for the sight
+of her face as she hungered for death, and held the flaring candle
+aloft that she might see better.
+
+Then a wave of impassioned self-pity swept her like flame.  "The fire
+was kind," she said, stubbornly, as though to defend herself from it.
+"It showed me the truth."
+
+She leaned yet closer to the glass, holding the dripping candle on
+high.  "The fire was kind," she insisted again.  Then the floodgates
+opened, and for the first time in all the sorrowful years, she felt the
+hot tears streaming over her face.  Her hand shook, but she held her
+candle tightly and leaned so close to the mirror that her white hair
+brushed its cracked surface.
+
+"The fire was kind," sobbed Miss Evelina.  "Oh, but the fire was kind!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Miss Mehitable
+
+The slanting sunbeams of late afternoon crept through the cobwebbed
+window, and Miss Evelina stirred uneasily in her sleep.  The mocking
+dream vanished and she awoke to feel, as always, the iron, icy hand
+that unmercifully clutched her heart.  The room was cold and she
+shivered as she lay beneath her insufficient covering.
+
+At length she rose, and dressed mechanically, avoiding the mirror, and
+pinning her veil securely to her hair.  She went downstairs slowly,
+clinging to the railing from sheer weakness.  She was as frail and
+ghostly as some disembodied spirit of Grief.
+
+Soon, she had a fire.  As the warmth increased, she opened the rear
+door of the house to dispel the musty atmosphere.  The March wind blew
+strong and clear through the lonely rooms, stirring the dust before it
+and swaying the cobwebs.  Suddenly, Miss Evelina heard a footstep
+outside and instinctively drew down her veil.
+
+Before she could close the door, a woman, with a shawl over her head,
+appeared on the threshold, peered curiously into the house, then
+unhesitatingly entered.
+
+"For the land's sake!" cried a cheery voice.  "You scared me most to
+death!  I saw the smoke coming from the chimney and thought the house
+was afire, so I come over to see."
+
+Miss Evelina stiffened, and made no reply.
+
+"I don't know who you are," said the woman again, mildly defiant, "but
+this is Evelina Grey's house."
+
+"And I," answered Miss Evelina, almost inaudibly, "am Evelina Grey."
+
+"For the land's sake!" cried the visitor again.  "Don't you remember
+me?  Why, Evelina, you and I used to go to school together.  You----"
+
+She stopped, abruptly.  The fact of the veiled face confronted her
+stubbornly.  She ransacked her memory for a forgotten catastrophe, a
+quarter of a century back.  Impenetrably, a wall was reared between
+them.
+
+"I--I'm afraid I don't remember," stammered Miss Evelina, in a low
+voice, hoping that the intruder would go.
+
+"I used to be Mehitable Smith, and that's what I am still, having been
+spared marriage.  Mehitable is my name, but folks calls me Hitty--Miss
+Hitty," she added, with a slight accent on the "Miss."
+
+"Oh," answered Miss Evelina, "I remember," though she did not remember
+at all.
+
+"Well, I'm glad you've come back," went on the guest, politely.
+Altogether in the manner of one invited to do so, she removed her shawl
+and sat down, furtively eyeing Miss Evelina, yet affecting to look
+carelessly about the house.
+
+She was a woman of fifty or more, brisk and active of body and kindly,
+though inquisitive, of countenance.  Her dark hair, scarcely touched
+with grey, was parted smoothly in the exact centre and plastered down
+on both sides, as one guessed, by a brush and cold water.  Her black
+eyes were bright and keen, and her gold-bowed spectacles were
+habitually worn half-way down her nose.  Her mouth and chin were
+indicative of great firmness--those whose misfortune it was to differ
+from Miss Hitty were accustomed to call it obstinacy.  People of
+plainer speech said it was "mulishness."
+
+Her gown was dark calico, stiffly starched, and made according to the
+durable and comfortable pattern of her school-days.  "All in one
+piece," Miss Hitty was wont to say.  "Then when I bend over, as folks
+that does housework has to bend over, occasionally, I don't come apart
+in the back.  For my part, I never could see sense in wearing clothes
+that's held by a safety-pin in the back instead of good, firm cloth,
+and, moreover, a belt that either slides around or pinches where it
+ain't pleasant to be pinched, ain't my notion of comfort.  Apron
+strings is bad enough, for you have to have 'em tight to keep from
+slipping."  Miss Hitty had never worn corsets, and had the straight,
+slender figure of a boy.
+
+The situation became awkward.  Miss Evelina still stood in the middle
+of the room, her veiled face slightly averted.  The impenetrable
+shelter of chiffon awed Miss Mehitable, but she was not a woman to give
+up easily when embarked upon the quest for knowledge.  Some unusual
+state of mind kept her from asking a direct question about the veil,
+and meanwhile she continually racked her memory.
+
+Miss Evelina's white, slender hands opened and closed nervously.  Miss
+Hitty set her feet squarely on the floor, and tucked her immaculate
+white apron closely about her knees.  "When did you come?" she demanded
+finally, with the air of the attorney for the prosecution.
+
+"Last night," murmured Miss Evelina.
+
+"On that late train?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I heard it stop, but I never sensed it was you.  Seemed to me I heard
+somebody go by, too, but I was too sleepy to get up and see.  I thought
+I must be dreaming, but I was sure I heard somebody on the walk.  If
+I'd known it was you, I'd have made you stop at my house for the rest
+of the night, instead of coming up here alone."
+
+"Very kind," said Miss Evelina, after an uncomfortable pause.
+
+"You might as well set down," remarked Miss Hitty, with a new
+gentleness of manner.  "I'm going to set a spell."
+
+Miss Evelina sat, helplessly, in the hair-cloth chair which she hated,
+and turned her veiled face yet farther away from her guest.  Seeing
+that her hostess did not intend to talk, Miss Hitty began a
+conversation, if anything wholly one-sided may be so termed.
+
+"I live in the same place," she said.  "Ma died seventeen years ago on
+the eighteenth of next April, and left the house and the income for me.
+There was enough to take care of two, and so I took my sister's child,
+Araminta, to bring up.  You know my poor sister got married.  She ought
+to have known better, but she didn't.  She just put her head into the
+noose, and it slipped up on her, as I told her it would, both before
+and after the ceremony.  Having seen all the trouble men make in the
+world, I sh'd think women would know enough to keep away from 'em, but
+they don't--that is, some women don't." Miss Hitty smoothed her stiff
+white apron with an air of conscious virtue.
+
+"Araminta was only a year old when her ma got enough of marrying and
+went to her reward in Heaven.  What she 'd been through would have
+tried the patience of a saint, and Barbara wasn't no saint.  None of
+the Smith family have ever grown wings here on earth, but it's my
+belief that we'll all be awarded our proper plumage in Heaven.
+
+"He--" the pronoun was sufficiently definite to indicate Araminta's
+hapless father--"was always tracking dirt into the clean kitchen, and
+he had an appetite like a horse.  Barbara would make a cake to set away
+for company, and he'd gobble it all up at one meal just as if 't was a
+doughnut.  She was forever cooking and washing dishes and sweeping up
+after him.  When he come into the house, she'd run for the broom and
+dustpan, and follow him around, sweeping up, and if you'll believe me,
+the brute scolded her for it.  He actually said once, in my presence,
+that if he'd known how neat she was, he didn't believe he'd have
+married her.  That shows what men are--if it needs showing.  It's no
+wonder poor Barbara died.  I hope there ain't any brooms in Heaven and
+that she's havin' a good rest now.
+
+"Araminta's goin' on nineteen, and she's a sensible girl, if I do say
+it as shouldn't.  She's never spoke to a man except to say 'yes' and
+'no.'  I've taught her to steer clear of 'em, and even when she was
+only seven years old, she'd run if she saw one coming.  She knows they
+'re pizen and I don't believe I'll ever have any cause to worry about
+Minty.
+
+"I've got the minister boarding with me," pursued Miss Hitty,
+undaunted, and cheerfully taking a fresh start.  "Ministers don't
+count, and I must say that, for a man, Mr. Thorpe is very little
+trouble.  He wipes his feet sometimes for as much as five minutes when
+he's coming in, and mostly, when it's pleasant weather, he's out.  When
+he's in, he usually stays in his room, except at meals.  He don't eat
+much more 'n a canary, and likes what he eats, and don't need hardly
+any pickin' up after, though a week ago last Saturday he left a collar
+layin' on the bureau instead of putting it into his bag.
+
+"I left it right where 't was, and Sunday morning he put it where it
+belonged.  He's never been married and he's learned to pick up after
+himself.  I wouldn't have had him, on Araminta's account, only that
+there wasn't no other place for him to stay, and it was put to me by
+the elders as being my Christian duty.  I wouldn't have took him,
+otherwise, and we've never had an unmarried minister before.
+
+"Besides, Mr. Thorpe ain't pleasing the congregation, and I don't know
+that he'll stay long.  He's been here six months and three Sundays
+over, and I've been to every single service, church and Sunday-school
+and prayer-meeting, and he ain't never said one word about hell.  It's
+all of the joys of Heaven and a sure reward in the hereafter for
+everybody that's done what they think is right--nothing much, mind you,
+about what is right.  Why, when Mr. Brewster was preaching for us, some
+of the sinners would get up and run right out of the church when he got
+started on hell and the lost souls writhin' in the flames.  That was a
+minister worth having.
+
+"But Mr. Thorpe, now, he doesn't seem to have no sense of the duties of
+his position.  Week before last, I heard of his walkin' along the river
+with Andy Rogers--arm in arm, if you'll believe me, with the worst
+drunkard and chicken thief in town.  The very idea of a minister
+associatin' with sinners!  Mr. Brewster would never have done that.
+Why, Andy was one of them that run out of the church the day the
+minister give us that movin' sermon on hell, and he ain't never dared
+to show his face in a place of worship since.
+
+"As I said, I don't think Mr. Thorpe 'll be with us long, for the
+vestry and the congregation is getting dissatisfied.  There ain't been
+any open talk, except in the Ladies' Aid Society, but public opinion is
+settin' pretty strongly in that direction."  Miss Hitty dropped her
+final g's when she got thoroughly interested in her subject and at
+times became deeply involved in grammatical complications.
+
+"Us older ones, that's strong in the faith, ain't likely to be injured
+by it, I suppose, but there's always the young ones to be considered,
+and it's highly important for Araminta to have the right kind of
+influence.  Of course Mr. Thorpe don't talk on religious subjects at
+home, and I ain't let Araminta go to church the last two Sundays.
+Meanwhile, I've talked hell to her stronger 'n common.
+
+"But, upon my soul, I don't know what Rushton is comin' to.  A month or
+so ago, there was an outlandish, heathen character come here that beats
+anything I've ever heard tell of.  His name is Tom Barnaby and he's set
+up a store on the edge of town, in the front parlour of Widow Simon's
+house.  She's went and rented it to him, and she says he pays his rent
+regular.
+
+"He wears leather leggings and a hat with a red feather stuck in it,
+and he's gone into competition with Mrs. Allen, who's kept the
+dry-goods here for the last twenty years.
+
+"Of course," she went on, a little wistfully, "I've always patronised
+Mrs. Allen, and I always shall.  They do say Barnaby's goods is a great
+deal cheaper, but I'd feel it my duty to buy of a woman, anyhow, even
+though she has been married.  She's been a widow for so long, it's most
+the same as if she'd never been married at ail.
+
+"Barnaby lives with a dog and does for himself, but he's hardly ever in
+his store.  People go there to buy things and find the door propped
+open with a brick, and a sign says to come in and take what you want.
+The price of everything is marked good and plain, and another sign says
+to put the money in the drawer and make your own change.  The
+blacksmith was at him for doing business so shiftless, and Barnaby
+laughed and said that if anybody wanted anything he had bad enough to
+steal it, whoever it was, he was good and welcome to it.  That just
+shows how crazy he is.  Most of the time he's roaming around the
+country, with his yellow dog at his heels, making outlandish noises on
+some kind of a flute.  He can't play a tune, but he keeps trying.
+Folks around here call him Piper Tom.
+
+"Of course I wouldn't want Mrs. Allen to know, but I've thought that
+sometime when he was away and there was nobody there to see, I'd just
+step in for a few minutes and take a look at his goods.  Elmiry Jones
+says his calico is beautiful, and that for her part, she's going to
+trade there instead of at Allen's.  I suppose it is a temptation.   I
+might do it myself, if 't want for my principles."
+
+The speaker paused for breath, but Miss Evelina still sat silently in
+her chair.  "What was it?" thought Miss Hitty.  "I was here, and I knew
+at the time, but what happened?  How did I come to forget?  I must be
+getting old!"
+
+She searched her memory without result.  Her house was situated at the
+crossroads, and, being on higher ground, commanded a good view of the
+village below.  Gradually, her dooryard had become a sort of clearing
+house for neighbourhood gossip.  Travellers going and coming stopped at
+Miss Hitty's to drink from the moss-grown well, give their bit of news,
+and receive, in return, the scandal of the countryside.  Had it not
+been for the faithful and industrious Miss Mehitable, the town might
+have needed a daily paper.
+
+"Strange I can't think," she said to herself.  "I don't doubt it'll
+come to me, though.  Something happened to Evelina, and she went away,
+and her mother went with her to take care of her, and then her mother
+died, all at once, of heart failure.  It happened the same week old
+Mis' Hicks had a doctor from the city for an operation, and the
+Millerses barn was struck by lightning and burnt up, and so I s'pose
+it's no wonder I've sorter lost track of it."
+
+Miss Evelina's veiled face was wholly averted now, and Miss Hitty
+studied her shrewdly.  She noted that the black gown was well-worn, and
+had, indeed, been patched in several places.  The shoes which tapped
+impatiently on the floor were undeniably shabby, though they had been
+carefully blacked.  Against the unrelieved sombreness of her gown.
+Miss Evelina's hands were singularly frail and transparent.  Every line
+of her body was eloquent of weakness and well-nigh insupportable grief.
+
+"Well," said Miss Hitty, again, though she felt that the words were
+flat; "I'm glad you've come back.  It seems like old times for us to be
+settin' here, talkin', and--" here she laughed shrilly--"we've both
+been spared marriage."
+
+A small, slender hand clutched convulsively at the arm of the haircloth
+chair, but Miss Evelina did not speak.
+
+"I see," went on Miss Hitty, not unkindly, "that you're still in
+mourning for your mother.  You mustn't take it so hard.  Sometimes
+folks get to feeling so sorry about something that they can't never get
+over it, and they keep on going round and round all the time like a
+squirrel in a wheel, and keep on getting weaker till it gets to be a
+kind of disease there ain't no cure for.  Leastwise, that's what Doctor
+Dexter says."
+
+"Doctor Dexter!"  With a cry, Miss Evelina sprang to her feet, her
+hands tightly pressed to her heart.
+
+"The same," nodded Miss Hitty, overjoyed to discover that at last her
+hostess was interested.  "Doctor Anthony Dexter, our old schoolmate, as
+had just graduated when you lived here before.  He went away for a year
+and then he came back, bringing a pretty young wife.  She's dead, but
+he has a son, Ralph, who's away studying to be a doctor.  He'll
+graduate this Spring and then he's coming here to help his father with
+his practice.  Doctor Dexter's getting old, like the rest of us, and he
+don't like the night work.  Some folks is inconsiderate enough to get
+sick in the night.  They orter have regular hours for it, same as a
+doctor has hours for business.  Things would fit better.
+
+"Well, I must be going, for I left soup on the stove, and Araminta's
+likely as not to let it burn.  I'm going to send your supper over to
+you, and next week, if the weather's favourable, we'll clean this
+house.  Goodness knows it needs it.  I'd just as soon send over all
+your meals till you get settled--'t wouldn't be any trouble.  Or, you
+can come over to my house if you wouldn't mind eating with the
+minister.  It seems queer to set down to the table with a man, and not
+altogether natural, but I'm beginning to get used to it, and it gives
+us the advantage of a blessing, and, anyway, ministers don't count.
+Come over when you can.  Goodbye!"
+
+With a rustle of stiffly starched garments Miss Mehitable took her
+departure, carefully closing the door and avoiding the appearance of
+haste.  This was an effort, for every fibre of her being ached to get
+back to the clearing house, where she might speculate upon Evelina's
+return.  It was her desire, also, to hunt up the oldest inhabitant
+before nightfall and correct her pitiful lapse of memory.
+
+At the same time, she was planning to send Araminta over with a nice
+hot supper, for Miss Evelina seemed to be far from strong, and, even to
+one lacking in discernment, acutely unhappy.
+
+Down the road she went, her head bowed in deep and fruitless thought.
+Swiftly, as in a lightning flash, and without premonition, she
+remembered.
+
+"Evelina was burnt," she said to herself, triumphantly, "over to Doctor
+Dexter's, and they took her on the train to the hospital.  I guess she
+wears that veil all the time."
+
+Then Miss Hitty stopped at her own gate, catching her breath quickly.
+"She must have been burnt awful," she thought.  "Poor soul!" she
+murmured, her sharp eyes softening with tears.  "Poor soul!"
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+The Pearls
+
+A rap at the door roused Miss Evelina from a deadly stupor which seemed
+stabbed through with daggers of pain.  She sat quite still, determined
+not to open the door.  Presently, she heard the sound of retreating
+footsteps, and was reassured.  Then she saw a bit of folded paper which
+had been slipped under the door, and, mechanically, she picked it up.
+
+"Here's your supper," the note read, briefly.  "When you get done,
+leave the tray outside.  I'll come and get it.  I would like to have
+you come over if you want to.--Mehitable Smith."
+
+Touched by the unexpected kindness, Miss Evelina took in the tray.
+There was a bowl of soup, steaming hot, a baked potato, a bit of thin
+steak, fried, in country fashion, two crisp, buttered rolls, and a pot
+of tea.  Faint and sick of heart, she pushed it aside, then in simple
+justice to Miss Hitty, tasted of the soup.  A little later, she put the
+tray out on the doorstep again, having eaten as she had not eaten for
+months.
+
+She considered the chain of circumstances that had led her back to
+Rushton.  First, the knowledge that Doctor Dexter had left the place
+for good.  She had heard of that, long ago, but, until now, no one had
+told her that he had returned.  She had thought it impossible for him
+ever to return--even to think of it again,
+
+Otherwise--here the thread of her thought snapped, and she clutched at
+the vial of laudanum which, as always, was in the bag at her belt.  She
+perceived that the way of escape was closed to her.  Broken in spirit
+though she was, she was yet too proud to die like a dog at Anthony
+Dexter's door, even after five-and-twenty years.
+
+Bitterest need alone had driven her to take the step which she so
+keenly regretted now.  The death of her mother, hastened by misfortune,
+had left her with a small but certain income, paid regularly from two
+separate sources.  One source had failed without warning, and her
+slender legacy was cut literally in two.  Upon the remaining half she
+must eke out the rest of her existence, if she continued to exist at
+all.  It was absolutely necessary for her to come back to the one
+shelter which she could call her own.
+
+Weary, despairing, and still in the merciless grip of her obsession,
+she had come--only to find that Anthony Dexter had long since preceded
+her.  A year afterward, Miss Hitty said, he had come back, with a
+pretty young wife.  And he had a son.
+
+The new knowledge hurt, and Evelina had fancied that she could be hurt
+no more, that she had reached the uttermost limits of pain.  By a
+singular irony, the last refuge was denied her at the very moment of
+her greatest temptation to avail herself of it.  Long hours of thought
+led her invariably to the one possible conclusion--to avoid every one,
+keep wholly to herself, and, by starvation, if need be, save enough of
+her insignificant pittance to take her far away.  And after
+that--freedom.
+
+Since the night of full realisation which had turned her brown hair to
+a dull white she had thought of death in but one way--escape.  Set free
+from the insufferable bondage of earthly existence.  Miss Evelina
+dreamed of peace as a prisoner in a dungeon may dream of green fields.
+To sleep and wake no more, never to feel again the cold hand upon her
+heart that tore persistently at the inmost fibres of it, to forget----
+
+Miss Evelina took the vial from her bag and uncorked it.  The incense
+of the poppies crept subtly through the room, mingling inextricably
+with the mustiness and the dust.  The grey cobwebs swayed at the
+windows, sunset touching them to iridescence.  Conscious that she was
+the most desolate and lonely thing in all the desolate house, Miss
+Evelina buried her face in her hands.
+
+The poppies breathed from the vial.  In her distorted fancy, she saw
+vast plains of them, shimmering in the sun--scarlet like the lips of a
+girl, pink as the flush of dawn upon the eastern sky, blood-red as the
+passionate heart that never dreamed of betrayal.
+
+The sun was shining on the field of poppies and Miss Evelina walked
+among them, her face unveiled.  Golden masses of bloom were spread at
+her feet, starred here and there by stately blossoms as white as the
+blown snow.  Her ragged garments touched the silken petals, her worn
+shoes crushed them, bud and blossom alike.  Always, the numbing, sleepy
+odour came from the field.  Dew was on the petals of the flowers; their
+deep cups gathered it and held it, never to be surrendered, since the
+dew of the poppies was tears.
+
+Like some evil genius rising from the bottle, the Spirit of the Poppies
+seemed to incarnate itself in the vapour.  A woman with a face of
+deadly white arose to meet Miss Evelina, with outspread arms.  In her
+eyes was Lethe, in her hands was the gift of forgetfulness.  She
+brought pardon for all that was past and to come, eternal healing,
+unfathomable oblivion.  "Come," the drowsy voice seemed to say.  "I
+have waited long and yet you do not come.  The peace that passeth all
+understanding is mine to give and yours to take.  Come--only come!
+Come!  Come!"
+
+Miss Evelina laughed bitterly.  Never in all the years gone by had the
+Spirit of the Poppies pleaded with her thus.  Now, at the hour when
+surrender meant the complete triumph of her enemy, the ghostly figure
+came to offer her the last and supreme gift.
+
+The afterglow yet lingered in the west.  The grey of a March twilight
+was in the valley, but it was still late afternoon on the summit of the
+hill.  Miss Evelina drew her veil about her and went out into the
+garden, the vial in her hand.
+
+Where was it that she had planted the poppies?  Through the mass of
+undergrowth and brambles, she made scant headway.  Thorns pressed
+forward rudely as if to stab the intruder.  Vines, closely matted,
+forbade her to pass, yet she kept on until she reached the western
+slope of the garden.
+
+Here, unshaded, and in the full blaze of the Summer sun, the poppies
+had spread their brilliant pageantry.  In all the village there had
+been no such poppies as grew in Evelina's garden.  Now they were dead
+and only the overgrown stubble was left.
+
+"Dust to dust, earth to earth, and ashes to ashes."  The solemn words
+of the burial service were chanted in her consciousness as she lifted
+the vial high and emptied it.  She held it steadily until the last drop
+was drained from it.  The poppies had given it and to the poppies she
+had returned it.  She put the cork into the empty vial and flung it far
+away from her, then turned back to the house.
+
+There was a sound of wheels upon the road.  Miss Evelina hastened her
+steps, but the dense undergrowth made walking difficult.  Praying that
+she might not be seen, she turned her head.
+
+Anthony Dexter, in the doctor's carriage, was travelling at a leisurely
+pace.  As he passed the old house, he glanced at it mechanically, from
+sheer force of habit.  Long ago, it had ceased to have any definite
+meaning for him.  Once he had even stripped every white rose from the
+neglected bush at the gate, to take to his wife, who, that day, for the
+first time, had held their son in her arms.
+
+Motionless in the wreck of the garden, a veiled figure stood with
+averted face.  Doctor Dexter looked keenly for an instant in the fast
+gathering twilight, then whipped up his horse, and was swiftly out of
+sight.  Against his better judgment, he was shaken in mind and body.
+Could he have seen a ghost?  Nonsense!  He was tired, he had
+overworked, he had had an hallucination.  His cool, calm, professional
+sense fought with the insistent idea.  It was well that Ralph was
+coming to relieve his old father of a part of his burden.
+
+Meanwhile, Miss Evelina, her frail body quivering as though under the
+lash, crept back into the house.  With the sure intuition of a woman,
+she knew who had driven by in the first darkness.  That he should dare!
+That he should actually trespass upon her road; take the insolent
+liberty of looking at her house!
+
+"A pretty young wife," Miss Hitty had said.  Yes, doubtless a pretty
+one.  Anthony Dexter delighted in the beauty of a woman in the same
+impersonal way that another man would regard a picture.  And a son.  A
+straight, tall young fellow, doubtless, with eyes like his
+father's--eyes that a woman would trust, not dreaming of the false
+heart and craven soul.  Why had she been brought here to suffer this
+last insult, this last humiliation?  Weakly, as many a woman before
+her, Miss Evelina groped in the maze of Life, searching for some clue
+to its blind mystery.
+
+Was it possible that she had not suffered enough?  If five-and-twenty
+years of sodden misery were not sufficient for one who had done no
+wrong, what punishment would be meted out to a sinner by a God who was
+always kind?  Miss Evelina's lips curled scornfully.  She had taken
+what he should have borne--Anthony Dexter had gone scot free.
+
+"The man sins and the woman pays."  The cynical saying, which, after
+all, is not wholly untrue, took shape in her thought and said
+itself--aloud.  Yet it was not altogether impossible that he might yet
+be made to pay--could be--
+
+Her cheeks burned and her hands closed tightly.  What if she were the
+chosen instrument?  What if she had been sent here, after all the dead,
+miserable years, for some purpose which hitherto she had not guessed?
+
+What if she, herself, with her veiled face, were to be the tardy
+avenger of her own wrong?  Her soul stirred in its despair as the dead
+might stir in the winding sheet.  Out of her sodden grief, could she
+ever emerge--alive?
+
+"The fire was kind," said Miss Evelina, in a whisper.  "It showed me
+the truth.  The fire was kind and God is kind.  He has brought me here
+to pay my debt--in full."
+
+She began to consider what she might do that would hurt Anthony Dexter
+and make him suffer as she had suffered for half a lifetime.  If he had
+forgotten, she would make him remember--ah, yes, he must remember
+before he could be hurt.  But what could she do?  What had he given her
+aside from the misery that she hungered to give back to him?
+
+The pearls!  Miss Evelina lighted her candle and hurried upstairs.
+
+In her dower chest, beneath the piles of heavy, yellowed linen, was a
+small jewel case.  She knelt before the chest, gasping, and thrust her
+questioning fingers down through the linen to the solid oak.  With a
+little cry, she rose to her feet, the jewel case in her hand.
+
+The purple velvet was crushed, the satin was yellowed, but the string
+of pearls was there--yellowed, too, by the slow passage of the years.
+One or two of them were black.  A slip of paper fluttered out as she
+opened the case, and she caught it as it fell.  The paper was yellow
+and brittle and the ink had faded, but the words were still there,
+written in Anthony Dexter's clear, bold hand; "First from the depths of
+the sea, and then from the depths of my love."
+
+"Depths!" muttered Miss Evelina, from between her clenched teeth.
+
+Once the necklace had been beautiful--a single strand of large,
+perfectly matched pearls.  The gold of the clasp was dull, but the
+diamond gleamed like the eye of some evil thing.  She wound the
+necklace twice about her wrist, then shuddered, for it was cold and
+smooth and sinuous, like a snake.
+
+She coiled the discoloured necklace carefully upon its yellowed satin
+bed, laid the folded slip of paper over it, and closed it with a snap.
+To-morrow--no, this very night, Anthony Dexter should have the pearls,
+that had come first from the depths of the sea, and then from the
+depths of his love.
+
+No hand but hers should give them back, for she saw it written in the
+scheme of vengeance that she herself should, mutely, make him pay.  She
+felt a new strength of body and a fresh clearness of mind as, with grim
+patience, she set herself to wait.
+
+The clocks in the house were all still.  Miss Evelina's watch had long
+ago been sold.  There was no town clock in the village, but the train
+upon which she had come was due shortly after midnight.  She knew every
+step of the way by dark as well as by daylight, but the night was clear
+and there would be the light of the dying moon,
+
+Her own clouded skies were clearing.  Dimly she began to perceive
+herself as a part of things, not set aside helplessly to suffer
+eternally, but in some sort of relation to the rest of the world.
+
+On the Sunday before the catastrophe, Miss Evelina had been to church,
+and even yet, she remembered fragments of the sermon.  "God often uses
+people to carry out His plans," the minister had said.  At the time, it
+had not particularly impressed her, and she had never gone to church
+again.  If she had listened further, she might have heard the minister
+say that the devil was wont to do the same thing.
+
+Minute by minute, the hours passed.  Miss Evelina's heart was beating
+painfully, but, all unknowingly, she had entered upon a new phase.  She
+had turned in the winding sheet of her own weaving, and her hands were
+clutching at the binding fabric.
+
+At last, the train came in.  It did not stop, but thundered through the
+sleeping village, shrieking as it went.  The sound died into a distant
+rumble, then merged into the stillness of the night.  Miss Evelina rose
+from her chair, put on her wraps, slipped the jewel case into her bag,
+and went out, closely veiled.
+
+The light of the waning moon was dim and, veiled as she was, she felt
+rather than saw the way.  Steadfastly, she went down the steep road,
+avoiding the sidewalk, for she remembered that Miss Mehitable's ears
+were keen.  Past the crossroads, to the right, down into the village,
+across the tracks, then sharply to the left--the way was the same, but
+the wayfarer was sadly changed.
+
+She went unemotionally, seeing herself a divinely appointed instrument
+of vengeance.  Something outside her obsession had its clutch upon her
+also, but it was new, and she did not guess that it was fully as
+hideous.
+
+Doctor Dexter's house was near the corner on a shaded street.  At the
+gate.  Miss Evelina paused and, with her veil lifted, carefully
+scrutinised the house for a possible light.  She feared that some one
+might be stirring, late as it was, but the old housekeeper always went
+to bed promptly at nine, and on this particular night, Anthony Dexter
+had gone to his room at ten, making sleep sure by a drug.
+
+With hushed steps, Miss Evelina went furtively up to the house on the
+bare earth beside the brick pavement.  She was in a panic of fear, but
+something beyond her control urged her on.  Reaching the steps, she
+hesitated, baffled for the moment, then sank to her knees.  Slowly she
+crept to the threshold, placed the jewel case so that it would fall
+inward when the door was opened, and started back.  Instinct bade her
+hurry, but reason made her cautious.  She forced herself to walk slowly
+and to muffle the latch of the gate with her skirts as she had done
+when she came in.
+
+It seemed an hour before she crossed the tracks again, at the deserted
+point she had chosen, but, in reality, it was only a few minutes.  At
+last she reached home, utterly exhausted by the strain she had put upon
+herself.  She had seen no one, heard no footstep save her own; she had
+gone and returned as mysteriously as the night itself.
+
+When she slept, she dreamed of the poppy bed on the western slope of
+the garden.  It was twilight, and she stood there with a vial of
+laudanum in one hand and a necklace of discoloured pearls in the other.
+She poured the laudanum upon the earth and a great black poppy with a
+deadly fragrance sprang up at her feet.  Then Anthony Dexter drove up
+in a carriage and took the pearls away from her.  She could not see him
+clearly, because his face was veiled, like her own.
+
+The odour of the black poppy made her faint and she went into the house
+to escape from it, but the scent of it clung to her garments and hands
+and could not be washed away.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+"From the Depths of his Love"
+
+At seven o'clock, precisely, Anthony Dexter's old housekeeper rang the
+rising bell.  Drowsy with the soporific he had taken, the doctor did
+not at once respond to the summons.  In fact, the breakfast bell had
+rung before he was fully awake.
+
+He dressed leisurely, and was haunted by a vague feeling that something
+unpleasant had happened.  At length he remembered that just before
+dusk, in the garden of Evelina Grey's old house, he had seen a ghost--a
+ghost who confronted him mutely with a thing he had long since
+forgotten.
+
+"It was subjective, purely," mused Anthony Dexter.  "I have been
+working too hard." His reason was fully satisfied with the plausible
+explanation, but he was not a man who was likely to have an
+hallucination of any sort.
+
+He was strong and straight of body, finely muscular, and did not look
+over forty, though it was more than eight years ago that he had reached
+the fortieth milestone.  His hair was thinning a little at the temples
+and the rest of it was touched generously with grey.  His features were
+regular and his skin clear.  A full beard, closely cropped, hid the
+weakness of his chin, but did not entirely conceal those fine lines
+about the mouth which mean cruelty.
+
+Someway, in looking at him, one got the impression of a machine,
+well-nigh perfect of its kind.  His dark eyes were sharp and
+penetrating.  Once they had been sympathetic, but he had outgrown that.
+His hands were large, white, and well-kept, his fingers knotted, and
+blunt at the tips.  He had, pre-eminently, the hand of the surgeon,
+capable of swiftness and strength, and yet of delicacy.  It was not a
+hand that would tremble easily; it was powerful and, in a way, brutal.
+
+He was thoroughly self-satisfied, as well he might be, for the entire
+countryside admitted his skill, and even in the operating rooms of the
+hospitals in the city not far distant.  Doctor Dexter's name was well
+known.  He had thought seriously, at times, of seeking a wider field,
+but he liked the country and the open air, and his practice would give
+Ralph the opportunity he needed.  At his father's death, the young
+physician would fail heir to a practice which had taken many years of
+hard work to build up.
+
+At the thought of Ralph, the man's face softened a trifle and his keen
+eyes became a little less keen.  The boy's picture was before him upon
+his chiffonier.  Ralph was twenty-three now and would finish in a few
+weeks at a famous medical school--Doctor Dexter's own alma mater.  He
+had not been at home since he entered the school, having undertaken to
+do in three years the work which usually required four.
+
+He wrote frequently, however, and Doctor Dexter invariably went to the
+post-office himself on the days Ralph's letters were expected.  He had
+the entire correspondence on file and whiled away many a lonely evening
+by reading and re-reading the breezy epistles.  The last one was in his
+pocket now.
+
+"To think, Father," Ralph had written, "in three weeks more or less, I
+shall be at home with my sheepskin and a fine new shingle with 'Dr.
+Ralph Dexter' painted on it, all ready to hang up on the front of the
+house beside yours.  I'll be glad to get out of the grind for a while,
+I can tell you that.  I've worked as His Satanic Majesty undoubtedly
+does when he receives word that a fresh batch of Mormons has hit the
+trail for the good-intentions pavement.  _Decensus facilis Averni_.
+That's about all the Latin I've got left.
+
+"At first, I suppose, there won't be much for me to do.  I'll have to
+win the confidence of the community by listening to the old ladies'
+symptoms three or four hours a day, regularly.  Finally, they'll let me
+vaccinate the kids and the rest will be pitifully easy.  Kids always
+like me, for some occult reason, and if the children cry for me, it
+won't be long till I've got your whole blooming job away from you.
+Never mind, though, dad--I'll be generous and whack up, as you've
+always done with me."
+
+Remembering the boyishness of it, Anthony Dexter smiled a little and
+took another satisfying look at the pictured face before him.  Ralph's
+eyes were as his father's had been--frank and friendly and clear, with
+no hint of suspicion.  His chin was firm and his mouth determined, but
+the corners of it turned up decidedly, and the upper lip was short.
+The unprejudiced observer would have seen merely an honest,
+intelligent, manly young fellow, who looked as if he might be good
+company.  Anthony Dexter saw all this--and a great deal more.
+
+It was his pride that he was unemotional.  By rigid self-discipline, he
+had wholly mastered himself.  His detachment from his kind was at first
+spasmodic, then exceptionally complete.  Excepting Ralph, his relation
+to the world was that of an unimpassioned critic.  He was so sure of
+his own ground that he thought he considered Ralph impersonally, also.
+
+Over a nature which, at the beginning, was warmly human, Doctor Dexter
+had laid this glacial mask.  He did what he had to do with neatness and
+dispatch.  If an operation was necessary, he said so at once, not
+troubling himself to approach the subject gradually.  If there was
+doubt as to the outcome, he would cheerfully advise the patient to make
+a will first, but there was seldom doubt, for those white, blunt
+fingers were very sure.  He believed in the clean-cut, sudden stroke,
+and conducted his life upon that basis.
+
+Without so much as the quiver of an eyelash, Anthony Dexter could tell
+a man that within an hour his wife would be dead.  He could predict the
+death of a child, almost to the minute, without a change in his
+mask-like expression, and feel a faint throb of professional pride when
+his prediction was precisely fulfilled.  The people feared him,
+respected him, and admired his skill, but no one loved him except his
+son.
+
+Among all his acquaintances, there was none who called him friend
+except Austin Thorpe, the old minister who had but lately come to town.
+This, in itself, was no distinction, for Thorpe was the friend of every
+man, woman, child, and animal in the village.  No two men could have
+been more unlike, but friendship, like love, is often a matter of
+chemical affinity, wherein opposites rush together in obedience to a
+hidden law.
+
+The broadly human creed of the minister included every living thing,
+and the man himself interested Doctor Dexter in much the same way that
+a new slide for his microscope might interest him.  They exchanged
+visits frequently when the duties of both permitted, and the Doctor
+reflected that, when Ralph came, Thorpe would be lonely.
+
+The Dexter house was an old one but it had been kept in good repair.
+From time to time, wings had been added to the original structure,
+until now it sprawled lazily in every direction.  One wing, at the
+right of the house, contained the Doctor's medical library, office,
+reception room, and laboratory.  Doors were arranged in metropolitan
+fashion, so that patients might go out of the office without meeting
+any one.  The laboratory, at the back of the wing, was well fitted with
+modern appliances for original research, and had, too, its own outside
+door.
+
+When Ralph came home, the other wing, at the left of the house, was to
+be arranged in like manner for him if he so desired.  Doctor Dexter had
+some rough drawings under consideration, but wanted Ralph to order the
+plans in accordance with his own ideas.
+
+The breakfast bell rang again, and Doctor Dexter went downstairs.  The
+servant met him in the hall.  "Breakfast is waiting, sir," she said.
+
+"All right," returned the Doctor, absently.  "I'll be there in a
+moment."
+
+He opened the door for a breath of fresh air, and immediately perceived
+the small, purple velvet box at his feet.  He picked it up,
+wonderingly, and opened it.
+
+Inside were the discoloured pearls on their bed of yellowed satin, and
+the ivory-tinted slip of paper on which he had written, so long ago, in
+his clear, boyish hand: "First, from the depths of the sea, and then
+from the depths of my love."
+
+Being unemotional, he experienced nothing at first, save natural
+surprise.  He stood there, staring into vacancy, idly fingering the
+pearls.  By some evil magic of the moment, the hour seemed set back a
+full quarter of a century.  As though it were yesterday, he saw Evelina
+before him.
+
+She had been a girl of extraordinary beauty and charm.  He had
+travelled far and seen many, but there had been none like Evelina.  How
+he had loved her, in those dead yesterdays, and how she had loved him!
+The poignant sweetness of it came back, changed by some fatal alchemy
+into bitterness.
+
+Anthony Dexter had seen enough of the world to recognise cowardice when
+he saw it, even in himself.  His books had taught him that the mind
+could hold but one thought at a time, and, persistently, he had
+displaced the unpleasant ones which constantly strove for the right of
+possession.
+
+Hard work and new love and daily wearying of the body to the point of
+exhaustion had banished those phantoms of earlier years, save in his
+dreams.  At night, the soul claims its own--its right to suffer for its
+secret sins, its shirking, its betrayals.
+
+It is not pleasant for a man to be branded, in his own consciousness, a
+coward.  Refusal to admit it by day does not change the hour of the
+night when life is at its lowest ebb, and, sleepless, man faces himself
+as he is.
+
+The necklace slipped snakily over his hand--one of those white, firm
+hands which could guide the knife so well--and Anthony Dexter
+shuddered.  He flung the box far from him into the shrubbery, went back
+into the house, and slammed the door.
+
+He sat down at the table, but could not eat.  The Past had come from
+its grave, veiled, like the ghost in the garden that he had seen
+yesterday.
+
+It was not an hallucination, then.  Only one person in the world could
+have laid those discoloured pearls at his door in the dead of night.
+The black figure in the garden, with the chiffon fluttering about its
+head, was Evelina Grey--or what was left of her.
+
+"Why?" he questioned uneasily of himself.  "Why?"  He had repeatedly
+told himself that any other man, in his position, would do as he had
+done, yet it was as though some one had slipped a stiletto under his
+armour and found a vulnerable spot.
+
+Before his mental vision hovered two women.  One was a girl of twenty,
+laughing, exquisitely lovely.  The other was a bent and broken woman in
+black, whose veil concealed the dreadful hideousness of her face.
+
+"Pshaw!" grumbled Doctor Dexter, aloud.  "I've overworked, that's all."
+
+He determined to vanquish the spectre that had reared itself before
+him, not perceiving that Remorse incarnate, in the shape of Evelina,
+had come back to haunt him until his dying day.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+Araminta
+
+"Araminta," said Miss Mehitable, "go and get your sewing and do your
+stent."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Hitty," answered the girl, obediently.
+
+Each year, Araminta made a new patchwork quilt.  Seven were neatly
+folded and put away in an old trunk in the attic.  The eighth was
+progressing well, but the young seamstress was becoming sated with
+quilts.  She had never been to school, but Miss Mehitable had taught
+her all she knew.  Unkind critics might have intimated that Araminta
+had not been taught much, but she could sew nicely, keep house
+neatly, and write a stilted letter in a queer, old-fashioned hand
+almost exactly like Miss Mehitable's.
+
+That valiant dame saw no practical use in further knowledge.  She was
+concerned with no books except the Bible and the ancient ledger in
+which, with painstaking exactness, she kept her household accounts.
+She deemed it wise, moreover, that Araminta should not know too much.
+
+From a drawer in the high, black-walnut bureau in the upper hall,
+Araminta drew forth an assortment of red, white, and blue cotton
+squares and diamonds.  This was to be a "patriotic" quilt, made after
+a famous old pattern which Miss Hitty had selfishly refused to give
+to any one else, though she had often been asked for it by
+contemporary ladies of similar interests.
+
+The younger generation was inclined to scout at quilt-making, and
+needlework heresy was rampant in the neighbourhood.  Tatting,
+crocheting, and knitting were on the wane.  An "advanced" woman who
+had once spent a Summer in the village had spread abroad the delights
+of Battenberg and raised embroidery.  At all of these, Miss Hitty
+sniffed contemptuously.
+
+"Quilt makin' was good enough for their mas and their grandmas," she
+said scornfully, "and I reckon it's good enough for anybody else.
+I've no patience with such things."
+
+Araminta knew that.  She had never forgotten the vial of wrath which
+broke upon her luckless head the day she had timorously suggested
+making lace as a pleasing change from unending quilts.
+
+She sat now, in a low rocker by the window, with one foot upon a
+wobbly stool.  A marvellous cover, of Aunt Hitty's making, which
+dated back to her frivolous and girlish days, was underneath.  Nobody
+ever saw it, however, and the gaudy woollen roses blushed unseen.  A
+white linen cover, severely plain, was put upon the footstool every
+Wednesday and every Saturday, year in and year out.
+
+Unlike most good housewives, Miss Mehitable used her parlour every
+day in the week.  She was obliged to, in fact, for it was the only
+room in her house, except Mr. Thorpe's, which commanded an
+unobstructed view of the crossroads.  A cover of brown denim
+protected the carpet, and the chairs were shrouded in shapeless
+habiliments of cambric and calico.  For the rest, however, the room
+was mildly cheerful, and had a habitable look which was distinctly
+uncommon in village parlours.
+
+There was a fireplace, which was dusted and scrubbed at intervals,
+but never, under any circumstances, profaned by a fire.  It was
+curtained by a gay remnant of figured plush, however, so nobody
+missed the fire.  White and gold china vases stood on the mantel, and
+a little china dog, who would never have dared to bark had he been
+alive, so chaste and humble of countenance was he, sat forever
+between the two vases, keeping faithful guard over Miss Mehitable's
+treasures.
+
+The silver coffin plates of the Smiths, matted with black, and deeply
+framed, occupied the place of honour over the mantel.  On the
+marble-topped table in the exact centre of the room was a basket of
+wax flowers and fruit, covered by a bell-shaped glass shade.  Miss
+Hitty's album and her Bible were placed near it with mathematical
+precision.  On the opposite wall was a hair wreath, made from the
+shorn locks of departed Smiths by Miss Hitty's mother.  The proud
+possessor felt a covert reproach in the fact that she herself was
+unable to make hair wreaths.  It was a talent for which she had great
+admiration.
+
+Araminta rocked back and forth in her low chair by the window.  She
+hummed a bit of "Sweet Bye and Bye" to herself, for hymns were the
+only songs she knew.  She could play some of them, with one hand, on
+the melodeon in the corner, but she dared not touch the yellow keys
+of the venerated instrument except when Miss Hitty was out.
+
+The sunlight shone lovingly on Araminta's brown hair, tightly combed
+back, braided, and pinned up, but rippling riotously, none the less.
+Her deep, thoughtful eyes were grey and her nose turned up
+coquettishly.  To a guardian of greater penetration, Araminta's mouth
+would have given deep concern.  It was a demure, rosy mouth, warning
+and tantalising by turns.  Mischievous little dimples lurked in the
+corners of it, and even Aunt Hitty was not proof against the magic of
+Araminta's smile.  The girl's face had the creamy softness of a white
+rose petal, but her cheeks bloomed with the flush of health and she
+had a most disconcerting trick of blushing.  With Spartan
+thoroughness, Miss Mehitable constantly strove to cure Araminta of
+this distressing fault, but as yet she had not succeeded.
+
+The pretty child had grown into an exquisitely lovely woman, to her
+stern guardian's secret uneasiness.  "It's goin' to be harder to keep
+Minty right than 't would be if she was plain," mused Miss Hitty,
+"but t guess I'll be given strength to do it.  I've done well by her
+so far."
+
+"In the Sweet Bye and Bye," sang Araminta, in a piping, girlish
+soprano, "we shall meet on that beautiful shore."
+
+"Maybe we shall and maybe we sha'n't," said Miss Hitty, grimly.
+"Some folks 'll never see the beautiful shore.  They'll go to the bad
+place."
+
+Araminta lifted her great, grey, questioning eyes.  "Why?" she asked,
+simply.
+
+"Because they've been bad," answered Miss Hitty, defiantly.
+
+"But if they didn't know any better?" queried Araminta, threading her
+needle.  "Would they go to the bad place just because they didn't
+know?"
+
+Miss Mehitable squirmed in her chair, for never before had Araminta
+spoken thus.  "There's no excuse for their not knowin'," she said,
+sharply.
+
+"Perhaps not," sighed Araminta, "but it seems dreadful to think of
+people being burned up just for ignorance.  Do you think I'll be
+burned up, Aunt Hitty?" she continued, anxiously.  "There's so many
+things I don't know!"
+
+Miss Mehitable set herself firmly to her task.  "Araminta Lee," she
+said, harshly, "don't get to bothering about what you don't know.
+That's the sure way to perdition.  I've told you time and time again
+what's right for you to believe and what's right for you to do.  You
+walk in that path and turn neither to the right nor the left, and you
+won't have no trouble--here or anywheres else."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Hitty," said the girl, dutifully.  "It must be awful to be
+burned."
+
+Miss Mehitable looked about her furtively, then drew her chair closer
+to Araminta's.  "That brings to my mind something I wanted to speak
+to you about, and I don't know but what this is as good a chance as
+any.  You know where I told you to go the other day with the tray,
+and to set it down at the back door, and rap, and run?"
+
+"Yes."  Araminta's eyes were wide open now.  She had wondered much at
+her mysterious errand, but had not dared to ask questions.
+
+"Well," continued Aunt Hitty, after an aggravating pause, "the woman
+that lives in that house has been burnt."
+
+Araminta gasped.  "Oh, Aunt Hitty, was she bad?  What did she do and
+how did she get burned before she was dead?"
+
+Miss Mehitable brushed aside the question as though it were an
+annoying fly.  "I don't want it talked of," she said, severely.
+"Evelina Grey was a friend of mine, and she is yet.  If there's
+anything on earth I despise, it's a gossip.  People who haven't
+anything better to do than to go around prying into other folks's
+affairs are better off dead, I take it.  My mother never permitted me
+to gossip, and I've held true to her teachin'."  Aunt Hitty smoothed
+her skirts with superior virtue and tied a knot in her thread.
+
+"How did she get burned?" asked Araminta, eagerly.
+
+"Gossip," said Miss Mehitable, sententiously, "does a lot of harm and
+makes a lot of folks miserable.  It's a good thing to keep away from,
+and if I ever hear of your gossiping about anybody, I'll shut you up
+in your room for two weeks and keep you on bread and water."
+
+Araminta trembled.  "What is gossiping, Aunt Hitty?" she asked in a
+timid, awe-struck tone.
+
+"Talking about folks," explained Miss Hitty.  "Tellin' things about
+'em they wouldn't tell themselves."
+
+It occurred to Araminta that much of the conversation at the
+crossroads might appropriately be classed under that head, but, of
+course, Aunt Hitty knew what she was talking about.  She remembered
+the last quilting Aunt Hitty had given, when the Ladies' Aid Society
+had been invited, en masse, to finish off the quilt Araminta's
+rebellious fingers had just completed.  One of the ladies had been
+obliged to leave earlier than the rest, and----
+
+"I don't believe," thought Araminta, "that Mrs. Gardner would have
+told how her son ran away from home, nor that she didn't dust her bed
+slats except at house-cleaning time, nor that they ate things other
+people would give to the pigs."
+
+"I expect there'll be a lot of questions asked about Evelina,"
+observed Miss Mehitable, breaking in rudely upon Araminta's train of
+thought, "as soon 's folks finds out she's come back to live here,
+and that she has to wear a veil all the time, even when she doesn't
+wear her hat.  What I'm telling you for is to show you what happens
+to women that haven't sense enough to keep away from men.  If Evelina
+'d kept away from Doctor Dexter, she wouldn't have got burnt."
+
+"Did Doctor Dexter burn her?" asked Araminta, breathlessly.  "I
+thought it was God."
+
+At the psychological moment, Doctor Dexter drove by, bowing to Miss
+Mehitable as he passed.  Araminta had observed that this particular
+event always flustered her aunt.
+
+"Maybe, it was God and maybe it was Doctor Dexter," answered Miss
+Mehitable, quickly.  "That's something there don't nobody know except
+Evelina and Doctor Dexter, and it's not for me to ask either one of
+'em, though I don't doubt some of the sewin' society 'll make an
+errand to Evelina's to find out.  I've got to keep 'em off 'n her, if
+I can, and that's a big job for one woman to tackle.
+
+"Anyhow, she got burnt and got burnt awful, and it was at his house
+that it happened.  It was shameless, the way Evelina carried on.
+Why, if you'll believe me, she'd actually go to his house when there
+wa'n't no need of it--nobody sick, nor no medicine to be bought, nor
+anything.  Some said they was goin' to be married."
+
+The scorn which Miss Mehitable managed to throw into the word
+"married" indicated that the state was the crowning ignominy of the
+race.  The girl's cheek flamed into crimson, for her own mother had
+been married, and everybody knew it.  Sometimes the deep disgrace
+seemed almost too much for Araminta to endure.
+
+"That's what comes of it," explained Miss Hitty, patiently, as a
+teacher might point to a demonstration clearly made out on a
+blackboard for an eager class.  "If she'd stayed at home as a girl
+should stay, and hadn't gone to Doctor Dexter's, she wouldn't have
+got burnt.  Anybody can see that.
+
+"There was so much goin' on at the time that I sorter lost track of
+everything, otherwise I'd have known more about it, but I guess I
+know as much as anybody ever knew.  Evelina was to Doctor
+Dexter's--shameless hussy that she was--and she got burnt.  She was
+there all the afternoon and they took her to the hospital in the city
+on the night train and she stayed there until she was well, but she
+never came back here until just now.  Her mother went with her to
+take care of her and before Evelina came out of the hospital, her
+mother keeled over and died.  Sarah Grey always had a weak heart and
+a weak head to match it.  If she hadn't have had, she'd have brought
+up Evelina different,
+
+"Neither of 'em was ever in the house again.  Neither one ever came
+back, even for their clothes.  They had plenty of money, then, and
+they just bought new ones.  When the word come that Evelina was
+burnt, Sarah Grey just put on her hat and locked her doors and run up
+to Doctor Dexter's.  Nobody ever heard from them again until Jim
+Gardner's second cousin on his father's side sent a paper with Sarah
+Grey's obituary in it.  And now, after twenty-five years, Evelina's
+come back.
+
+"The poor soul's just sittin' there, in all the dust and cobwebs.
+When I get time, I aim to go over there and clean up the house for
+her--'t ain't decent for a body to live like that.  I'll take you
+with me, to help scrub, and what I'm telling you all this for is so
+'s you won't ask any questions, nor act as if you thought it was
+queer for a woman to wear a white veil all the time.  You'll have to
+act as if nothing was out of the way at all, and not look at her any
+more than you can help.  Just pretend it's the style to wear a veil
+pinned to your hair all the time, and you've been wearin' one right
+along and have forgot and left it to home.  Do you understand me?"
+
+"Yes, Aunt Hitty."
+
+"And when people come here to find out about it, you're not to say
+anything.  Leave it all to me.  'T ain't necessary for you to lie,
+but you can keep your mouth shut.  And I hope you see now what it
+means to a woman to walk straight on her own path that the Lord has
+laid out for her, and to let men alone.  They're pizen, every one of
+'em."
+
+Nun-like, Araminta sat in her chair and sewed steadily at her dainty
+seam, but, none the less, she was deeply stirred with pity for women
+who so forgot themselves--who had not Aunt Hitty's superior wisdom.
+At the end of the prayer which Miss Mehitable had taught the child,
+and which the woman still repeated in her nightly devotions, was this
+eloquent passage:
+
+"And, Oh Lord, keep me from the contamination of marriage.  For Thy
+sake.  Amen."
+
+"Araminta," said Aunt Hitty, severely, "cover up your foot!"
+Modestly, Araminta drew down her skirt.  One foot was on the
+immaculate footstool and her ankle was exposed to view--a lovely
+ankle, in spite of the broad-soled, common-sense shoes which she
+always wore.
+
+"How often have I told you to keep your ankles covered ?" demanded
+Miss Mehitable.  "Suppose the minister had come in suddenly!
+Suppose--upon my word!  Speakin' of angels--if there ain't the
+minister now!"
+
+The Reverend Austin Thorpe came slowly up the brick-bordered path,
+his head bowed in thought.  He was painfully near-sighted, but he
+refused to wear glasses.  On the doorstep he paused and wiped his
+feet upon the corn-husk mat until even Miss Mehitable, beaming at him
+through the window, thought he was overdoing it.  Unconsciously, she
+took credit to herself for the minister's neatness.
+
+Stepping carefully, lest he profane the hall carpet by wandering off
+the rug, the minister entered the parlour, having first taken off his
+coat and hat and hung them upon their appointed hooks in the hall.
+It was cold, and the cheery warmth of the room beckoned him in.  He
+did not know that he tried Miss Hitty by trespassing, so to speak,
+upon her preserves.  She would have been better pleased if he
+remained in his room when he was not at the table or out, but, to do
+him justice, the reverend gentleman did not often offend her thus.
+
+Araminta, blushing, took her foot from the footstool and pulled
+feverishly at her skirts.  As Mr. Thorpe entered the room, she did
+not look up, but kept her eyes modestly upon her work.
+
+"There ain't no need to tear out the gathers," Miss Hitty said, in a
+warning undertone, referring to Aramlnta's skirts.  "Why, Mr. Thorpe!
+How you surprised me!  Come in and set a spell," she added,
+grudgingly.
+
+Steering well away from the centre-table with its highly prized
+ornament, Thorpe gained the chair in which, if he did not lean
+against the tidy, he was permitted to sit.  He held himself bolt
+upright and warmed his hands at the stove.  "It is good to be out,"
+he said, cheerfully, "and good to come in again.  A day like this
+makes one appreciate the blessing of a home."
+
+Miss Hitty watched the white-haired, inoffensive old man with the
+keen scrutiny of an eagle guarding its nest.  He did not lean upon
+the tidy, nor rest his elbows upon the crocheted mats which protected
+the arms of the chair.  In short, he conducted himself as a gentleman
+should when in the parlour of a lady.
+
+His blue, near-sighted eyes rested approvingly upon Araminta.  "How
+the child grows!" he said, with a friendly smile upon his kindly old
+face.  "Soon we shall have a young lady on our hands."
+
+Araminta coloured and bent more closely to her sewing.
+
+"I hope I'm not annoying you?" questioned the minister, after an
+interval.
+
+"Not at all," said Miss Mehitable, politely.
+
+"I wanted to ask about some one," pursued the Reverend Mr. Thorpe.
+"It seems that there is a new tenant in the old house on the hill
+that has been empty for so long--the one the village people say is
+haunted.  It seems a woman is living there, quite alone; and she
+always wears a veil, on account of some--some disfigurement."
+
+Miss Hitty's false teeth clicked, sharply, but there was no other
+sound except the clock, which, in the pause, struck four.  "I
+thought--" continued the minister, with a rising inflection.
+
+Hitherto, he had found his hostess of invaluable assistance in his
+parish work.  It had been necessary to mention only the name.  As
+upon the turning of a faucet a stream of information gushed forth
+from the fountain of her knowledge.  Age, date and place of birth,
+ancestry on both sides three generations back, with complete and
+illuminating biographical details of ancestry and individual;
+education, financial standing, manner of living, illnesses in the
+family, including dates and durations of said illnesses, accidents,
+if any, medical attendance, marriages, births, deaths, opinions,
+reverses, present locations and various careers of descendants, list
+of misfortunes, festivities, entertainments, church affiliation past
+and present, political leanings, and a vast amount of other personal
+data had been immediately forthcoming.  Tagged to it, like the
+postscript of a woman's letter, was Miss Hitty's own concise,
+permanent, neatly labelled opinion of the family or individual, the
+latter thrown in without extra charge.
+
+"Perhaps you didn't know," remarked the minister, "that such a woman
+had come."  His tone was inquiring.  It seemed to him that something
+must be wrong if she did not know.
+
+"Minty," said Miss Hitty, abruptly, "leave the room!"
+
+Araminta rose, gathered up her patchwork, and went out, carefully
+closing the door.  It was only in moments of great tenderness that
+her aunt called her "Minty."
+
+The light footsteps died away upon the stairs.  Tactlessly, the
+minister persisted.  "Don't you know?" he asked.
+
+Miss Mehitable turned upon him.  "If I did," she replied, hotly, "I
+wouldn't tell any prying, gossiping man.  I never knew before it was
+part of a minister's business to meddle in folks' private affairs.
+You'd better be writing your sermon and studyin' up on hell."
+
+"I--I--" stammered the minister, taken wholly by surprise, "I only
+hoped to give her the consolation of the church."
+
+"Consolation nothing!" snorted Miss Hitty.  "Let her alone!" She went
+out of the room and slammed the door furiously, leaving the Reverend
+Austin Thorpe overcome with deep and lasting amazement.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+Pipes o' Pan
+
+Sleet had fallen in the night, but at sunrise, the storm ceased.  Miss
+Evelina had gone to sleep, lulled into a sense of security by the icy
+fingers tapping at her cobwebbed window pane.  She awoke in a
+transfigured world.  Every branch and twig was encased in crystal, upon
+which the sun was dazzling.  Jewels, poised in midair, twinkled with
+the colours of the rainbow.  On the tip of the cypress at the gate was
+a ruby, a sapphire gleamed from the rose-bush, and everywhere were
+diamonds and pearls.
+
+Frosty vapour veiled the spaces between the trees and javelins of
+sunlight pierced it here and there.  Beyond, there were glimpses of
+blue sky, and drops of water, falling from the trees, made a musical,
+cadence upon the earth beneath.
+
+Miss Evelina opened her window still more.  The air was peculiarly soft
+and sweet.  It had the fragrance of opening buds and growing things and
+still had not lost the tang of the frost.
+
+She drew a long breath of it and straightway was uplifted, though
+seemingly against her will.  Spring was stirring at the heart of the
+world, sending new currents of sap into the veins of the trees, new
+aspirations into dead roots and fibres, fresh hopes of bloom into every
+sleeping rose.  Life incarnate knocked at the wintry tomb; eager,
+unseen hands were rolling away the stone.  The tide of the year was
+rising, soon to break into the wonder of green boughs and violets,
+shimmering wings and singing winds.
+
+The cold hand that clutched her heart took a firmer hold.  With acute
+self-pity, she perceived her isolation.  Of all the world, she alone
+was set apart; branded, scarred, locked in a prison house that had no
+door.  The one release was denied her until she could get away.
+
+Poverty had driven her back.  Circumstances outside her control had
+pushed her through the door she had thought never to enter again.
+Through all the five-and-twenty years, she had thought of the house
+with a shudder, peopling it with a thousand terrors, not knowing that
+there was no terror save her own fear.
+
+Sorrow had put its chains upon her suddenly, at a time when she had not
+the strength to break the bond.  At first she had struggled; then
+ceased.  Since then, her faculties had been in suspense, as it were.
+She had forgotten laughter, veiled herself from joy, and walked hand in
+hand with the grisly phantom of her own conjuring.
+
+Behind the shelter of her veil she had mutely prayed for peace--she
+dared not ask for more.  And peace had never come.  Her crowning
+humiliation would be to meet Anthony Dexter face to face--to know him,
+and to have him know her.  Not knowing where he was, she had travelled
+far to avoid him.  Now, seeking the last refuge, the one place on earth
+where he could not be, she found herself separated from him by less
+than a mile.  More than that, she had gone to his house, as she had
+gone on the fateful day a quarter of a century ago.  She had taken back
+the pearls, and had not died in doing it.  Strangely enough, it had
+given her a vague relief.
+
+Miss Evelina's mind had paused at twenty; she had not grown.  The acute
+suffering of Youth was still upon her, a woman of forty-five.  It was
+as though a clock had gone on ticking and the hands had never moved;
+the dial of her being was held at that dread hour, while her broken
+heart beat on.
+
+She had not discovered that secret compensation which clings to the
+commonest affairs of life.  One sees before him a mountain of toil, an
+apparently endless drudgery from which there is no escape.  Having once
+begun it, an interest appears unexpectedly; new forces ally themselves
+with the fumbling hands.  Misfortunes come, "not singly, but in
+battalions."  After the first shock of realisation, one perceives
+through the darkness that the strength to bear them has come also, like
+some good angel.
+
+A lover shudders at the thought of Death, yet knows that some day, on
+the road they walk together, the Grey Angel with the white poppies will
+surely take one of them by the hand.  The road winds through shadows,
+past many strange and difficult places, and wrecks are strewn all along
+the way.  They laugh at the storms that beat upon them, take no reck of
+bruised feet nor stumbling, for, behold, they are together, and in that
+one word lies all.
+
+Sometimes, in the mist ahead, which, as they enter it, is seen to be
+wholly of tears, the road forks blindly, and there is nothing but night
+ahead for each.  The Grey Angel with the unfathomable eyes approaches
+slowly, with no sound save the hushed murmur of wings.  The dread white
+poppies are in his outstretched hand--the great, nodding white poppies
+which have come from the dank places and have never known the sun.
+
+There is no possible denial.  At first, one knows only that the
+faithful hand has grown cold, then, that it has unclasped.  In the
+intolerable darkness, one fares forth alone on the other fork of the
+road, too stricken for tears.
+
+At length there is a change.  Memories troop from the shadow to whisper
+consolation, to say that Death himself is powerless against Love, when
+a heart is deep enough to hold a grave.  The clouds lift, and through
+the night comes some stray gleam of dawn.  No longer cold, the dear
+hand nestles once more into the one that held it so long.  Not as an
+uncertain presence but as a loved reality, that other abides with him
+still.
+
+Shut out forever from the possibility of estrangement, for there is
+always that drop of bitterness in the cup of Life and Love; eternally
+beyond the reach of misunderstanding or change, spared the pitfalls and
+disasters of the way ahead, blinded no longer by the mists of earth,
+but immortally and unchangeably his, that other fares with him, though
+unseen, upon the selfsame road.
+
+From the broken night comes singing, for the white poppies have also
+brought balm.  Step by step, his Sorrow has become his friend, and at
+the last, when the old feet are weary and the steep road has grown
+still more steep, the Grey Angel comes once more.
+
+Past the mist of tears in which he once was shrouded, the face of the
+Grey Angel is seen to be wondrously kind.  By his mysterious alchemy,
+he has crystallised the doubtful waters, which once were in the cup of
+Life and Love, into a jewel which has no flaw.  He has kept the child
+forever a child, caught the maiden at the noon of her beauty to
+enshrine her thus for always in the heart that loved her most; made the
+true and loving comrade a comrade always, though on the highways of the
+vast Unknown.
+
+It is seen now that the road has many windings and that, unconsciously,
+the wayfarer has turned back.  Eagerly the trembling hands reach
+forward to take the white poppies, and the tired eyes close as though
+the silken petals had already fluttered downward on the lids, for,
+radiant past all believing, the Grey Angel still holds the Best Beloved
+by the hand, and the roads that long ago had forked in darkness, have
+come together, in more than mortal dawn, at the selfsame place.
+
+Upon the beauty of the crystalline March morning, the memory of the
+Winter sorrow still lay.  The bare, brown earth was not wholly hidden
+by the mantle of sleet and snow, yet there was some intangible Easter
+close at hand.  Miss Evelina felt it, stricken though she was.
+
+From a distant thicket came a robin's cheery call, a glimmer of blue
+wings flashed across the desolate garden, a south wind stirred the
+bending, icy branches to a tinkling music, and she knew that Spring had
+come to all but her.
+
+Some indefinite impulse sent her outdoors.  Closely veiled, she started
+off down the road, looking neither to the right nor the left.  Miss
+Hitty saw her pass, but graciously forbore to call to her; Araminta
+looked up enquiringly from her sewing, but the question died on her
+lips.
+
+Down through the village she went, across the tracks, and up to the
+river road.  It had been a favourite walk of hers in her girlhood.
+Then she had gone with a quick, light step; now she went slowly, like
+one grown old.
+
+Yet, all unconsciously, life was quickening in her pulses; the old
+magic of Spring was stirring in her, too.  Dark and deep, the waters of
+the river rolled dreamily by, waiting for the impulse which should send
+the shallows singing to the sea, and stir the depths to a low,
+murmurous symphony.
+
+Upon the left, as she walked, the road was bordered with elms and
+maples, stretching far back to the hills.  The woods were full of
+unsuspected ravines and hollows, queer winding paths, great rocks, and
+tiny streams.  The children had called it the enchanted forest, and
+played that a fairy prince and princess dwelt therein.
+
+The childhood memories came back to Evelina with a pang.  She stopped
+to wipe away the tears beneath her veil, to choke back a sob that
+tightened her throat.  Suddenly, she felt a presentiment of oncoming
+evil, a rushing destiny that could not be swerved aside.  Frightened,
+she turned to go back; then stopped again.
+
+From above, on the upper part of the road, came the tread of horse's
+feet and the murmur of wheels.  Her face paled to marble, her feet
+refused to move.  The heart within her stood portentously still.  With
+downcast eyes she stood there, petrified, motionless, like a woman
+carved in stone and clothed in black, veiled impenetrably in chiffon.
+
+At a furious pace, Anthony Dexter dashed by, his face as white as her
+chiffon.  She had known unerringly who was coming; and had felt the
+searing consciousness of his single glance before, with a muttered
+oath, he had lashed his horse to a gallop.  This, then, was the last;
+there was nothing more.
+
+The sound of the wheels died away in the distance.  He had the pearls,
+he had seen her, he knew that she had come back.  And still she lived.
+
+Clear and high, like a bugle call, a strain of wild music came from the
+enchanted forest.  Evelina threw back her head, gasping for breath; her
+sluggish feet stirred forward.  Some forgotten valour of her spirit
+leaped to answer the summons, as a soldier, wounded unto death, turns
+to follow the singing trumpets that lead the charge.
+
+Strangely soft and tender, the strain came again, less militant, less
+challenging.  Swiftly upon its echo breathed another, hinting of peace.
+Shaken to her inmost soul by agony, she took heed of the music with the
+precise consciousness one gives to trifles at moments of unendurable
+stress.  Blindly she turned into the forest.
+
+"What was it?" she asked herself, repeatedly, wondering that she could
+even hear at a time like this.  A bird?  No, there was never a bird to
+sing like that.  Almost it might be Pan himself with his syrinx,
+walking abroad on the first day of Spring.
+
+The fancy appealed to her strongly, her swirling senses having become
+exquisitely acute.  "Pipes o' Pan," she whispered, "I will find and
+follow you."  To see the face of Pan meant death, according to the old
+Greek legend, but death was something of which she was not afraid.
+
+Lyric, tremulous, softly appealing, the music came again.  The bare
+boughs bent with their chiming crystal, and a twig fell at her feet,
+Sunlight starred the misty distance with pearl; shining branches swayed
+to meet her as she passed.
+
+Farther in the wood, she turned, unconsciously in pursuit of that
+will-o'-the-wisp of sound.  Here and there out of the silence, it came
+to startle her; to fill her with strange forebodings which were not
+wholly of pain.
+
+Some subliminal self guided her, for heart and soul were merged in a
+quivering ecstasy of torture which throbbed and thundered and
+overflowed.  "He saw me!  He saw me!  He saw me!  He knew me!  He knew
+me!  He knew me!"  In a triple rhythm the words vibrated back and forth
+unceasingly, as though upon a weaver's shuttle.
+
+For nearly an hour she went blindly in search of the music, pausing now
+and then to listen intently, at times disheartened enough to turn back.
+She had a mad fancy that Death was calling her, from some far height,
+because Anthony Dexter had passed her on the road.
+
+Now trumpet-like and commanding, now tender and appealing, the mystic
+music danced about her capriciously.  Her feet grew weary, but the
+blood and the love of life had begun to move in her, too, when her
+whole nature was unspeakably stirred.  She paused and leaned against a
+tree, to listen for the pipes o' Pan.  But all was silent; the white
+stillness of the enchanted forest was like that of another world.  With
+a sigh, she turned to the left, reflecting that a long walk straight
+through the woods would bring her out on the other road at a point near
+her own home.
+
+Exquisitely faint and tender, the call rang out again.  It was like
+some far flute of April blown in a March dawn.  "Oh, pipes o' Pan,"
+breathed Evelina, behind her shielding veil; "I pray you find me!  I
+pray you, give me joy--or death!"
+
+Swiftly the music answered, like a trumpet chanting from a height.
+Scarcely knowing what she did, she began to climb the hill.  It was a
+more difficult way, but a nearer one, for just beyond the hill was her
+house.
+
+Half-way up the ascent, the hill sloped back.  There was a small level
+place where one might rest before going on to the summit.  It was not
+more than a little nook, surrounded by pines.  As she came to it, there
+was a frightened chirp, and a flock of birds fluttered up from her
+feet, leaving a generous supply of crumbs and grain spread upon the
+earth.
+
+Against a great tree leaned a man, so brown and shaggy in his short
+coat that he seemed like part of the tree trunk.  He was of medium
+height, wore high leather gaiters, and a grey felt hat with a long red
+quill thrust rakishly through the band.  His face was round and rosy
+and the kindest eyes in the world twinkled at Evelina from beneath his
+bushy eyebrows.  At his feet, quietly happy, was a bright-eyed, yellow
+mongrel with a stubby tail which wagged violently as Evelina
+approached.  Slung over the man's shoulder by a cord was a
+silver-mounted flute.
+
+From his elevated position, he must have seen her when she entered the
+wood, and had glimpses of her at intervals ever since.  It was evident
+that he thoroughly enjoyed the musical hide-and-seek he had forced her
+to play while he was feeding the birds.  His eyes laughed and there
+were mischievous dimples in his round, rosy cheeks.
+
+"Oh," cried Evelina, in a tone of dull disappointment.
+
+"I called you," said the Piper, gently, "and you came."
+
+She turned on her heel and walked swiftly away.  She went downhill with
+more haste than dignity, turned to her right, and struck out through
+the woods for the main road.
+
+The Piper watched her until she was lost among the trees.  The birds
+came back for their crumbs and grain and he stood patiently until his
+feathered pensioners had finished and flown away, chirping with
+satisfaction.  Then he stooped to pat the yellow mongrel.
+
+"Laddie," he said, "I'm thinking there's no more gypsying for us just
+now.  To-morrow, we will not pack our shop upon our back and march on,
+as we had thought to do.  Some one needs us here, eh, Laddie?"
+
+The dog capered about his master's feet as if he understood and fully
+agreed.  He was a pitiful sort, even for a mongrel.  One of his legs
+had been broken and unskilfully set, so he did not run quite like other
+dogs.
+
+"'T isn't a very good leg, Laddie," the Piper observed, "but I'm
+thinking 't is better than none.  Anyway, I did my best with it, and
+now we'll push on a bit.  It's our turn to follow, and we 're fain,
+Laddie, you and I, to see where she lives."
+
+Bidding the dog stay at heel, the Piper followed Miss Evelina's track.
+By dint of rapid walking, he reached the main road shortly after she
+did.   Keeping a respectful distance, and walking at the side of the
+road, he watched her as she went home.  From the safe shelter of a
+clump of alders just below Miss Mehitable's he saw the veiled figure
+enter the broken gate.
+
+"'T is the old house, Laddie," he said to the dog; "the very one we
+were thinking of taking ourselves.  Come on, now; we'll be going.
+Down, sir!  Home!"
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+"The Honour of the Spoken Word"
+
+Anthony Dexter sat in his library, alone, as usual.  Under the lamp,
+Ralph's letters were spread out before him, but he was not reading.
+Indeed, he knew every line of them by heart, but he could not keep his
+mind upon the letters.
+
+Between his eyes and the written pages there came persistently a veiled
+figure, clothed shabbily in sombre black.  Continually he fancied the
+horror the veil concealed; continually, out of the past, his cowardice
+and his shirking arose to confront him.
+
+A photograph of his wife, who had died soon after Ralph was born, had
+been taken from the drawer.  "A pretty, sweet woman," he mused.  "A
+good wife and a good mother."  He told himself again that he had loved
+her--that he loved her still.
+
+Yet behind his thought was sure knowledge.  The woman who had entered
+the secret fastnesses of his soul, and before whom he had trembled, was
+the one whom he had seen in the dead garden, frail as a ghost, and
+again on the road that morning.
+
+Dimly, and now for the first time, there came to his perception that
+recognition of his mate which each man carries in his secret heart when
+he has found his mate at all.  Past the anguish that lay between them
+like a two-edged sword, and through the mists of the estranging years,
+Evelina had come back to claim her own.
+
+He saw that they were bound together, scarred in body or scarred in
+soul; crippled, mutilated, or maimed though either or both might be,
+the one significant fact was not altered.
+
+He knew now that his wife and the mother of his child had stood
+outside, as all women but the one must ever stand.  Nor did he guess
+that she had known it from the first and that heart-hunger had hastened
+her death.
+
+Aside from a very deep-seated gratitude to her for his son, Anthony
+Dexter cherished no emotion for the sake of his dead wife.  She had
+come and gone across his existence as a butterfly crosses a field,
+touching lightly here and there, but lingering not at all.  Except for
+Ralph, it was as though she had never been, so little did she now exist
+for him.
+
+Yet Evelina was vital, alive, and out of the horror she had come back.
+To him?  He did not believe that she had come definitely to seek
+him--he knew her pride too well for that.  His mind strove to grasp the
+reason of her coming, but it eluded him; evaded him at every point.
+She had not forgotten; if she had, she would not have given back that
+sinuous necklace of discoloured pearls.
+
+By the way, what had he done with the necklace? He remembered now.  He
+had thrown it far into the shrubbery, for the pearls were dead and the
+love was dead.
+
+"First from the depths of the sea and then from the depths of my love."
+The mocking words, written in faded ink on the yellowed slip of paper,
+danced impishly across the pages of Ralph's letters.  He had a curious
+fancy that if his love had been deep enough the pearls would not have
+turned black.
+
+Impatiently, he rose from the table and paced back and forth restlessly
+across the library.  "I'm a fool," he growled; "a doddering old fool.
+No, that's not it--I've worked too hard."
+
+Valiantly he strove to dispel the phantoms that clustered about him.  A
+light step behind him chimed in with his as he walked and he feared to
+look around, not knowing it was but the echo of his own.
+
+He went to a desk in the corner of the room and opened a secret drawer
+that had not been opened for a long time.  He took out a photograph,
+wrapped in yellowed tissue paper, and went back to the table.  He
+unwrapped it, his blunt white fingers trembling ever so slightly, and
+sat down.
+
+A face of surpassing loveliness looked back at him.  It was Evelina, at
+the noon of her girlish beauty, her face alight with love.  Anthony
+Dexter looked long at the perfect features, the warm, sweet, tempting
+mouth, the great, trusting eyes, and the brown hair that waved so
+softly back from her face; the all-pervading and abiding womanliness.
+There was strength as well as beauty; tenderness, courage, charm.
+
+"Mate for a man," said Dexter, aloud.  For such women as Evelina, the
+knights of old did battle, and men of other centuries fought with their
+own temptations and weaknesses.  It was such as she who led men to the
+heights, and pointed them to heights yet farther on.
+
+Insensibly, he compared Ralph's mother with Evelina.  The two women
+stood as far apart as a little, meaningless song stands from a great
+symphony.  One would fire a man with high ambition, exalt him with
+noble striving--ah, but had she?  Was it Evelina's fault that Anthony
+Dexter was a coward and a shirk?  Cravenly, he began to blame the
+woman, to lay the burden of his own shortcomings at Evelina's door.
+
+Yet still the face stirred him.  There was life in those walled
+fastnesses of his nature which long ago he had denied.  Self-knowledge
+at last confronted him, and would not be put away.
+
+"And so, Evelina," he said aloud, "you have come back.  And what do you
+want?  What can I do for you?"
+
+The bell rang sharply, as if answering his question.  He started from
+his chair, having heard no approaching footsteps.  He covered the
+photograph of Evelina with Ralph's letters, but the sweet face of the
+boy's mother still looked out at him from its gilt frame.
+
+The old housekeeper went to the door with the utmost leisure.  It
+seemed to him an eternity before the door was opened.  He stood there,
+waiting, summoning his faculties of calmness and his powers of control,
+to meet Evelina--to have out, at last, all the shame of the years.
+
+But it was not Evelina.  The Reverend Austin Thorpe was wiping his feet
+carefully upon the door-mat, and asking in deep, vibrant tones: "Is the
+Doctor in?"
+
+Anthony Dexter could have cried out from relief.  When the white-haired
+old man came in, floundering helplessly among the furniture, as a
+near-sighted person does, he greeted him with a cordiality that warmed
+his heart.
+
+"I am glad," said the minister, "to find you in.  Sometimes I am not so
+fortunate.  I came late, for that reason."
+
+"I've been busy," returned the Doctor.  "Sit down."
+
+The minister sank into an easy chair and leaned toward the light.  "I
+wish I could have a lamp like this in my room," he remarked.  "It gives
+a good light."
+
+"You can have this one," returned Dexter, with an hysterical laugh,
+
+"I was not begging," said Mr. Thorpe, with dignity.  "Miss Mehitable's
+lamps are all small.  Some of them give no more light than a candle."
+
+"'How far that little candle throws its beams,'" quoted Dexter.  "'So
+shines a good deed in a naughty world.'"
+
+There was a long interval of silence.  Sometimes Thorpe and Doctor
+Dexter would sit for an entire evening with less than a dozen words
+spoken on either side, yet feeling the comfort of human companionship.
+
+"I was thinking," said, Thorpe, finally, "of the supreme isolation of
+the human soul.  You and I sit here, talking or not, as the mood
+strikes us, and yet, what does speech matter?  You know no more of me
+than I choose to give you, nor I of you."
+
+"No," responded Dexter, "that is quite true."  He did not realise what
+Thorpe had just said, but he felt that it was safe to agree.
+
+"One grows morbid in thinking of it," pursued Thorpe, screening his
+blue eyes from the light with his hand.  "We are like a vast plain of
+mountain peaks.  Some of us have our heads in the clouds always, up
+among the eternal snows.  Thunders boom about us, lightning rives us,
+storm and sleet beat upon us.  There is a rumbling on some distant peak
+and we know that it rains there, too.  That is all we ever know.  We
+are not quite sure when our neighbours are happy or when they are
+troubled; when there is sun and when there is storm.  The secret forces
+in the interior of the mountain work on unceasingly.  The distance
+hides it all.  We never get near enough to another peak to see the
+scars upon its surface, to know of the dead timber and the dried
+streams, the marks of avalanches and glacial drift, the precipices and
+pitfalls, the barren wastes.  In blue, shimmering distance, the peaks
+are veiled and all seem fair but our own."
+
+At the word "veiled," Dexter shuddered.  "Very pretty," he said, with a
+forced laugh which sounded flat.  "Why don't you put it into a sermon?"
+
+Thorpe's face became troubled.  "My sermons do not please," he
+answered, with touching simplicity.  "They say there is not enough of
+hell."
+
+"I'm satisfied," commented the Doctor, in a grating voice.  "I think
+there's plenty of hell."
+
+"You never come to church," remarked the minister, not seeing the point.
+
+"There's hell enough outside--for any reasonable mortal," returned
+Dexter.  He was keyed to a high pitch.  He felt that, at any instant,
+something might snap and leave him inert.
+
+Thorpe sighed.  His wrinkled old hand strayed out across the papers and
+turned the face of Ralph's mother toward him.  He studied it closely,
+not having seen it before.  Then he looked up at the Doctor, whose face
+was again like a mask.
+
+"Your--?"  A lift of the eyebrows finished the question.
+
+Dexter nodded, with assumed carelessness.  There was another long pause.
+
+"Sometimes I envy you," said Thorpe, laying the picture down carefully,
+"you have had so much of life and joy.  I think it is better for you to
+have had her and lost her than not to have had her at all," he
+continued, unconsciously paraphrasing.  "Even in your loneliness, you
+have the comfort of memory, and your boy--I have wondered what a son
+might mean to me, now, in my old age.  Dead though she is, you know she
+still loves you; that somewhere she is waiting to take your hand in
+hers."
+
+"Don't!" cried Dexter.  The strain was well-nigh insupportable.
+
+"Forgive me, my friend," returned Thorpe, quickly.  "I--"  Then he
+paused.  "As I was saying," he went on, after a little, "I have often
+envied you."
+
+"Don't," said Dexter, again.  "As you were also saying, distance hides
+the peak and you do not see the scars."
+
+Thorpe's eyes sought the picture of Dexter's wife with an evident
+tenderness, mingled with yearning.  "I often think," he sighed, "that
+in Heaven we may have a chance to pay our debt to woman.  Through
+woman's agony we come into the world, by woman's care we are nourished,
+by woman's wisdom we are taught, by woman's love we are sheltered, and,
+at the last, it is a woman who closes our eyes.  At every crisis of a
+man's life, a woman is always waiting, to help him if she may, and I
+have seen that at any crisis in a woman's life, we are apt to draw back
+and shirk.  She helps us bear our difficulties; she faces hers alone."
+
+Dexter turned uneasily in his chair.  His face was inscrutable.  The
+silent moment cried out for speech--for anything to relieve the
+tension.  Through Ralph's letters Evelina's eyes seemed to be upon him,
+beseeching him to speak.
+
+"I knew a man,", said Anthony Dexter, hoarsely, "who unintentionally
+contracted quite an unusual debt to a woman."
+
+"Yes?" returned, Thorpe, inquiringly.  He was interested.
+
+"He was a friend of mine," the Doctor continued, with difficulty, "or
+rather a classmate.  I knew him best at college and afterward--only
+slightly."
+
+"The debt," Thorpe reminded him, after a pause.  "You were speaking, of
+his debt to a woman."
+
+Dexter turned his face away from Thorpe and from the accusing eyes
+beneath Ralph's letters.  "She was a very beautiful girl," he went on,
+carefully choosing his words, "and they loved each other as people love
+but once.  My--my friend was much absorbed in chemistry and had a
+fondness for original experiment.  She--the girl, you know--used to
+study with him.  He was teaching her and she often helped him in the
+laboratory.
+
+"They were to be married," continued Dexter.  "The day before they were
+to be married, he went to her house and invited her to come to the
+laboratory to see an experiment which he was trying for the first time
+and which promised to be unusually interesting.  I need not explain the
+experiment--you would not understand.
+
+"On the way to the laboratory, they were talking, as lovers will.  She
+asked him if he loved her because she was herself; because, of all the
+women in the world, she was the one God meant for him, or if he loved
+her because he thought her beautiful.
+
+"He said that he loved her because she was herself, and, most of all,
+because she was his.  'Then,' she asked, timidly, 'when I am old and
+all the beauty has gone, you will love me still?  It will be the same,
+even when I am no longer lovely?'
+
+"He answered her as any man would, never dreaming how soon he was to be
+tested.
+
+"In the laboratory, they were quite alone.  He began the experiment,
+explaining as he went, and she watched it as eagerly as he.  He turned
+away for a moment, to get another chemical.  As he leaned over the
+retort to put it in, he heard it seethe.  With all her strength, she
+pushed him away instantly.  There was an explosion which shook the
+walls of the laboratory, a quantity of deadly gas was released, and, in
+the fumes, they both fainted.
+
+"When he came to his senses, he learned that she had been terribly
+burned, and had been taken on the train to the hospital.  He was the
+one physician in the place and it was the only thing to be done.
+
+"As soon as he could, he went to the hospital.  They told him there
+that her life would be saved and they hoped for her eyesight, but that
+she would be permanently and horribly disfigured.  All of her features
+were destroyed, they said--she would be only a pitiful wreck of a
+woman."
+
+Thorpe was silent.  His blue eyes were dim with pity.  Dexter rose and
+stood in front of him.  "Do you understand?" he asked, in a voice that
+was almost unrecognisable.  "His face was close to the retort when she
+pushed him away.  She saved his life and he went away--he never saw her
+again.  He left her without so much as a word."
+
+"He went away?" asked the minister, incredulously.  "Went away and left
+her when she had so much to bear?  Deserted her when she needed him to
+help her bear it, and when she had saved him from death, or worse?"
+
+"You would not believe it possible?" queried Dexter, endeavouring to
+make his voice even.
+
+"Of a cur, yes," said the minister, his voice trembling with
+indignation, "but of a man, no."
+
+Anthony Dexter shrank back within himself.  He was breathing heavily,
+but his companion did not notice.
+
+"It was long ago," the Doctor continued, when he had partially regained
+his composure.  He dared not tell Thorpe that the man had married in
+the meantime, lest he should guess too much.  "The woman still lives,
+and my--friend lives also.  He has never felt right about it.  What
+should he do?"
+
+"The honour of the spoken word still holds him," said Thorpe, evenly.
+"As I understand, he asked her to marry him and she consented.  He was
+never released from his promise--did not even ask for it.  He slunk
+away like a cur.  In the sight of God he is bound to her by his own
+word still.  He should go to her and either fulfil his promise or ask
+for release.  The tardy fulfilment of his promise would be the only
+atonement he could make."
+
+The midnight train came in and stopped, but neither heard it.
+
+"It would be very difficult," Thorpe was saying, "to retain any shred
+of respect for a man like that.  It shows your broad charity when you
+call him 'friend.'  I myself have not so much grace."
+
+Anthony Dexter's breath came painfully.  He tightened his fingers on
+the arm of the chair and said nothing.
+
+"It is a peculiar coincidence," mused Thorpe, He was thinking aloud
+now.  "In the old house just beyond Miss Mehitable's, farther up, you
+know, a woman has just come to live who seems to have passed through
+something like that.  It would be strange, would it not, if she were
+the one whom your--friend--had wronged?"
+
+"Very," answered Dexter, in a voice the other scarcely heard.
+
+"Perhaps, in this way, we may bring them together again.  If the woman
+is here, and you can find your friend, we may help him to wash the
+stain of cowardice off his soul.  Sometimes," cried Thorpe
+passionately, "I think there is no sin but shirking.  I can excuse a
+liar, I can pardon a thief, I can pity a murderer, but a shirk--no!"
+His voice broke and his wrinkled old hands trembled.
+
+"My--my friend," lied Anthony Dexter, wiping the cold sweat from his
+forehead, "lives abroad.  I have no way of finding him."
+
+"It is a pity," returned Thorpe.  "Think of a man meeting his God like
+that!  It tempts one to believe in a veritable hell!"
+
+"I think there is a veritable hell," said Dexter, with a laugh which
+was not good to hear.  "I think, by this time, my friend must believe
+in it as well.  I remember that he did not, before the--it, I mean,
+happened."
+
+Far from feeling relief, Anthony Dexter was scourged anew.  A thousand
+demons leaped from the silence to mock him; the earth rolled beneath
+his feet.  The impulse of confession was strong upon him, even in the
+face of Thorpe's scorn.  He wondered why only one church saw the need
+of the confessional, why he could not go, even to Thorpe, and share the
+burden that oppressed his guilty soul.
+
+The silence was not to be borne.  The walls of the room swayed back and
+forth, as though they were of fabric and stirred by all the winds of
+hell.  The floor undulated; his chair sank dizzily beneath him.
+
+Dexter struggled to his feet, clutching convulsively at the table.  His
+lips were parched and his tongue clung to the roof of his mouth.
+"Thorpe," he said, in a hoarse whisper, "I----"
+
+The minister raised his hand.  "Listen!  I thought I heard----"
+
+A whistle sounded outside, the gate clanged shut.  A quick, light step
+ran up the walk, the door opened noisily, and a man rushed in.  He
+seemed to bring into that hopeless place all the freshness of immortal
+Youth.
+
+Blinded, Dexter moved forward, his hands outstretched to meet that
+eager clasp.
+
+"Father!  Father!" cried Ralph, joyously; "I've come home!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+Piper Tom
+
+"Laddie," said the Piper to the yellow mongrel, "we'll be having
+breakfast now."
+
+The dog answered with a joyous yelp.  "You talk too much," observed his
+master, in affectionate reproof; "'t is fitting that small yellow dogs
+should be seen and not heard."
+
+It was scarcely sunrise, but the Piper's day began--and ended--early.
+He had a roaring fire in the tiny stove which warmed his shop, and the
+tea-kettle hummed cheerily.  All about him was the atmosphere of
+immaculate neatness.  It was not merely the lack of dust and dirt, but
+a positive cleanliness.
+
+His beardless face was youthful, but the Piper's hair was tinged with
+grey at the temples.  One judged him to be well past forty, yet fully
+to have retained his youth.  His round, rosy mouth was puckered in a
+whistle as he moved about the shop and spread the tiny table with a
+clean cloth.
+
+Ranged about him in orderly rows was his merchandise.  Tom Barnaby
+never bothered with fixtures and showcases.  Chairs, drygoods boxes,
+rough shelves of his own making, and a few baskets sufficed him.
+
+In the waterproof pedler's pack which he carried on his back when his
+shop was in transit, he had only the smaller articles which women
+continually need.  Calico, mosquito netting, buttons, needles, thread,
+tape, ribbons, stationery, hooks and eyes, elastic, shoe laces, sewing
+silk, darning cotton, pins, skirt binding, and a few small frivolities
+in the way of neckwear, veils, and belts--these formed Piper Tom's
+stock in trade.  By dint of close packing, he wedged an astonishing
+number of things into a small space, and was not too heavily laden
+when, with his dog and his flute, he set forth upon the highway to
+establish his shop in the next place that seemed promising.
+
+"All unknowing, Laddie," he said to the dog, as he sat down to his
+simple breakfast, "we've come into competition with a woman who keeps a
+shop like ours, which we didn't mean to do.  It's for this that we were
+making a new set of price tags all day of yesterday, which happened to
+be the Sabbath.  It wouldn't be becoming of us to charge less than she
+and take her trade away from her, so we've started out on an even basis.
+
+"Poor lady," laughed the Piper, "she was not willing for us to know her
+prices, thinking we were going to sell cheaper than she.  'T is a hard
+world for women, Laddie.  I'm thinking 'tis no wonder they grow
+suspicious at times."
+
+The dog sat patiently till Piper Tom finished his breakfast, well
+knowing that a generous share would be given him outside.  While the
+dog ate, his master put the shop into the most perfect order, removing
+every particle of dust, and whistling meanwhile.
+
+When the weather permitted, the shop was often left to keep itself, the
+door being hospitably propped open with a brick, while the dog and his
+master went gypsying.  With a ragged, well-worn book in one pocket, a
+parcel of bread and cheese in another, and his flute slung over his
+shoulder, the Piper was prepared to spend the day abroad.  He carried,
+too, a bone for the dog, well wrapped in newspaper, and an old silver
+cup to drink from.
+
+Having finished his breakfast, the dog scampered about eagerly,
+indicating, by many leaps and barks, that it was time to travel, but
+the Piper raised his hand.
+
+"Not to-day, Laddie," he said.  "If we travel to-day, we'll not be
+going far.  Have you forgotten that 't was only day before yesterday we
+found our work?  Come here."
+
+The dog seated himself before the Piper, his stubby tail wagging
+impatiently.
+
+"She's a poor soul, Laddie," sighed the Piper, at length.  "I'm
+thinking she's seen Sorrow face to face and has never had the courage
+to turn away.  She was walking in the woods, trying to find the strange
+music, and was disappointed when she saw 't was only us.  We must make
+her glad 't was us."
+
+After a long time, the Piper spoke again, with a lingering tenderness.
+"She must be very beautiful, I'm thinking, Laddie; else she would not
+hide her face.  Very beautiful and very sad."
+
+When the sun was high, Piper Tom climbed the hill, followed by his
+faithful dog.  On his shoulder he bore a scythe and under the other arm
+was a spade.  He entered Miss Evelina's gate without ceremony and made
+a wry face as he looked about him.  He scarcely knew where to begin.
+
+The sound of the wide, even strokes roused Miss Evelina from her
+lethargy, and she went to the window, veiled.  At first she was
+frightened when she saw the queer man whom she had met in the woods
+hard at work in her garden.
+
+The red feather in his hat bobbed cheerfully up and down, the little
+yellow dog ran about busily, and the Piper was whistling lustily an
+old, half-forgotten tune.
+
+She watched him for some time, then a new thought frightened her again.
+She had no money with which to pay him for clearing out her garden, and
+he would undoubtedly expect payment.  She must go out and tell him not
+to work any more; that she did not wish to have the weeds removed.
+
+Cringing before the necessity, she went out.  The Piper did not see her
+until she was very near him, then, startled in his turn, he said, "Oh!"
+and took off his hat.
+
+"Good-morning, madam," he went on, making a low bow.  She noted that
+the tip of his red feather brushed the ground.  "What can I do for you,
+more than I'm doing now?"
+
+"It is about that," stammered Evelina, "that I came.  You must not work
+in my garden."
+
+"Surely," said the Piper, "you don't mean that!  Would you have it all
+weeds?  And 't is hard work for such as you."
+
+"I--I--" answered Miss Evelina, almost in a whisper; "I have no money."
+
+The Piper laughed heartily and put on his hat again.  "Neither have I,"
+he said, between bursts of seemingly uncalled-for merriment, "and
+probably I'm the only man in these parts who's not looking for it.  Did
+you think I'd ask for pay for working in the garden?"
+
+His tone made her feel that she had misjudged him and she did not know
+what to say in reply.
+
+"Laddie and I have no garden of our own," he explained, "and so we're
+digging in yours.  The place wants cleaning, for 't is a long time
+since any one cared enough for it to dig.  I was passing, and I saw a
+place I thought I could make more pleasant.  Have I your leave to try?"
+
+"Why--why, yes," returned Miss Evelina, slowly.  "If you'd like to, I
+don't mind."
+
+He dismissed her airily, with a wave of his hand, and she went back
+into the house, never once turning her head.
+
+"She's our work, Laddie," said the Piper, "and I'm thinking we've begun
+in the right way.  All the old sadness is piled up in the garden, and
+I'm thinking there's weeds in her life, too, that it's our business to
+take out.  At any rate, we'll begin here and do this first.  One step
+at a time, Laddie--one step at a time.  That's all we have to take,
+fortunately.  When we can't see ahead, it's because we can't look
+around a corner."
+
+All that day from behind her cobwebbed windows, Miss Evelina watched
+the Piper and his dog.  Weeds and thistles fell like magic before his
+strong, sure strokes.  He carried out armful after armful of rubbish
+and made a small-sized mountain in the road, confining it with stray
+boards and broken branches, as it was too wet to be burned.
+
+Wherever she went, in the empty house, she heard that cheery,
+persistent whistle.  As usual, Miss Hitty left a tray on her doorstep,
+laden with warm, wholesome food.  Since that first day, she had made no
+attempt to see Miss Evelina.  She brought her tray, rapped, and went
+away quietly, exchanging it for another when it was time for the next
+meal.
+
+Meanwhile, Miss Evelina's starved body was responding, slowly but
+surely, to the simple, well-cooked food.  Hitherto, she had not cared
+to eat and scarcely knew what she was eating.  Now she had learned to
+discriminate between hot rolls and baking-powder biscuit, between thick
+soups and thin broths, custards and jellies.
+
+Miss Evelina had wound one of the clocks, setting it by the midnight
+train, and loosening the machinery by a few drops of oil which she had
+found in an old bottle, securely corked.  At eight, at one, and at six,
+Miss Hitty's tray was left at her back door--there had not been the
+variation of a minute since the first day.  Preoccupied though she was,
+Evelina was not insensible of the kindness, nor of the fact that she
+was stronger, physically, than she had been for years.
+
+And now in the desolate garden, there was visible evidence of more
+kindness.  Perhaps the world was not wholly a place of grief and tears.
+Out there among the weeds a man laboured cheerfully--a man of whom she
+had no knowledge and upon whom she had no claim.
+
+He sang and whistled as he strove mightily with the weeds.  Now and
+then, he sharpened his scythe with his whetstone and attacked the dense
+undergrowth with yet more vigour.  The little yellow mongrel capered
+joyfully and unceasingly, affecting to hide amidst the mass of rubbish,
+scrambling out with sharp, eager barks when his master playfully buried
+him, and retreating hastily before the oncoming scythe.
+
+Miss Evelina could not hear, but she knew that the man was talking to
+the dog in the pauses of his whistling.  She knew also that the dog
+liked it, even if he did not understand.  She observed that the dog was
+not beautiful--could not be called so by any stretch of the
+imagination--and yet the man talked to him, made a friend of him, loved
+him.
+
+At noon, the Piper laid down his scythe, clambered up on the crumbling
+stone wall, and ate his bread and cheese, while the dog nibbled at his
+bone.  From behind a shutter in an upper room, Miss Evelina noted that
+the dog also had bread and cheese, sharing equally with his master.
+
+The Piper went to the well, near the kitchen door, and drank copiously
+of the cool, clear water from his silver cup.  Then he went back to
+work again.
+
+Out in the road, the rubbish accumulated.  When the Piper stood behind
+it.  Miss Evelina could barely see the tip of the red feather that
+bobbed rakishly in his hat.  Once he disappeared, leaving the dog to
+keep a reluctant guard over the spade and scythe.  When he came back,
+he had a rake and a large basket, which made the collection of rubbish
+easier.
+
+Safe in her house, Miss Evelina watched him idly.  Her thought was
+taken from herself for the first time in all the five-and-twenty years.
+She contemplated anew the willing service of Miss Mehitable, who asked
+nothing of her except the privilege of leaving daily sustenance at her
+barred and forbidding door.  "Truly," said Miss Evelina to herself, "it
+is a strange world."
+
+The personality of the Piper affected her in a way she could not
+analyse.  He did not attract her, neither was he wholly repellent.  She
+did not feel friendly toward him, yet she could not turn wholly aside.
+There had been something strangely alluring in his music, which haunted
+her even now, though she resented his making game of her and leading
+her through the woods as he had.
+
+Over and above and beyond all, she remembered the encounter upon the
+road, always with a keen, remorseless pain which cut at her heart like
+a knife.  Miss Evelina thought she was familiar with knives, but this
+one hurt in a new way and cut, seemingly, at a place which had not been
+touched before.
+
+Since the "white night" which had turned her hair to lustreless snow,
+nothing had hurt her so much.  Her coming to the empty house, driven,
+as she was, by poverty--entering alone into a tomb of memories and dead
+happiness,--had not stabbed so deeply or so surely.  She saw herself
+first on one peak and then on another, a valley of humiliation and
+suffering between which it had taken twenty-five years to cross.  From
+the greatest hurt at the beginning to the greatest hurt--at the end?
+Miss Evelina started from her chair, her hands upon her leaping heart.
+The end?  Ah, dear God, no!  There was no end to grief like hers!
+
+Insistently, through her memory, sounded the pipes o' Pan--the wild,
+sweet, tremulous strain which had led her away from the road where she
+had been splashed with the mud from Anthony Dexter's carriage wheels.
+The man with the red feather in his hat had called her, and she had
+come.  Now he was digging in her garden, making the desolate place
+clean, if not cheerful.
+
+Conscious of an unfamiliar detachment, Miss Evelina settled herself to
+think.  The first hurt and the long pain which followed it, the blurred
+agony of remembrance when she had come back to the empty house, then
+the sharp, clean-cut stroke when she stood on the road, her eyes
+downcast, and heard the wheels rush by, then clear and challenging, the
+pipes o' Pan.
+
+"'There is a divinity that shapes our ends,'" she thought, "'rough-hew
+them how we may.'" Where had she heard that before? She remembered,
+now--it was a favourite quotation of Anthony Dexter's.
+
+Her lip curled scornfully.  Was she never to be free from Anthony
+Dexter?  Was she always to be confronted with his cowardice, his
+shirking, his spoken and written thoughts?  Was she always to see his
+face as she had seen it last, his great love for her shining in his
+eyes for all the world to read?  Was she to see forever his pearl
+necklace, discoloured, snaky, and cold, as meaningless as the yellow
+slip of paper that had come with it?
+
+Where was the divinity that had shaped her course hither?  Why had she
+been driven back to the place of her crucifixion, to stand veiled in
+the road while he drove by and splashed her with mud from his wheels?
+
+Out in the garden, the Piper still strove with the weeds.  He had the
+place nearly half cleared now.  The space on the other side of the
+house was, as yet, untouched, and the trees and shrubbery all needed
+trimming.  The wall was broken in places, earth had drifted upon it,
+and grass and weeds had taken root in the crevices.
+
+Upon one side of the house, nearly all of the bare earth had been raked
+clean.  He was on the western slope, now, where the splendid poppies
+had once grown.  Pausing in his whistling, the Piper stooped and picked
+up some small object.  Miss Evelina cowered behind her shielding
+shutters, for she guessed that he had found the empty vial which had
+contained laudanum.
+
+The Piper sniffed twice at the bottle.  His scent was as keen as a
+hunting dog's.  Then he glanced quickly toward the house where Miss
+Evelina, unveiled, shrank back into the farthest corner of an upper
+room.
+
+He walked to the gate, no longer whistling, and slowly, thoughtfully,
+buried it deep in the rubbish.  Could Miss Evelina have seen his face,
+she would have marvelled at the tenderness which transfigured it and
+wondered at the mist that veiled his eyes.
+
+He stood at the gate for a long time, leaning on his scythe, his back
+to the house.  In sympathy with his master's mood, the dog was quiet,
+and merely nosed about among the rubbish.  By a flash of intuition,
+Miss Evelina knew that the finding of the bottle had made clear to the
+Piper much that he had not known before.
+
+She felt herself an open book before those kind, keen eyes, which
+neither sought nor avoided her veiled face.  All the sorrow and the
+secret suffering would be his, if he chose to read it.  Miss Evelina
+knew that she must keep away.
+
+The sun set without splendour.  Still the Piper stood there, leaning on
+his scythe, thinking.  All the rubbish in the garden was old, except
+the empty laudanum bottle.  The label was still legible, and also the
+warning word, "Poison."  She had put it there herself--he had no doubt
+of that.
+
+The dog whined and licked his master's hand, as though to say it was
+time to go home.  At length the Piper roused himself and gathered up
+his tools.  He carried them to a shed at the back of the house, and
+Miss Evelina, watching, knew that he was coming back to finish his
+self-appointed task.
+
+"Yes," said the Piper, "we'll be going.  'T is not needful to bark."
+
+He went down-hill slowly, the little dog trotting beside him and
+occasionally licking his hand.  They went into the shop, the door of
+which was still propped open.  The Piper built a fire, removed his coat
+and hat, took off his leggings, cleaned his boots, and washed his hands.
+
+Then, unmindful of the fact that it was supper-time, he sat down.  The
+dog sat down, too, pressing hard against him.  The Piper took the dog's
+head between his hands and looked long into the loving, eager eyes.
+
+"She will be very beautiful, Laddie," he sighed, at length, "very
+beautiful and very brave."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+Housecleaning
+
+The brisk, steady tap sounded at Miss Evelina's door.  It was a little
+after eight, and she opened it, expecting to find her breakfast, as
+usual.  Much to her surprise, Miss Mehitable stood there, armed with a
+pail, mop, and broom.  Behind her, shy and frightened, was Araminta,
+similarly equipped.
+
+The Reverend Austin Thorpe, having carried a step-ladder to the back
+door, had then been abruptly dismissed.  Under the handle of her
+scrubbing pail, the ministering angel had slipped the tray containing
+Miss Evelina's breakfast.
+
+"I've slopped it over some," she said, in explanation, "but you won't
+mind that.  Someway, I've never had hands enough to do what I've had to
+do.  Most of the work in the world is slid onto women, and then, as if
+that wasn't enough, they're given skirts to hold up, too.  Seems to me
+that if the Almighty had meant for women to be carrying skirts all
+their lives, He'd have give us another hand and elbow in our backs,
+like a jinted stove-pipe, for the purpose.  Not having the extra hand,
+I go short on skirts when I'm cleaning."
+
+Miss Mehitable's clean, crisp, calico gown ceased abruptly at her
+ankles.  Araminta's blue and white gingham was of a similar length, and
+her sleeves, guiltless of ruffles, came only to her dimpled elbows.
+Araminta was trying hard not to stare at Miss Evelina's veil while Aunt
+Hitty talked.
+
+"We've come," asserted Miss Mehitable, "to clean your house.  We've
+cleaned our own and we ain't tired yet, so we're going to do some
+scrubbing here.  I guess it needs it."
+
+Miss Evelina was reminded of the Piper, who was digging in her garden
+because he had no garden of his own.  "I can't let you," she said,
+hesitating over the words.  "You're too kind to me, and I'm going to do
+my cleaning myself."
+
+"Fiddlesticks!" snorted Miss Hitty, brushing Miss Evelina from her path
+and marching triumphantly in.  "You ain't strong enough to do cleaning.
+You just set down and eat your breakfast.  Me and Minty will begin
+upstairs."
+
+In obedience to a gesture from her aunt, Araminta crept upstairs.  The
+house had not yet taken on a habitable look, and as she stood in the
+large front room, deep in dust and draped with cobwebs, she was afraid.
+
+Meanwhile Miss Mehitable had built a fire in the kitchen stove, put
+kettles of water on to heat, stretched a line across the yard, and
+brought in the step-ladder.  Miss Evelina sat quietly, and apparently
+took no notice of the stir that was going on about her.  She had not
+touched her breakfast.
+
+"Why don't you eat?" inquired Miss Hitty, not unkindly.
+
+"I'm not hungry," returned Miss Evelina, timidly.
+
+"Well," answered Miss Mehitable, her perception having acted in the
+interval, "I don't wonder you ain't, with all this racket goin' on.
+I'll be out of here in a minute and then you can set here, nice and
+quiet, and eat.  I never like to eat when there's anything else going
+on around me.  It drives me crazy."
+
+True to her word, she soon ascended the stairs, where the quaking
+Araminta awaited her.  "It'll take some time for the water to heat,"
+observed Miss Hitty, "but there's plenty to do before we get to
+scrubbing.  Remember what I've told you, Minty.  The first step in
+cleaning a room is to take out of it everything that ain't nailed to
+it."
+
+Every window was opened to its highest point.  Some were difficult to
+move, but with the aid of Araminta's strong young arms, they eventually
+went up as desired.  From the windows descended torrents of bedding,
+rugs, and curtains, a veritable dust storm being raised in the process.
+
+"When I go down after the hot water, I'll hang these things on the
+line," said Miss Mehitable, briskly.  "They can't get any dustier on
+the ground than they are now."
+
+The curtains were so frail that they fell apart in Miss Hitty's hands.
+"You can make her some new ones, Minty," she said.  "She can get some
+muslin at Mis' Allen's, and you can sew on curtains for a while instead
+of quilts.  It'll be a change."
+
+None too carefully, Miss Mehitable tore up the rag carpet and threw it
+out of the window, sneezing violently.  "There's considerable less dirt
+here already than there was when we come," she continued, "though we
+ain't done any real cleaning yet.  She can't never put that carpet down
+again, it's too weak.  We'll get a bucket of paint and paint the
+floors.  I guess Sarah Grey had plenty of rugs.  She's got a lot of rag
+carpeting put away in the attic if the moths ain't ate it, and, now
+that I think of it, I believe she packed it into the cedar chest.
+Anyway I advised her to.  'It'll come handy,' I told her, 'for Evelina,
+if you don't live to use it yourself.'  So if the moths ain't got the
+good of it, there's carpet that can be made into rugs with some fringe
+on the ends.  I always did like the smell of fresh paint, anyhow.
+There's nothin' you can put into a house that'll make it smell as fresh
+and clean as paint.  Varnish is good, too, but it's more expensive.
+I'll go down now, and get the hot water and the ladder.  I reckon she's
+through with her breakfast by this time."
+
+Miss Evelina had finished her breakfast, as the empty tray proved.  She
+sat listlessly in her chair and the water on the stove was boiling over.
+
+"My sakes, Evelina," cried Miss Hitty, sharply, "I should think
+you'd--I should think you'd hear the water fallin' on the stove," she
+concluded, lamely.  It was impossible to scold her as she would have
+scolded Araminta.
+
+"I'm goin' out now to put things on the line," continued Miss Hitty.
+"When I get Minty started to cleanin', I'll come down and beat."
+
+Miss Evelina made no response.  She watched her brisk neighbour
+wearily, without interest, as she hurried about the yard, dragging
+mattresses into the sunlight, hanging musty bedding on the line, and
+carrying the worn curtains to the mountain of rubbish which the Piper
+had reared in front of the house.
+
+"That creeter with the red feather can clean the yard if he's a mind
+to," mused Miss Hitty, who was fully conversant with the Piper's work,
+"but he can't clean the house.  I'm going to do that myself."
+
+She went in and was presently in her element.  The smell of yellow soap
+was as sweet incense in the nostrils of Miss Hitty, and the sound of
+the scrubbing brush was melodious in her ears.  She brushed down the
+walls with a flannel cloth tied over a broom, washed the windows,
+scrubbed every inch of the woodwork, and prepared the floor for its
+destined coat of paint.
+
+Then she sent Araminta into the next room with the ladder, and began on
+the furniture.  This, too, was thoroughly scrubbed, and as much paint
+and varnish as would come off was allowed to come.  "It'll have to be
+painted," thought Miss Hitty, scrubbing happily, "but when it is
+painted, it'll be clean underneath, and that's more than it has been.
+Evelina 'll sleep clean to-night for the first time since she come
+here.  There's a year's washin' to be done in this house and before I
+get round to that, I'll lend her some of my clean sheets and a quilt or
+two of Minty's."
+
+Adjourning to the back yard, Miss Mehitable energetically beat a
+mattress until no more dust rose from it.  With Araminta's aid she
+carried it upstairs and put it in place.  "I'm goin' home now after my
+dinner and Evelina's," said Miss Hitty, "and when I come back I'll
+bring sheets and quilts for this.  You clean till I come back, and then
+you can go home for your own lunch."
+
+Araminta assented and continued her work.  She never questioned her
+aunt's dictates, and this was why there was no friction between the two.
+
+When Miss Mehitable came back, however, half buried under the mountain
+of bedding, she was greeted by a portentous silence.  Hurrying
+upstairs, she discovered that Araminta had fallen from the ladder and
+was in a white and helpless heap on the floor, while Miss Evelina
+chafed her hands and sprinkled her face with water.
+
+"For the land's sake!" cried Miss Hitty.  "What possessed Minty to go
+and fall off the ladder!  Help me pick her up, Evelina, and we'll lay
+her on the bed in the room we've just cleaned.  She'll come to
+presently.  She ain't hurt."
+
+But Araminta did not "come to."  Miss Mehitable tried everything she
+could think of, and fairly drenched the girl with cold water, without
+avail.
+
+"What did it?" she demanded with some asperity.  "Did she see anything
+that scared her?"
+
+"No," answered Miss Evelina, shrinking farther back into her veil.  "I
+was downstairs and heard her scream, then she fell and I ran up.  It
+was just a minute or two before you came in."
+
+"Well," sighed Miss Hitty, "I suppose we'll have to have a doctor.  You
+fix that bed with the clean things I brought.  It's easy to do it
+without movin' her after the under sheet is on and I'll help you with
+that.  Don't pour any more cold water on her.  If water would have
+brung her to she'd be settin' up by now.  And don't get scared.  Minty
+ain't hurt."
+
+With this comforting assurance, Miss Hitty sped down-stairs, but her
+mind was far from at rest.  At the gate she stopped, suddenly
+confronted by the fact that she could not bring Anthony Dexter to
+Evelina's house.
+
+"What'll I do!" moaned Miss Hitty.  "What'll I do!  Minty'll die if she
+ain't dead now!"
+
+The tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks, but she ran on, as fast as
+her feet would carry her, toward Doctor Dexter's.  "The way'll be
+opened," she thought--"I'm sure it will."
+
+The way was opened in an unexpected fashion, for Doctor Ralph Dexter
+answered Miss Hitty's frantic ring at his door.
+
+"I'd clean forgotten you," she stammered, wholly taken aback.  "I don't
+believe you're anything but a play doctor, but, as things is, I reckon
+you'll have to do."
+
+Doctor Ralph Dexter threw back his head and laughed--a clear, ringing
+boyish laugh which was very good to hear.
+
+"'Play doctor' is good," he said, "when anybody's worked as much like a
+yellow dog as I have.  Anyhow, I'll have to do, for father's not at
+home.  Who's dead?"
+
+"It's Araminta," explained Miss Hitty, already greatly relieved.  "She
+fell off a step-ladder and ain't come to yet."
+
+Doctor Ralph's face grew grave.  "Wait a minute."  He went into the
+office and returned almost immediately.  As luck would have it, the
+doctor's carriage was at the door, waiting for a hurry call.
+
+"Jump in," commanded Doctor Ralph.  "You can tell me about it on the
+way.  Where do we go?"
+
+Miss Hitty issued directions to the driver and climbed in.  In spite of
+her trouble, she was not insensible of the comfort of the cushions nor
+the comparative luxury of the conveyance.  She was also mindful of the
+excitement her presence in the doctor's carriage produced in her
+acquaintances as they rushed past.
+
+By dint of much questioning, Doctor Ralph obtained a full account of
+the accident, all immaterial circumstances being brutally eliminated as
+they cropped up in the course of her speech.  "It's God's own mercy,"
+said Miss Hitty, as they stopped at the gate, "that we'd cleaned that
+room.  We couldn't have got it any cleaner if 't was for a layin' out
+instead of a sickness.  Oh, Ralph," she pleaded, "don't let Minty die!"
+
+"Hush!" said Doctor Ralph, sternly.  He spoke with an authority new to
+Miss Hitty, who, in earlier days, had been wont to drive Ralph out of
+her incipient orchard with a bed slat, sharpened at one end into a
+formidable weapon of offence.
+
+Araminta was still unconscious, but she was undressed, and in bed, clad
+in one of Miss Evelina's dainty but yellowed nightgowns.  Doctor Ralph
+worked with incredible quickness and Miss Hitty watched him, wondering,
+frightened, yet with a certain sneaking confidence in him.
+
+"Fracture of the ankle," he announced, briefly, "and one or two bad
+bruises.  Plaster cast and no moving."
+
+When Araminta returned to consciousness, she thought she was dead and
+had gone to Heaven.  The room was heavy with soothing antiseptic
+odours, and she seemed to be suspended in a vapoury cloud.  On the edge
+of the cloud hovered Miss Evelina, veiled, and Aunt Hitty, who was most
+assuredly crying.  There was a stranger, too, and Araminta gazed at him
+questioningly.
+
+Doctor Ralph's hand, firm and cool, closed over hers.  "Don't you
+remember me, Araminta?" he asked, much as one would speak to a child.
+"The last time I saw you, you were hanging out a basket of clothes.
+The grass was very green and the sky was a bright blue, and the petals
+of apple blossoms were drifting all round your feet.  I called to you,
+and you ran into the house.  Now I've got you where you can't get away."
+
+Araminta's pale cheeks flushed.  She looked pleadingly at Aunt Hitty,
+who had always valiantly defended her from the encroachments of boys
+and men.
+
+"You come downstairs with me, Ralph Dexter," commanded Aunt Hitty.
+"I've got some talking to do to you.  Evelina, you set here with
+Araminta till I get back."
+
+Miss Evelina drew a damp, freshly scrubbed chair to the bedside.  "I
+fell off the step-ladder, didn't I?" asked Araminta, vaguely.
+
+"Yes, dear."  Miss Evelina's voice was very low and sweet.  "You fell,
+but you're all right now.  You're going to stay here until you get
+well.  Aunt Hitty and I are going to take care of you."
+
+In the cobwebbed parlour, meanwhile, Doctor Ralph was in the hands of
+the attorney for the prosecution, who questioned him ceaselessly.
+
+"What's wrong with Minty?"
+
+"Broken ankle."
+
+"How did it happen to get broke?" demanded Miss Hitty, with harshness.
+"I never knew an ankle to get broke by falling off a ladder."
+
+"Any ankle will break," temporised Dr. Ralph, "if it is hurt at the
+right point."
+
+"I wish I could have had your father."
+
+"Father wasn't there," returned Ralph, secretly amused.  "You had to
+take me."
+
+Miss Hitty's face softened.  There were other reasons why she could not
+have had Ralph's father.
+
+"When can Minty go home?"
+
+"Minty can't go home until she's well.  She's got to stay right here."
+
+"If she'd fell in the yard," asked Miss Hitty, peering keenly at him
+over her spectacles, "would she have had to stay in the yard till she
+got well?"
+
+The merest suspicion of a dimple crept into the corner of Doctor
+Ralph's mouth.  His eyes danced, but otherwise his face was very grave.
+"She would," he said, in his best professional manner.  "A shed would
+have had to be built over her."  He fancied that Miss Hitty's constant
+presence might prove disastrous to a nervous patient.  He liked the
+quiet, veiled woman, who obeyed his orders without question.
+
+"How much," demanded Miss Mehitable, "is it going to cost?"
+
+"I don't know," answered Ralph, honestly.  "I'll have to come every day
+for a long time--perhaps twice a day," he added, remembering the curve
+of Araminta's cheek and her long, dark lashes.
+
+Miss Hitty made an indescribable sound.  Pain, fear, disbelief, and
+contempt were all mingled in it.
+
+"Don't worry," said Ralph, kindly.  "You know doctoring sometimes comes
+by wholesale."
+
+Miss Hitty's relief was instantaneous and evident.  "There's regular
+prices, I suppose," she said.  "Broken toe, broken ankle, broken
+leg--each one so much.  Is that it?"
+
+Doctor Ralph was seized with a violent fit of coughing.
+
+"How much is ankles?" demanded his inquisitor.
+
+"I'll leave that all to you, Miss Hitty," said Ralph, when he recovered
+his composure.  "You can pay me whatever you think is right."
+
+"I shouldn't pay you anything I didn't think was right," she returned,
+sharply, "unless I was made to by law.  As long as you've got to come
+every day for a spell, and mebbe twice, I'll give you five dollars the
+day Minty walks again.  If that won't do, I'll get the doctor over to
+the Ridge."
+
+Doctor Ralph coughed so hard that he was obliged to cover his face with
+his handkerchief.  "I should think," said Miss Mehitable, "that if you
+were as good a doctor as you pretend to be, you'd cure your own
+coughin' spells.  First thing you know, you'll be running into quick
+consumption.  Will five dollars do?"
+
+Ralph bowed, but his face was very red and he appeared to be struggling
+with some secret emotion.  "I couldn't think of taking as much as five
+dollars, Miss Hitty," he said, gallantly.  "I should not have ventured
+to suggest over four and a half."
+
+"He's cheaper than his father," thought Miss Hitty, quickly suspicious.
+"That's because he ain't as good a doctor."
+
+"Four and a half, then," she said aloud.  "Is it a bargain?"
+
+"It is," said Ralph, "and I'll take the best possible care of Araminta.
+Shake hands on it."  He went out, his shoulders shaking with suppressed
+merriment, and Miss Hitty watched him through the grimy front window.
+
+"Seems sort of decent," she thought, "and not too grasping.   He might
+be real nice if he wasn't a man."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+Ralph's First Case
+
+"Father," said Ralph at breakfast, "I got my first case yesterday."
+
+Anthony Dexter smiled at the tall, straight young fellow who sat
+opposite him.  He did not care about the case but he found endless
+satisfaction in Ralph.
+
+"What was it?" he asked, idly.
+
+"Broken ankle.  I only happened to get it because you were out.  I was
+accused of being a 'play doctor,' but, under the circumstances, I had
+to do."
+
+"Miss Mehitable?" queried Doctor Dexter, with lifted brows.  "I
+wouldn't have thought her ankles could be broken by anything short of
+machinery."
+
+"Guess they couldn't," laughed Ralph.  "Anyhow, they were all right at
+last accounts.  It's Araminta--the pretty little thing who lives with
+the dragon."
+
+"Oh!" There was the merest shade of tenderness in the exclamation.
+"How did it happen?"
+
+"Divesting the circumstance of all irrelevant material," returned
+Ralph, reaching for another crisp roll, "it was like this.  With true
+missionary spirit and in the belief that cleanliness is closely related
+to godliness, Miss Mehitable determined to clean the old house on the
+hill.  The shack has been empty a long time; but now has a tenant--of
+whom more anon.
+
+"Miss Mehitable's own mansion, it seems, has been scrubbed inside and
+out, and painted and varnished and generally torn up, even though it is
+early in the year for such unholy doings.  Having finished her own
+premises, and still having strength in her elbow, and the housecleaning
+microbe being yet on an unchecked rampage through her virtuous system,
+and there being some soap left, Miss Mehitable wanders up to the house
+with her pail.
+
+"Shackled to her, also with a pail, is the helpless Araminta.  Among
+the impedimenta are the Reverend Austin Thorpe and the step-ladder, the
+Reverend Thorpe being, dismissed at the door and allowed to run amuck
+for the day.
+
+"The Penates are duly thrown out of the windows, the veiled chatelaine
+sitting by mute and helpless.  One room is scrubbed till it's so clean
+a fly would fall down in it, and the ministering angel goes back to her
+own spotless residence after bedding.  I believe I didn't understand
+exactly why she went after the bedding, but I can doubtless find out
+the next time I see Miss Mehitable.
+
+"In the absence of the superintendent, Araminta seizes the opportunity
+to fall off the top of the ladder, lighting on her ankle, and fainting
+most completely on the way down.  The rest is history.
+
+"Doctor Dexter being out, his son, perforce, has to serve.  The ankle
+being duly set and the excitement allayed, terms are made in private
+with the 'play doctor.'  How much, Father, do you suppose I am to be
+paid the day Araminta walks again?"
+
+Doctor Dexter dismissed the question.  "Couldn't guess," he grunted.
+
+"Four and a half," said Ralph, proudly.
+
+"Hundred?" asked Doctor Dexter, with a gleam of interest.  "You must
+have imbibed high notions at college."
+
+"Hundred!" shouted Ralph, "Heavens, no!  Four dollars and a half!  Four
+dollars and fifty cents, marked down from five for this day only.
+Special remnant sale of repaired ankles!"  The boy literally doubled
+himself in his merriment.
+
+"You bloated bondholder," said his father, fondly.  "Don't be
+extravagant with it."
+
+"I won't," returned Ralph, between gasps.  "I thought I'd put some of
+it into unincumbered real estate and loan the rest on good security at
+five per cent."
+
+Into the lonely house Ralph's laughter came like the embodied spirit of
+Youth.  It searched out the hidden corners, illuminated the shadows,
+stirred the silences to music.  A sunbeam danced on the stair, where,
+according to Doctor Dexter's recollection, no sunbeam had ever dared to
+dance before.  Ah, it, was good to have the boy at home!
+
+"Miss Mehitable," observed Doctor Dexter, after a pause, "is like the
+poor--always with us.  I seldom get to a patient who is really in
+danger before she does.  She seems to have secret wires stretched all
+over the country and she has the clinical history of the neighbourhood
+at her tongue's end.  What's more, she distributes it, continually,
+painstakingly, untiringly.  Every detail of every case I have charge of
+is spread broadcast, by Miss Mehitable.  I'd have a bad reputation,
+professionally, if so much about my patients was generally known
+anywhere else."
+
+"Is she a good nurse?" asked Ralph.
+
+"According to her light, yes; but she isn't willing to work on
+recognised lines.  She'll dose my patients with roots and herbs of her
+own concocting if she gets a chance, and proudly claim credit for the
+cure.  If the patient dies, everybody blames me.  I can't sit by a case
+of measles and keep Miss Mehitable from throwing sassafras tea into it
+more than ten hours at a stretch."
+
+"Why don't you talk to her?" queried Ralph.
+
+"Talk to her!" snorted Doctor Dexter.  "Do you suppose I haven't
+ruptured my vocal cords more than once?  I might just as well put my
+head out of the front window and whisper it as to talk to her."
+
+"She won't monkey with my case," said Ralph.  His mouth was firmly set.
+
+"Won't she?" parried Doctor Dexter, sarcastically.  "You go up there
+and see if the cast isn't off and the fracture being fomented with
+pennyroyal tea or some such mess."
+
+"I always had an impression," said Ralph, thoughtfully, "that people
+were afraid of you."
+
+"They are," grunted Doctor Dexter, "but Miss Mehitable isn't 'people.'
+She goes by herself, and isn't afraid of man or devil.  If I had horns
+and a barbed tail and breathed smoke, I couldn't scare her.  The
+patient's family, being more afraid of her than of me, invariably give
+her free access to the sick-room."
+
+"I don't want her to worry Araminta," said Ralph.
+
+"If you don't want Araminta worried," replied Doctor Dexter,
+conclusively, "you'd better put a few things into your suit case, and
+move up there until she walks."
+
+"All right," said Ralph.  "I'm here to rout your malign influence.
+It's me to sit by Araminta's crib and scare the old girl off.  I'll bet
+I can fix her."
+
+"If you can," returned Doctor Dexter, "you are considerably more
+intelligent than I take you to be."
+
+With the welfare of his young patient very earnestly at heart, Ralph
+went up the hill.  Miss Evelina admitted him, and Ralph drew her into
+the dusty parlour.  "Can you take care of anybody?" he inquired,
+without preliminary.  "Can you follow directions?"
+
+"I--think so."
+
+"Then," Ralph went on, "I turn Araminta over to you.  Miss Mehitable
+has nothing to do with the case from this moment.  Araminta is in your
+care and mine.   You take directions from me and from nobody else.  Do
+you understand?"
+
+"Yes," whispered Miss Evelina, "but Mehitable won't--won't let me."
+
+"Won't let you nothing," said Ralph, scornfully.  "She's to be kept
+out."
+
+"She--she--" stammered Miss Evelina, "she's up there now."
+
+Ralph started upstairs.  Half-way up, he heard the murmur of voices,
+and went up more quietly.  He stepped lightly along the hall and stood
+just outside Araminta's door, shamelessly listening.
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said an indignant feminine
+voice.  "The idea of a big girl like you not bein' able to stand on a
+ladder without fallin' off.  It's your mother's foolishness cropping
+out in you, after all I've done for you.  I've stood on ladders all my
+life and never so much as slipped.  I believe you did it a purpose,
+though what you thought you'd get for doin' it puzzles me some.  P'raps
+you thought you'd get out of the housecleanin' but you won't.  When it
+comes time for the Fall cleanin,' you'll do every stroke yourself, to
+pay for all this trouble and expense.  Do you know what it's costin'?
+Four dollars and a half of good money!  I should think you'd be
+ashamed!"
+
+"But, Aunt Hitty--" began the girl, pleadingly.
+
+"Stop!  Don't you 'Aunt Hitty' me," continued the angry voice.  "You
+needn't tell me you didn't fall off that ladder a purpose.  Four
+dollars and a half and all the trouble besides!  I hope you'll think of
+that while you're laying here like a lady and your poor old aunt is
+slavin' for you, workin' her fingers to the bone."
+
+"If I can ever get the four dollars and a half," cried Araminta, with
+tears in her voice, "I will give it back to you--oh, indeed I will!"
+
+At this point, Doctor Ralph Dexter entered the room, his eyes snapping
+dangerously.
+
+"Miss Mehitable," he said with forced calmness, "will you kindly come
+downstairs a moment?  I wish to speak to you."
+
+Dazed and startled, Miss Mehitable rose from her chair and followed
+him.  There was in Ralph's voice a quality which literally compelled
+obedience.  He drew her into the dusty parlour and closed all the doors
+carefully.  Miss Evelina was nowhere to be seen.
+
+"I was standing in the hall," said Ralph, coolly, "and I heard every
+word you said to that poor, helpless child.  You ought to know, if you
+know anything at all, that nobody ever fell off a step-ladder on
+purpose.  She's hurt, and she's badly hurt, and she's not in any way to
+blame for it, and I positively forbid you ever to enter that room
+again."
+
+"Forbid!" bristled Aunt Hitty.  "Who are you?" she demanded
+sarcastically, "to 'forbid' me from nursing my own niece!"
+
+"I am the attending physician," returned Ralph, calmly.  "It is my
+case, and nobody else is going to manage it.  I have already arranged
+with--the lady who lives here--to take care of Araminta, and----"
+
+"Arrange no such thing," interrupted Miss Hitty, violently.  Her temper
+was getting away from her.
+
+"One moment," interrupted Ralph.  "If I hear of your entering that room
+again before I say Araminta is cured, I will charge you just exactly
+one hundred dollars for my services, and collect it by law."
+
+Miss Hitty's lower jaw dropped, her strong, body shook.  She gazed at
+Ralph as one might look at an intimate friend gone suddenly daft.  She
+had heard of people who lost their reason without warning.  Was it
+possible that she was in the room with a lunatic?
+
+She edged toward the door, keeping her eyes on Ralph.
+
+He anticipated her, and opened it with a polite flourish.  "Remember,"
+he warned her.  "One step into Araminta's room, one word addressed to
+her, and it costs you just exactly one hundred dollars."  He opened the
+other door and pointed suggestively down the hill, She lost no time in
+obeying the gesture, but scudded down the road as though His Satanic
+Majesty himself was in her wake.
+
+Ralph laughed to himself all the way upstairs but in the hall he paused
+and his face grew grave again.  From Araminta's room came the sound of
+sobbing.
+
+She did not see him enter, for her face was hidden in her pillow.
+"Araminta!" said Ralph, tenderly, "You poor child."
+
+Touched by the unexpected sympathy, Araminta raised her head to look at
+him.  "Oh Doctor--" she began,
+
+"Doctor Ralph," said the young man, sitting down on the bed beside her.
+"My father is Doctor Dexter and I am Doctor Ralph."
+
+"I'm ashamed of myself for being such a baby," sobbed Araminta.  "I
+didn't mean to cry."
+
+"You're not a baby at all," said Doctor Ralph, soothingly, taking her
+hot hand in his.  "You're hurt, and you've been bothered, and if you
+want to cry, you can.  Here's my handkerchief."
+
+After a little, her sobs ceased.  Doctor Ralph still sat there,
+regarding her with a sort of questioning tenderness which was entirely
+outside of Araminta's brief experience.
+
+"You're not to be bothered any more," he said.  "I've seen your aunt,
+and she's not to set foot in this room again until you get well.  If
+she even speaks to you from the hall, you're to tell me."
+
+Araminta gazed at him, wide-eyed and troubled.  "I can't take care of
+myself," she said, with a pathetic little smile.
+
+"You're not going to.  The lady who lives here is going to take care of
+you."
+
+"Miss Evelina?  She got burned because she was bad and she has to wear
+a veil all the time."
+
+"How was she bad?" asked Ralph.
+
+"I don't just know," whispered Araminta, cautiously.  "Aunt Hitty
+didn't know, or else she wouldn't tell me, but she was bad.  She went
+to a man's house.  She----"
+
+Then Araminta remembered that it was Doctor Dexter's house to which
+Miss Evelina had gone.  In shame and terror, she hid her face again.
+
+"I don't believe anybody ever got burned just for being bad," Ralph was
+saying, "but your face is hot and I'm going to cool it for you."
+
+He brought a bowl of cold water, and with his handkerchief bathed
+Araminta's flushed face and her hot hands.  "Doesn't that feel good?"
+he asked, when the traces of tears had been practically removed.
+
+"Yes," sighed Araminta, gratefully, "but I've always washed my own face
+before.  I saw a cat once," she continued.  "He was washing his
+children's faces."
+
+"Must have been a lady cat," observed Ralph, with a smile.
+
+"The little cats," pursued Araminta, "looked to be very soft.  I think
+they liked it."
+
+"They are soft," admitted Ralph.  "Don't you think so?"
+
+"I don't know.  I never had a little cat."
+
+"Never had a kitten?" cried Ralph.  "You poor, defrauded child!  What
+kind of a kitten would you like best?"
+
+"A little grey cat," said Araminta, seriously, "a little grey cat with
+blue eyes, but Aunt Hitty would never let me have one."
+
+"See here," said Ralph.  "Aunt Hitty isn't running this show.  I'm
+stage manager and ticket taker and advance man and everything else, all
+rolled into one.  I can't promise positively, because I'm not posted on
+the cat supply around here, but if I can find one, you shall have a
+grey kitten with blue eyes, and you shall have some kind of a kitten,
+anyhow."
+
+"Oh!" cried Araminta, her eyes shining.  "Truly?"
+
+"Truly," nodded Ralph.
+
+"Would--would--" hesitated Araminta--"would it be any more than four
+dollars and a half if you brought me the little cat?  Because if it is,
+I can't----"
+
+"It wouldn't," interrupted Ralph.  "On any bill over a dollar and a
+quarter, I always throw in a kitten.  Didn't you know that?"
+
+"No," answered Araminta, with a happy little laugh.  How kind he was,
+eyen though he was a man!  Perhaps, if he knew how wicked her mother
+had been, he would not be so kind to her.  The stern Puritan conscience
+rose up and demanded explanation.
+
+"I--I--must tell you," she said, "before you bring me the little cat.
+My mother--she--" here Araminta turned her crimson face away.  She
+swallowed a lump in her throat, then said, bravely: "My mother was
+married!"
+
+Doctor Ralph Dexter laughed--a deep, hearty, boyish laugh that rang
+cheerfully through the empty house.  "I'll tell you something," he
+said.  He leaned over and whispered in her ear; "So was mine!"
+
+Araminta's tell-tale face betrayed her relief.  He knew the worst
+now--and he was similarly branded.  His mother, too, had been an
+outcast, beyond Aunt Hitty's pale.  There was comfort in the thought,
+though Araminta had been taught not to rejoice at another's misfortune.
+
+Ralph strolled off down the hill, his hands in his pockets, for the
+moment totally forgetting the promised kitten.  "The little saint," he
+mused, "she's been kept in a cage all her life.  She doesn't know
+anything except what the dragon has taught her.  She looks at life with
+the dragon's sidewise squint.  I'll open the door for her," he
+continued, mentally, "for I think she's worth saving.  Hope to Moses
+and the prophets I don't forget that cat."
+
+No suspicion that he could forget penetrated Araminta's consciousness.
+It had been pleasant to have Doctor Ralph sit there and wash her face,
+talking to her meanwhile, even though he was a man, and men were
+poison.  Like a strong, sure bond between them, Araminta felt their
+common disgrace.
+
+"His mother was married," she thought, drowsily, "and so was mine.
+Neither of them knew any better.  Oh, Lord," prayed Araminta, with
+renewed vigour, "keep me from the contamination of marriage, for Thy
+sake.  Amen."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+The Loose Link
+
+Seated primly on a chair in Miss Evelina's kitchen, Miss Mehitable gave
+a full account of her sentiments toward Doctor Ralph Dexter.  She began
+with his birth and remarked that he was a puny infant, and, for a time,
+it was feared that he was "light headed."
+
+"He got his senses after a while, though," she continued, grudgingly,
+"that is, such as they are."
+
+She proceeded through his school-days, repeated unflattering opinions
+which his teachers had expressed to her, gave an elaborate description
+of the conflict that ensued when she caught him stealing green apples
+from her incipient, though highly promising, orchard, alluded darkly to
+his tendency to fight with his schoolmates, suggested that certain
+thefts of chickens ten years and more ago could, if the truth were
+known, safely be attributed to Ralph Dexter, and speculated upon the
+trials and tribulations a scapegrace son might cause an upright and
+respected father.
+
+All the dead and buried crimes of the small boys of the village were
+excavated from the past and charged to Ralph Dexter.  Miss Mehitable
+brought the record fully up to the time he left Rushton for college,
+having been prepared for entrance by his father.  Then she began with
+Araminta.
+
+First upon the schedule were Miss Mehitable's painful emotions when
+Barbara Smith had married Henry Lee.  She croaked anew all her
+raven-like prophecies of misfortune which had added excitement to the
+wedding, and brought forth the birth of Araminta in full proof.  Full
+details of Barbara's death were given, and the highly magnified events
+which had led to her adoption of the child.  Condescending for a moment
+to speak of the domestic virtues, Miss Mehitable explained, with proper
+pride, how she had "brought up" Araminta.  The child had been kept
+close at the side of her guardian angel, never had been to school, had
+been carefully taught at home, had not been allowed to play with other
+children; in short, save at extremely rare intervals, Araminta had seen
+no one unless in the watchful presence of her counsellor.
+
+"And if you don't think that's work," observed Miss Hitty, piously,
+"you just keep tied to one person for almost nineteen years, day and
+night, never lettin' 'em out of your sight, and layin' the foundation
+of their manners and morals and education, and see how you'll feel when
+a blackmailing sprig of a play-doctor threatens to collect a hundred
+dollars from you if you dast to nurse your own niece!"
+
+Miss Evelina, silent as always, was moving restlessly about the
+kitchen.  Unaccustomed since her girlhood to activity of any
+description, she found her new tasks hard.  Muscles, long unused, ached
+miserably from exertion.  Yet Araminta had to be taken care of and her
+room kept clean.
+
+The daily visits of Doctor Ralph, who was almost painfully neat, had
+made Miss Evelina ashamed of her house, though he had not appeared to
+notice that anything was wrong.  She avoided him when she could, but it
+was not always possible, for directions had to be given and reports
+made.  Miss Evelina never looked at him directly.  One look into his
+eyes, so like his father's, had made her so faint that she would have
+fallen, had not Doctor Ralph steadied her with his strong arm.
+
+To her, he was Anthony Dexter in the days of his youth, though she
+continually wondered to find it so.  She remembered a story she had
+read, a long time ago, of a young woman who lost her husband of a few
+weeks in a singularly pathetic manner.  In exploring a mountain, he
+fell into a crevasse, and his body could not be recovered.  Scientists
+calculated that, at the rate the glacier was moving, his body might be
+expected to appear at the foot of the mountain in about twenty-three
+years; so, grimly, the young bride set herself to wait.
+
+At the appointed time, the glacier gave up its dead, in perfect
+preservation, owing to the intense cold.  But the woman who had waited
+for her husband thus was twenty-three years older; she had aged, and he
+was still young.  In some such way had Anthony Dexter come back to her;
+eager, boyish, knowing none of life except its joy, while she, a
+quarter of a century older, had borne incredible griefs, been wasted by
+long vigils, and now stood, desolate, at the tomb of a love which was
+not dead, but continually tore at its winding sheet and prayed for
+release.
+
+To Evelina, at times, the past twenty-five years seemed like a long
+nightmare.  This was Anthony Dexter--this boy with the quick, light
+step, the ringing laugh, the broad shoulders and clear, true eyes.  No
+terror lay between them, all was straight and right; yet the
+realisation still enshrouded her like a black cloud.
+
+"And," said Miss Hitty, mournfully, "after ail my patience and hard
+work in bringing up Araminta as a lady should be brought up, and having
+taught her to beware of men and even of boys, she's took away from me
+when she's sick, and nobody allowed to see her except a blackmailing
+play-doctor, who is putting Heaven knows what devilment into her head.
+I suppose there's nothing to prevent me from finishing the
+housecleaning, if I don't speak to my own niece as I pass her door?"
+
+She spoke inquiringly, but Miss Evelina did not reply.
+
+"Most folks," continued Miss Hitty, with asperity, "is pleased enough
+to have their houses cleaned for 'em to say 'thank you,' but I'm some
+accustomed to ingratitude.  What I do now in the way of cleanin' will
+be payin' for the nursin' of Araminta."
+
+Still Miss Evelina did not answer, her thoughts being far away.
+
+"Maybe I did speak cross to Minty," admitted Miss Hitty, grudgingly,
+"at a time when I had no business to.  If I did, I'm willin' to tell
+her so, but not that blackmailing play-doctor with a hundred-dollar
+bill for a club.  I was clean out of patience with Minty for falling
+off the ladder, but I guess, as he says, she didn't go for to do it.
+'T ain't in reason for folks to step off ladders or out of windows
+unless they're walkin' in their sleep, and I've never let Minty sleep
+in the daytime."
+
+Unceasingly, Miss Mehitable prattled on.  Reminiscence, anecdote, and
+philosophical observations succeeded one another with startling
+rapidity, ending always in vituperation and epithet directed toward
+Araminta's physician.  Dark allusions to the base ingratitude of
+everybody with whom Miss Hitty had ever been concerned alternately
+cumbered her speech.  At length the persistent sound wore upon Miss
+Evelina, much as the vibration of sound may distress one totally deaf.
+
+The kitchen door was open and Miss Evelina went outdoors.  Miss
+Mehitable continued to converse, then shortly perceived that she was
+alone.  "Well, I never!" she gasped.  "Guess I'll go home!"
+
+Her back was very stiff and straight when she marched downhill, firmly
+determined to abandon Evelina, scorn Doctor Ralph Dexter, and leave
+Araminta to her well-deserved fate.  One thought and one only
+illuminated her gloom.  "He ain't got his four dollars and a half,
+yet," she chuckled, craftily.  "Mebbe he'll get it and mebbe he won't.
+We'll see."
+
+While straying about the garden.  Miss Evelina saw her unwelcome guest
+take her militant departure, and reproached herself for her lack of
+hospitality.  Miss Mehitable had been very kind to her and deserved
+only kindness in return.  She had acted upon impulse and was ashamed.
+
+Miss Evelina meditated calling her back, but the long years of
+self-effacement and inactivity had left her inert, with capacity only
+for suffering.  That very suffering to which she had become accustomed
+had of late assumed fresh phases.  She was hurt continually in new
+ways, yet, after the first shock of returning to her old home, not so
+much as she had expected.  It is a way of life, and one of its inmost
+compensations--this finding of a reality so much easier than our fears.
+
+April had come over the hills, singing, with a tinkle of rain and a
+rush of warm winds, and yet the Piper had not returned.  His tools were
+in the shed, and the mountain of rubbish was still in the road in front
+of the house.  Half of the garden had not been touched.  On one side of
+the house was the bare brown earth, with tiny green shoots springing up
+through it, and on the other was a twenty-five years' growth of weeds.
+Miss Evelina reflected that the place was not unlike her own life; half
+of it full of promise, a forbidding wreck in the midst of it, and,
+beyond it, desolation, ended only by a stone wall.
+
+"Did you think," asked a cheerful voice at her elbow, "that I was never
+coming back to finish my job?"
+
+Miss Evelina started, and gazed into the round, smiling face of Piper
+Tom, who was accompanied, as always, by his faithful dog.
+
+"'T is not our way," he went on, including the yellow mongrel in the
+pronoun, "to leave undone what we've set our hands and paws to do, eh,
+Laddie?"
+
+He waited a moment, but Miss Evelina did not speak.
+
+"I got some seeds for my garden," he continued, taking bulging parcels
+from the pockets of his short, shaggy coat.  "The year's sorrow is at
+an end."
+
+"Sorrow never comes to an end," she cried, bitterly.
+
+"Doesn't it," he asked.  "How old is yours?"
+
+"Twenty-five years," she answered, choking.  The horror of it was
+pressing heavily upon her.
+
+"Then," said the Piper, very gently, "I'm thinking there is something
+wrong.  No sorrow should last more than a year--'t is written all
+around us so."
+
+"Written?  I have never seen it written."
+
+"No," returned the Piper, kindly, "but 't is because you have not
+looked to see.  Have you ever known a tree that failed to put out its
+green leaves in the Spring, unless it had died from lightning or old
+age?  When a rose blossoms, then goes to sleep, does it wait for more
+than a year before it blooms again?  Is it more than a year from bud to
+bud, from flower to flower, from fruit to fruit?  'T is God's way of
+showing that a year of darkness is enough,--at a time."
+
+The Piper's voice was very tender; the little dog lay still at his
+feet.  She leaned against the crumbling wall, and turned her veiled
+face away.
+
+"'T is not for us to be happy without trying," continued the Piper,
+"any more than it is for a tree to bear fruit without effort.  All the
+beauty and joy in the world are the result of work--work for each other
+and in ourselves.  When you see a butterfly over a field of clover, 't
+is because he has worked to get out of his chrysalis.  He was not
+content to abide within his veil."
+
+"Suppose," said Miss Evelina, in a voice that was scarcely audible,
+"that he couldn't get out?"
+
+"Ah, but he could," answered the Piper.  "We can get out of anything,
+if we try.  I'm not meaning by escape, but by growth.  You put an acorn
+into a crevice in a rock.  It has no wings, it cannot fly out, nobody
+will lift it out.  But it grows, and the oak splits the rock; even
+takes from the rock nourishment for its root."
+
+"People are not like acorns and butterflies," she stammered.  "We are
+not subject to the same laws."
+
+"Why not?" asked the Piper.  "God made us all, and I'm thinking we're
+all brothers, having, in a way, the same Father.  'T is not for me to
+hold myself above Laddie here, though he's a dog and I'm a man.  'T is
+not for me to say that men are better than dogs; that they're more
+honest, more true, more kind.  The seed that I have in my hand, here,
+I'm thinking 't is my brother, too.  If I plant it, water it, and keep
+the weeds away from it, 't will give me back a blossom.  'T is service
+binds us all into the brotherhood."
+
+"Did you never," asked Evelina, thickly, "hear of chains?"
+
+"Aye," said the Piper, "chains of our own making.  'T is like the
+ancient people in one of my ragged books.  When one man killed another,
+they chained the dead man to the living one, so that he was forever
+dragging his own sin.  When he struck the blow, he made his own chain."
+
+"I am chained," cried Evelina, piteously, "but not to my own sin."
+
+"'T is wrong," said the Piper; "I'm thinking there's a loose link
+somewhere that can be slipped off."
+
+"I cannot find it," she sobbed; "I've hunted for it in the dark for
+twenty-five years."
+
+"Poor soul," said the Piper, softly.  "'T is because of the darkness,
+I'm thinking.  From the distaff of Eternity, you take the thread of
+your life, but you're sitting in the night, and God meant you to be a
+spinner in the sun.  When the day breaks for you, you'll be finding the
+loose link to set yourself free."
+
+"When the day breaks," repeated Evelina, in a whisper.  "There is no
+day."
+
+"There is day.  I've come to lead you to it.  We'll find the light
+together and set the thread to going right again."
+
+"Who are you?" cried Evelina, suddenly terror stricken.
+
+The Piper laughed, a low, deep friendly laugh.  Then he doffed his grey
+hat and bowed, sweeping the earth with the red feather, in cavalier
+fashion.  "Tom Barnaby, at your service, but most folks call me Piper
+Tom.  'T is the flute, you know," he continued in explanation, "that
+I'm forever playing on in the woods, having no knowledge of the
+instrument, but sort of liking the sound."
+
+Miss Evelina turned and went into the house, shaken to her inmost soul.
+More than ever, she felt the chains that bound her.  Straining against
+her bonds, she felt them cutting deep into her flesh.  Anthony Dexter
+had bound her; he alone could set her free.  From this there seemed no
+possible appeal.
+
+Meanwhile the Piper mowed down the weeds in the garden, whistling
+cheerily.  He burned the rubbish in the road, and the smoke made a blue
+haze on the hill.  He spaded and raked and found new stones for the
+broken wall, and kept up a constant conversation with the dog.
+
+It was twilight long before he got ready to make the flower beds, so he
+carried the tools back into the shed and safely stored away the seeds.
+Miss Evelina watched him from the grimy front window as he started
+downhill, but he did not once look back.
+
+There was something jaunty in the Piper's manner, aside from the
+drooping red feather which bobbed rakishly as he went home, whistling.
+When he was no longer to be seen, Miss Evelina sighed.  Something
+seemed to have gone out of her life, like a sunbeam which has suddenly
+faded.  In a safe shadow of the house, she raised her veil, and wiped
+away a tear.
+
+When out of sight and hearing, the Piper stopped his whistling.  "'T is
+no need to be cheerful, Laddie," he explained to the dog, "when there's
+none to be saddened if you're not.  We don't know about the loose link,
+and perhaps we can never find it, but we're going to try.  We'll take
+off the chain and put the poor soul in the sun again before we go away,
+if we can learn how to do it, but I'm thinking 't is a heavy chain and
+the sun has long since ceased to shine."
+
+After supper, he lighted a candle and absorbed himself in going over
+his stock.  He had made a few purchases in the city and it took some
+time to arrange them properly.
+
+Last of all, he took out a box and opened it.  He held up to the
+flickering light length after length of misty white chiffon--a fabric
+which the Piper had never bought before.
+
+"'T is expensive, Laddie," he said; "so expensive that neither of us
+will taste meat again for more than a week, though we walked both ways,
+but I'm thinking she'll need more sometime and there was none to be had
+here.  We'll not be in the way of charging for it since her gown is
+shabby and her shoes are worn."
+
+Twilight deepened into night and still the Piper sat there, handling
+the chiffon curiously and yet with reverence.  It was silky to his
+touch, filmy, cloud-like.  He folded it into small compass, and crushed
+it in his hands, much surprised to find that it did not crumple.  All
+the meaning of chiffon communicated itself to him--the lightness and
+the laughter, the beauty and the love.  Roses and moonlight seemed to
+belong with it, youth and a singing heart.
+
+"'T is a rare stuff, I'm thinking, Laddie," he said, at length, not
+noting that the dog was asleep.  "'T is a rare, fine stuff, and well
+suited to her wearing, because she is so beautiful that she hides her
+face."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+A Grey Kitten
+
+With her mouth firmly set, and assuming the air of a martyr trying to
+make himself a little more comfortable against the stake, Miss
+Mehitable climbed the hill.  In her capable hands were the implements
+of warfare--pails, yellow soap, and rags.  She carried a mop on her
+shoulder as a regular carries a gun.
+
+"Havin' said I would clean house, I will clean house," she mused, "in
+spite of all the ingratitude and not listenin'.  'T won't take long,
+and it'll do my heart good to see the place clean again.  Evelina's got
+no gumption about a house--never did have.  I s'pose she thinks it's
+clean just because she's swept it and brushed down the cobwebs, but it
+needs more 'n a broom to take out twenty-five years' dirt."
+
+Her militant demeanour was somewhat chastened when she presented
+herself at the house.  When the door was opened, she brushed past Miss
+Evelina with a muttered explanation, and made straight for the kitchen
+stove.  She heated a huge kettle of water, filled her pail, and then,
+for the first time, spoke.
+
+"I've come to finish cleanin' as I promised I would, and I hope it'll
+offset your nursin' of Minty.  And if that blackmailing play-doctor
+comes while I'm at work, you can tell him that I ain't speakin' to
+Minty from the hall, nor settin' foot in her room, and that he needn't
+be in any hurry to make out his bill, 'cause I'm goin' to take my time
+about payin' it."
+
+She went upstairs briskly, and presently the clatter of moving
+furniture fairly shook the house over Miss Evelina's head.  It sounded
+as if Miss Mehitable did not know there was an invalid in the house,
+and found distinct pleasure in making unnecessary noise.  The quick,
+regular strokes of the scrubbing brush swished through the hall.
+Resentment inspired the ministering influence to speed.
+
+But it was not in Miss Hitty's nature to cherish her wrath long, while
+the incense of yellow soap was in her nostrils and the pleasing foam of
+suds was everywhere in sight.
+
+Presently she began to sing, in a high, cracked voice which wavered
+continually off the key.  She went through her repertory of hymns with
+conscientious thoroughness.  Then a bright idea came to her.
+
+"There wa'n't nothin' said about singin'," she said to herself.  "I
+wa'n't to speak to Minty from the hall, nor set foot into her room.
+But I ain't pledged not to sing in the back room, and I can sing any
+tune I please, and any words.  Reckon Minty can hear."
+
+The moving of the ladder drowned the sound made by the opening of the
+lower door.  Secure upon her height, with her head near the open
+transom of the back room.  Miss Mehitable began to sing.
+
+"Araminta Lee is a bad, un-grate-ful girl," she warbled, to a tune the
+like of which no mortal had ever heard before.  "She fell off of a
+step-lad-der, and sprained her an-kle, and the play-doc-tor said it was
+broke in or-der to get more mon-ey, breaks being more val-u-able than
+sprains.  Araminta Lee is lay-ing in bed like a la-dy, while her poor
+old aunt works her fingers to the bone, to pay for doc-tor's bills and
+nursin'.  Four dollars and a half," she chanted, mournfully, "and
+no-body to pay it but a poor old aunt who has to work her fin-gers to
+the bone.  Four dollars and a half, four dollars and a half--almost
+five dollars.  Araminta thinks she will get out of work by pretending
+to be sick, but it is not so, not so.  Araminta will find out she is
+much mis-taken.  She will do the Fall clean-ing all alone, alone, and
+we do not think there will be any sprained an-kles, nor any four
+dollars--"
+
+Doctor Ralph Dexter appeared in the doorway, his face flaming with
+wrath.  Miss Mehitable continued to sing, apparently unconcerned,
+though her heart pounded violently against her ribs.  By a swift change
+of words and music, she was singing "Rock of Ages," as any woman is
+privileged to do, when cleaning house, or at any other time.
+
+But the young man still stood there, his angry eyes fixed upon her.
+The scrutiny made Miss Mehitable uncomfortable, and at length she
+descended from the ladder, still singing, ostensibly to refill her pail.
+
+"Let me hide--" warbled Miss Hitty, tremulously, attempting to leave
+the room.
+
+Doctor Ralph effectually barred the way.  "I should think you'd want to
+hide," he said, scornfully.  "If I hear of anything; like this again,
+I'll send in that bill I told you of.  I know a lawyer who can collect
+it."
+
+"If you do," commented Miss Mehitable, ironically, "you know more 'n I
+do."  She tried to speak with assurance, but her soul was quaking
+within her.  Was it possible that any one knew she had over three
+hundred dollars safely concealed in the attic?
+
+"I mean exactly what I say," continued Ralph.  "If you so much as climb
+these stairs again, you and I will have trouble,"
+
+Sniffing disdainfully, Miss Mehitable went down into the kitchen, no
+longer singing.  "You'll have to finish your own cleanin'," she said to
+Miss Evelina.  "That blackmailing play-doctor thinks it ain't good for
+my health to climb ladders.  He's afraid I'll fall off same as Minty
+did and he hesitates to take more of my money."
+
+"I'd much rather you wouldn't do any more," replied Miss Evelina,
+kindly.  "You have been very good to me, ever since I came here, and I
+appreciate it more than I can tell you.  I'm going to clean my own
+house, for, indeed, I'm ashamed of it."
+
+Miss Hitty grunted unintelligibly, gathered up her paraphernalia, and
+prepared to depart.  "When Minty's well," she said, "I'll come back and
+be neighbourly."
+
+"I hope you'll come before that," responded Miss Evelina.  "I shall
+miss you if you don't."
+
+Miss Hitty affected not to hear, but she was mollified, none the less.
+
+From his patient's window, Doctor Ralph observed the enemy in full
+retreat, and laughed gleefully.  "What is funny?" queried Araminta, She
+had been greatly distressed by the recitative in the back bedroom and
+her cheeks were flushed with fever.
+
+"I was just laughing," said Doctor Ralph, "because your aunt has gone
+home and is never coming back here any more."
+
+"Oh, Doctor Ralph!  Isn't she?" There was alarm in Araminta's voice,
+but her grey eyes were shining.
+
+"Never any more," he assured her, in a satisfied tone.  "How long have
+you lived with Aunt Hitty?"
+
+"Ever since I was a baby."
+
+"H--m!  And how old are you now?"
+
+"Almost nineteen."
+
+"Where did you go to school?"
+
+"I didn't go to school.  Aunt Hitty taught me, at home."
+
+"Didn't you ever have anybody to play with?"
+
+"Only Aunt Hitty.  We used to play a quilt game.  I sewed the little
+blocks together, and she made the big ones."
+
+"Must have been highly exciting.  Didn't you ever have a doll?"
+
+"Oh, no!" Araminta's eyes were wide and reproachful now.  "The Bible
+says 'thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.'"
+
+Doctor Ralph sighed deeply, put his hands in his pockets, and paced
+restlessly across Araminta's bare, nun-like chamber.  As though in a
+magic mirror, he saw her nineteen years of deprivation, her cramped and
+narrow childhood, her dense ignorance of life.  No playmates, no
+dolls--nothing but Aunt Hitty.  She had kept Araminta wrapped in cotton
+wool, mentally; shut her out from the world, and persistently shaped
+her toward a monastic ideal.
+
+A child brought up in a convent could have been no more of a nun in
+mind and spirit than Araminta.  Ralph well knew that the stern
+guardianship had not been relaxed a moment, either by night or by day.
+Miss Mehitable had a well-deserved reputation for thoroughness in
+whatever she undertook.
+
+And Araminta was made for love.  Ralph turned to look at her as she lay
+on her pillow, her brown, wavy hair rioting about her flushed face.
+Araminta's great grey eyes were very grave and sweet; her mouth was
+that of a lovable child.  Her little hands were dimpled at the
+knuckles, in fact, as Ralph now noted; there were many dimples
+appertaining to Araminta.
+
+One of them hovered for an instant about the corner of her mouth.  "Why
+must you walk?" she asked.  "Is it because you're glad your ankle isn't
+broken?"
+
+Doctor Ralph came back and sat down on the bed beside her.  He had that
+rare sympathy which is the inestimable gift of the physician, and long
+years of practice had not yet calloused him so that a suffering
+fellow-mortal was merely a "case".  His heart, was dangerously tender
+toward her.
+
+"Lots of things are worse than broken ankles," he assured her.  "Has it
+been so bad to be shut up here, away from Aunt Hitty?"
+
+"No," said the truthful Araminta.  "I have always been with Aunt Hitty,
+and it seems queer, but very nice.  Someway, I feel as if I had grown
+up."
+
+"Has Miss Evelina been good to you?"
+
+"Oh, so good," returned Araminta, gratefully.  "Why?"
+
+"Because," said Ralph, concisely, "if she hadn't been, I'd break her
+neck."
+
+"You couldn't," whispered Araminta, softly, "you're too kind.  You
+wouldn't hurt anybody."
+
+"Not unless I had to.  Sometimes there has to be a little hurt to keep
+away a greater one."
+
+"You hurt me, I think, but I didn't know just when.  It was the smelly,
+sweet stuff, wasn't it?"
+
+Ralph did not heed the question.  He was wondering what would become of
+Araminta when she went back to Miss Mehitable's, as she soon must.  Her
+ankle was healing nicely and in a very short time she would be able to
+walk again.  He could not keep her there much longer.  By a whimsical
+twist of his thought, he perceived that he was endeavouring to wrap
+Araminta in cotton wool of a different sort, to prevent Aunt Hitty from
+wrapping her in her own particular brand.
+
+"The little cat," said Araminta, fondly.  "I thought perhaps it would
+come to-day.  Is it coming when I am well?"
+
+"Holy Moses!" ejaculated Ralph.  He had never thought of the kitten
+again, and the poor child had been waiting patiently, with never a
+word.  The clear grey eyes were upon him, eloquent with belief.
+
+"The little cat," replied Ralph, shamelessly perjuring himself, "was
+not old enough to leave its mother.  We'll have to wait until to-morrow
+or next day.  I was keeping it for a surprise; that's why I didn't say
+anything about it.  I thought you'd forgotten."
+
+"Oh, no!  When I go back home, you know, I can't have it.  Aunt Hitty
+would never let me."
+
+"Won't she?" queried Ralph.  "We'll see!"
+
+He spoke with confidence he was far from feeling, and was dimly aware
+that Araminta had the faith he lacked.  "She thinks I'm a
+wonder-worker," he said to himself, grimly, "and I've got to live up to
+it."
+
+It was not necessary to count Araminta's pulse again, but Doctor Ralph
+took her hand--a childish, dimpled hand that nestled confidingly in his.
+
+"Listen, child," he said; "I want to talk to you.  Your Aunt Hitty
+hasn't done right by you.  She's kept you in cotton when you ought to
+be outdoors.  You should have gone to school and had other children to
+play with."
+
+"And cats?"
+
+"Cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, snakes, mice, pigeons,
+guinea-pigs--everything."
+
+"I was never in cotton," corrected Araminta, "except once, when I had a
+bad cold."
+
+"That isn't just what I mean, but I'm afraid I can't make you
+understand.  There's a whole world full of big, beautiful things that
+you don't know anything about; great sorrows, great joys, and great
+loves.  Look here, did you ever feel badly about anything?"
+
+"Only--only--" stammered Araminta; "my mother, you know.  She was--was
+married."
+
+"Poor child," said Ralph, beginning to comprehend.  "Have you been
+taught that it's wrong to be married?"
+
+"Why, yes," answered Araminta, confidently.  "It's dreadful.  Aunt
+Hitty isn't married, neither is the minister.  It's very, very wrong.
+Aunt Hitty told my mother so, but she would do it."
+
+There was a long pause.  The little warm hand still rested trustingly
+in Ralph's.  "Listen, dear," he began, clearing his throat; "it isn't
+wrong to be married.  I never before in all my life heard of anybody
+who thought it was.  Something is twisted in Aunt Hitty's mind, or else
+she's taught you that because she's so brutally selfish that she
+doesn't want you ever to be married.  Some people, who are unhappy
+themselves, are so constituted that they can't bear to see anybody else
+happy.  She's afraid of life, and she's taught you to be.
+
+"It's better to be unhappy, Araminta, than never to take any risks.  It
+all lies in yourself at last.  If you're a true, loving woman, and
+never let yourself be afraid, nothing very bad can ever happen to you.
+Aunt Hitty has been unjust to deny you life.  You have the right to
+love and learn and suffer, to make great sacrifices, see great
+sacrifices made for you; to believe, to trust--even to be betrayed.
+It's your right, and it's been kept away from you."
+
+Araminta was very still and her hand was cold.  She moved it uneasily.
+
+"Don't, dear," said Ralph, his voice breaking.  "Don't you like to have
+me hold your hand?  I won't, if you don't want me to."
+
+Araminta drew her hand away.  She was frightened.
+
+"I don't wonder you're afraid," continued Ralph, huskily.  "You little
+wild bird, you've been in a cage all your life.  I'm going to open the
+door and set you free."
+
+Miss Evelina tapped gently on the door, then entered, with a bowl of
+broth for the invalid.  She set it down on the table at the head of the
+bed, and went out, as quietly as she had come.
+
+"I'm going to feed you now," laughed Ralph, with a swift change of
+mood, "and when I come to see you to-morrow, I'm going to bring you a
+book."
+
+"What kind of a hook?" asked Araminta, between spoonfuls.
+
+"A novel--a really, truly novel."
+
+"You mustn't!" she cried, frightened again.  "You get burned if you
+read novels."
+
+"Some of them are pretty hot stuff, I'll admit," returned Ralph,
+missing her meaning, "but, of course, I wouldn't give you that kind.
+What sort of stories do you like best?"
+
+"Daniel in the lions' den and about the ark.  I've read all the Bible
+twice to Aunt Hitty while she sewed, and most of the _Pilgrim's
+Progress_, too.  Don't ask me to read a novel, for I can't.  It would
+be wicked."
+
+"All right--we won't call it a novel.  It'll be just a story book.  It
+isn't wrong to read stories, is it?"
+
+"No-o," said Araminta, doubtfully.  "Aunt Hitty never said it was."
+
+"I wouldn't have you do anything wrong, Araminta--you know that.
+Good-bye, now, until to-morrow."
+
+Beset by strange emotions, Doctor Ralph Dexter went home.  Finding that
+the carriage was not in use, he set forth alone upon his feline quest,
+reflecting that Araminta herself was not much more than a little grey
+kitten.  Everywhere he went, he was regarded with suspicion.  People
+denied the possession of cats, even while cats were mewing in defiance
+of the assertion.  Bribes were offered, and sternly refused.
+
+At last, ten miles from home, he found a maltese kitten its owner was
+willing to part with, in consideration of three dollars and a solemn
+promise that the cat was not to be hurt.
+
+"It's for a little girl who is ill," he said.  "I've promised her a
+kitten."
+
+"So your father's often said," responded the woman, "but someway, I
+believe you."
+
+On the way home, he pondered long before the hideous import of it came
+to him.  All at once, he knew.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+The River Comes into its Own
+
+"Father," asked Ralph, "who is Evelina Grey?"
+
+Anthony Dexter started from his chair as though he had heard a pistol
+shot, then settled back, forcing his features into mask-like calmness.
+He waited a moment before speaking.
+
+"I don't know," he answered, trying to make his voice even, "Why?"
+
+"She lives in the house with my one patient," explained Ralph; "up on
+the hill, you know.  She's a frail, ghostly little woman in black, and
+she always wears a thick white veil."
+
+"That's her privilege, isn't it?" queried Anthony Dexter.  He had
+gained control of himself, now, and spoke almost as usual.
+
+"Of course I didn't ask any questions," continued Ralph, thoughtfully,
+"but, obviously, the only reason for her wearing it is some terrible
+disfigurement.  So much is surgically possible in these days that I
+thought something might be done for her.  Has she never consulted you
+about it, Father?"
+
+The man laughed--a hollow, mirthless laugh.  "No," he said; "she
+hasn't."  Then he laughed once more--in a way that jarred upon his son.
+
+Ralph paced back and forth across the room, his hands in his pockets.
+"Father," he began, at length, "it may be because I'm young, but I hold
+before me, very strongly, the ideals of our profession.  It seems a
+very beautiful and wonderful life that is opening before me--always to
+help, to give, to heal.  I--I feel as though I had been dedicated to
+some sacred calling--some lifelong service.  And service means
+brotherhood."
+
+"You'll get over that," returned Anthony Dexter, shortly, yet not
+without a certain secret admiration.  "When you've had to engage a
+lawyer to collect your modest wages for your uplifting work, the healed
+not being sufficiently grateful to pay the healer, and when you've gone
+ten miles in the dead of Winter, at midnight, to take a pin out of a
+squalling infant's back, why, you may change your mind."
+
+"If the healed aren't grateful," observed Ralph, thoughtfully, "it must
+be in some way my fault, or else they haven't fully understood.  And
+I'd go ten miles to take a pin out of a baby's back--yes, I'm sure I
+would."
+
+Anthony Dexter's face softened, almost imperceptibly.  "It's youth," he
+said, "and youth is a fault we all get over soon enough, Heaven knows.
+When you're forty, you'll see that the whole thing is a matter of
+business and that, in the last analysis, we're working against Nature's
+laws.  We endeavour to prolong the lives of the unfit, when only the
+fittest should survive."
+
+"That makes me think of something else," continued Ralph, in a low
+tone.  "Yesterday, I canvassed the township to get a cat for
+Araminta--the poor child never had a kitten.  Nobody would let me have
+one till I got far away from home, and, even then, it was difficult.
+They thought I wanted it for--for the laboratory," he concluded, almost
+in a whisper.
+
+"Yes?" returned Doctor Dexter, with a rising inflection.  "I could have
+told you that the cat and dog supply was somewhat depleted
+hereabouts--through my own experiments."
+
+"Father!" cried Ralph, his face eloquent with reproach.
+
+Laughing, yet secretly ashamed, Anthony Dexter began to speak.
+"Surely, Ralph," he said, "you're not so womanish as that.  If I'd
+known they taught such stuff as that at my old Alma Mater, I'd have
+sent you somewhere else.  Who's doing it?  What old maid have they
+added to their faculty?"
+
+"Oh, I know, Father," interrupted Ralph, waiving discussion.  "I've
+heard all the arguments, but, unfortunately, I have a heart.  I don't
+know by what right we assume that human life is more precious than
+animal life; by what right we torture and murder the fit in order to
+prolong the lives of the unfit, even if direct evidence were obtainable
+in every case, which it isn't.  Anyhow, I can't do it, I never have
+done it, and I never will.  I recognise your individual right to shape
+your life in accordance with the dictates of your own conscience, but,
+because I'm your son, I can't help being ashamed.  A man capable of
+torturing an animal, no matter for what purpose, is also capable of
+torturing a fellow human being, for purposes of his own."
+
+Anthony Dexter's face suddenly blanched with anger, then grew livid.
+"You--" he began, hotly.
+
+"Don't, Father,"  interrupted Ralph.  "We'll not have any words.  We'll
+not let a difference of opinion on any subject keep us from being
+friends.  Perhaps it's because I'm young, as you say, but, all the time
+I was at college, I felt that I had something to lean on, some standard
+to shape myself to.  Mother died so soon after I was born that it is
+almost as if I had not had a mother.  I haven't even a childish memory
+of her, and, perhaps for that reason, you meant more to me than the
+other fellows' fathers did to them.
+
+"When I was tempted to any wrongdoing, the thought of you always held
+me back.  'Father wouldn't do it,' I said to myself.  'Father always
+does the square thing, and I'm his son.'  I remembered that our name
+means 'right.'  So I never did it."
+
+"And I suppose, now," commented Anthony Dexter, with assumed sarcasm,
+"your idol has fallen?"
+
+"Not fallen, Father.  Don't say that.  You have the same right to your
+opinions that I have, but it isn't square to cut up an animal alive,
+just because you're the stronger and there's no law to prevent you.
+You know it isn't square!"
+
+In the accusing silence, Ralph left the room, and was shortly on his
+way uphill, with Araminta's promised cat mewing in his coat pocket.
+
+The grim, sardonic humour of the situation appealed strongly to Doctor
+Dexter.  "To think," he said to himself, "that only last night, that
+identical cat was observed as a fresh and promising specimen,
+providentially sent to me in the hour of need.  And if I hadn't wanted
+Ralph to help me, Araminta's pet would at this moment have been on the
+laboratory table, having its heart studied--in action."
+
+Repeatedly, he strove to find justification for a pursuit which his
+human instinct told him had no justification.  His reason was fully
+adequate, but something else failed at the crucial point.  He felt
+definitely uncomfortable and wished that Ralph might have avoided the
+subject.  It was none of his business, anyway.  But then, Ralph himself
+had admitted that.
+
+His experiments were nearly completed along the line in which he had
+been working.  In deference to a local sentiment which he felt to be
+extremely narrow and dwarfing, he had done his work secretly.  He had
+kept the door of the laboratory locked and the key in his pocket.  All
+the doors and windows had been closely barred.  When his subjects had
+given out under the heavy physical strain, he had buried the pitiful
+little bodies himself.
+
+He had counted, rather too surely, on the deafness of his old
+housekeeper, and had also heavily discounted her personal interest in
+his pursuits and her tendency to gossip.  Yet, through this single
+channel had been disseminated information and conjecture which made it
+difficult for Ralph to buy a pet for Araminta.
+
+Anthony Dexter shuddered at his narrow escape.  Suppose Araminta's cat
+had been sacrificed, and he had been obliged to tell Ralph?  One more
+experiment was absolutely necessary.  He was nearly satisfied, but not
+quite.  It would be awkward to have Ralph make any unpleasant
+discoveries, and he could not very well keep him out of the laboratory,
+now, without arousing his suspicion.  Very possibly, a man who would
+torture an animal would also torture a human being, but he was
+unwilling to hurt Ralph.  Consequently, there was a flaw in the
+logic--the boy's reasoning was faulty, unless this might be the
+exception which proved the rule.
+
+Who was Evelina Grey?  He wondered how Ralph had come to ask the
+question.  Suppose he had told him that Evelina Grey was the name of a
+woman who haunted him, night and day!  In her black gown and with her
+burned face heavily veiled, she was seldom out of his mental sight.
+
+All through the past twenty-five years, he had continually told himself
+that he had forgotten.  When the accusing thought presented itself, he
+had invariably pushed it aside, and compelled it to give way to
+another.  In this way, he had acquired an emotional control for which
+he, personally, had great admiration, not observing that his admiration
+of himself was an emotion, and, at that, less creditable than some
+others might have been.
+
+Man walls up a river, and commands it to do his bidding.  Outwardly,
+the river assents to the arrangement, yielding to it with a readiness
+which, in itself, is suspicious, but man, rapt in contemplation of his
+own skill, sees little else.  By night and by day the river leans
+heavily against the dam.  Tiny, sharp currents, like fingers, tear
+constantly at the structure, working always underneath.  Hidden and
+undreamed-of eddies burrow beneath the dam; little river animals
+undermine it, ever so slightly, with tooth and claw.
+
+At last an imperceptible opening is made.  Streams rush down from the
+mountain to join the river; even raindrops lend their individually
+insignificant aid.  All the forces of nature are subtly arrayed against
+the obstruction in the river channel.  Suddenly, with the thunder of
+pent-up waters at last unleashed, the dam breaks, and the structures
+placed in the path by complacent and self-satisfied man are swept on to
+the sea like so much kindling-wood.  The river, at last, has come into
+its own,
+
+A feeling, long controlled, must eventually break its bonds.  Forbidden
+expression, and not spent by expression, it accumulates force.  When
+the dam breaks, the flood is more destructive than the steady, normal
+current ever could have been.  Having denied himself remorse, and
+having refused to meet the fact of his own cowardice, Anthony Dexter
+was now face to face with the inevitable catastrophe.
+
+He told himself that Ralph's coming had begun it, but, in his heart, he
+knew that it was that veiled and ghostly figure standing at twilight in
+the wrecked garden.  He had seen it again on the road, where
+hallucination was less likely, if not altogether impossible.  Then the
+cold and sinuous necklace of discoloured pearls had been laid at his
+door--the pearls which had come first from the depths of the sea, and
+then from the depths of his love.  His love had given up its dead as
+the sea does, maimed past all recognition.
+
+The barrier had been so undermined that on the night of Ralph's return
+he had been on the point of telling Thorpe everything--indeed, nothing
+but Ralph's swift entrance had stopped his impassioned speech.  Was he
+so weak that only a slight accident had kept him from utter
+self-betrayal, after twenty-five years of magnificent control?  Anthony
+Dexter liked that word "magnificent" as it came into his thoughts in
+connection with himself.
+
+"Father wouldn't do it.  Father always does the square thing, and I'm
+his son." Ralph's words returned with a pang unbearably keen.  Had
+Father always done the square thing, or had Father been a coward, a
+despicable shirk?  And what if Ralph should some day come to know?
+
+The man shuddered at the thought of the boy's face--if he knew.  Those
+clear, honest eyes would pierce him through and through, because
+"Father always does the square thing."
+
+Remorsely, the need of confession surged upon him.  There was no
+confessional in his church--he even had no church.  Yet Thorpe was his
+friend.  What would Thorpe tell him to do?
+
+Then Anthony Dexter laughed, for Thorpe had unconsciously told him what
+to do--and he was spared the confession.  As though written in letters
+of fire, the words came back:
+
+
+_The honour of the spoken word still holds him.  He asked her to marry
+him, and she consented.  He was never released from his promise--did
+not even ask for it.  He slunk away like a cur.  In the sight of God he
+is hound to her by his own word still.  He should go to her and either
+fulfil his promise, or ask for release.  The tardy fulfilment of his
+promise would be the only atonement he could make_.
+
+
+Had Evelina come back to demand atonement?  Was this why the vision of
+her confronted him everywhere?  She waited for him on the road in
+daylight, mocked him from the shadows, darted to meet him from every
+tree.  She followed him on the long and lonely ways he took to escape
+her, and, as he walked, her step chimed in with his.
+
+In darkness, Anthony Dexter feared to turn suddenly, lest he see that
+black, veiled figure at his heels.  She stood aside on the stairs to
+let him pass her, entered the carriage with him and sat opposite, her
+veiled face averted.  She stood with him beside the sick-bed, listened,
+with him, to the heart-beats when he used the stethoscope, waited while
+he counted the pulse and measured the respiration.
+
+Always disapprovingly, she stood in the background of his
+consciousness.  When he wrote a prescription, his pencil seemed to
+catch on the white chiffon which veiled the paper he was using.  At
+night, she stood beside his bed, waiting.  In his sleep, most often
+secured in these days by drugs, she steadfastly and unfailingly came.
+She spoke no word; she simply followed him, veiled--and the phantom
+presence was driving him mad.  He admitted it now.
+
+And "Father always does the square thing."  Very well, what was the
+square thing?  If Father always does it, he will do it now.  What is it?
+
+Anthony Dexter did not know that he asked the question aloud.  From the
+silence vibrated the answer in Thorpe's low, resonant tones:
+
+_The honour of the spoken word still holds him . . .  he was never
+released . . .  he slunk away like a cur . . . in the sight of God he
+is bound to her by his own word still_.
+
+Bound to her!  In every fibre of his being he felt the bitter truth.
+He was bound to her--had been bound for twenty-five years--was bound
+now.  And "Father always does the square thing."
+
+Once in a man's life, perhaps, he sees himself as he is.  In a blinding
+flash of insight, he saw what he must do.  Confession must be made, but
+not to any pallid priest in a confessional, not to Thorpe, nor to
+Ralph, but to Evelina, herself.
+
+_He should go to her and either fulfil his promise, or ask for release.
+The tardy fulfilment of his promise would be the only atonement he
+could make_.
+
+Then again, still in Thorpe's voice:
+
+_If the woman is here and you can find your friend, we may help him to
+wash the stain of cowardice off his soul_.
+
+"The stain is deep," muttered Anthony Dexter.  "God knows it is deep."
+
+Once again came Thorpe's voice, shrilling at him, now, out of the
+vibrant silence:
+
+_Sometimes I think there is no sin but shirking.  I can excuse a liar,
+I can pardon a thief, I can pity a murderer, but a shirk--no_!
+
+"Father always does the square thing."
+
+Evidently, Ralph would like to have his father bring him a
+stepmother--a woman whose face had been destroyed by fire--and place
+her at the head of his table, veiled or not, as Ralph chose.  Terribly
+burned, hopelessly disfigured, she must live with them always--because
+she had saved him from the same thing, if she had not actually saved
+his life.
+
+The walls of the room swayed, the furniture moved dizzily, the floor
+undulated.  Anthony Dexter reeled and fell--in a dead faint.
+
+
+"Are you all right now, Father?"  It was Ralph's voice, anxious, yet
+cheery.  "Who'd have thought I'd get another patient so soon!"
+
+Doctor Dexter sat up and rubbed his eyes.  Memory returned slowly;
+strength more slowly still.
+
+"Can't have my Father fainting all over the place without a permit,"
+resumed Ralph.  "You've been doing too much.  I take the night work
+from this time on."
+
+The day wore into late afternoon.  Doctor Dexter lay on the couch in
+the library, the phantom Evelina persistently at his side.  His body
+had failed, but his mind still fought, feebly.
+
+"There is no one here," he said aloud.  "I am all alone.  I can see
+nothing because there is nothing here."
+
+Was it fancy, or did the veiled woman convey the impression that her
+burned lips distorted themselves yet further by a smile?
+
+At dusk, there was a call.  Ralph received from his father a full
+history of the case, with suggestions for treatment in either of two
+changes that might possibly have taken place, and drove away.
+
+The loneliness was keen.  The empty house, shorne of Ralph's sunny
+presence, was unbearable.  A thousand memories surged to meet him; a
+thousand voices leaped from the stillness.  Always, the veiled figure
+stood by him, mutely accusing him of shameful cowardice.  Above and
+beyond all was Thorpe's voice, shrilling at him:
+
+_The honour of the spoken word still holds him . . . he was never
+released . . . he slunk away like a cur . . .  he is bound to her still
+. . . there is no sin but shirking_ . . .
+
+Over and over again, the words rang through his consciousness.  Then,
+like an afterclap of thunder:
+
+_Father always does the square thing_!
+
+The dam crashed, the barrier of years was broken, the obstructions were
+swept out to sea.  Remorse and shame, no longer denied, overwhelmingly
+submerged his soul.  He struggled up from the couch blindly, and went
+out--broken in body, crushed in spirit, yet triumphantly a man at last.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+A Little Hour of Triumph
+
+Miss Evelina sat alone in her parlour, which was now spotlessly clean.
+Araminta had had her supper, her bath, and her clean linen--there was
+nothing more to do until morning.  The hard work had proved a blessing
+to Miss Evelina; her thoughts had been constantly forced away from
+herself.  She had even learned to love Araminta with the protecting
+love which grows out of dependence, and, at the same time, she felt
+herself stronger; better fitted, as it were, to cope with her own grief.
+
+Since coming back to her old home, her thought and feeling had been
+endlessly and painfully confused.  She sat in her low rocker with her
+veil thrown back, and endeavoured to analyse herself and her
+surroundings, to see, if she might, whither she was being led.  She was
+most assuredly being led, for she had not come willingly, nor remained
+willingly; she had been hurt here as she had not been hurt since the
+very first, and yet, if a dead heart can be glad of anything, she was
+glad she had come.  Upon the far horizon of her future, she dimly saw
+change.
+
+She had that particular sort of peace which comes from the knowledge
+that the worst is over; that nothing remains.  The last drop of
+humiliation had been poured from her cup the day she met Anthony Dexter
+on the road and had been splashed with mud from his wheels as he drove
+by.  It was inconceivable that there should be more.
+
+Dusk came and the west gleamed faintly.  The afterglow merged into the
+first night and at star-break, Venus blazed superbly on high, sending
+out rays mystically prismatic, as from some enchanted lamp.  "Our
+star," Anthony Dexter had been wont to call it, as they watched for it
+in the scented dusk.  For him, perhaps, it had been indeed the
+love-star, but she had followed it, with breaking heart, into the
+quicksands.
+
+To shut out the sight of it, Miss Evelina closed the blinds and lighted
+a candle, then sat down again, to think.
+
+There was a dull, uncertain rap at the door.  Doctor Ralph,
+possibly--he had sometimes come in the evening,--or else Miss Hitty,
+with some delicacy for Araminta's breakfast.
+
+Drawing down her veil, she went to the door and opened it, thinking, as
+she did so, that lives were often wrecked or altered by the opening or
+closing of a door.
+
+Anthony Dexter brushed past her and strode into the parlour.  Through
+her veil, she would scarcely have recognised him--he was so changed.
+Upon the instant, there was a transformation in herself.  The
+suffering, broken-hearted woman was strangely pushed aside--she could
+come again, but she must step aside now.  In her place arose a veiled
+vengeance, emotionless, keen, watchful; furtively searching for the
+place to strike.
+
+"Evelina," began the man, without preliminary, "I have come back.  I
+have come to tell you that I am a coward--a shirk."
+
+Miss Evelina laughed quietly in a way that stung him.  "Yes?" she said,
+politely.  "I knew that.  You need not have troubled to come and tell
+me."
+
+He winced.  "Don't," he muttered.  "If you knew how I have suffered!"
+
+"I have suffered myself," she returned, coldly, wondering at her own
+composure.  She marvelled that she could speak at all.
+
+"Twenty-five years ago," he continued in a parrot-like tone, "I asked
+you to marry me, and you consented.  I have never been released from my
+promise--I did not even ask to be.  I slunk away like a cur.  The
+honour of the spoken word still holds me.  The tardy fulfilment of my
+promise is the only atonement I can make."
+
+The candle-light shone on his iron-grey hair, thinning at the temples;
+touched into bold relief every line of his face.
+
+"Twenty-five years ago," said Evelina, in a voice curiously low and
+distinct, "you asked me to marry you, and I consented.  You have never
+been released from your promise--you did not even ask to be."  The
+silence was vibrant; literally tense with emotion.  Out of it leaped,
+with passionate pride: "I release you now!"
+
+"No!" he cried.  "I have come to fulfil my promise--to atone, if
+atonement can be made!"
+
+"Do you call your belated charity atonement?  Twenty-five years ago, I
+saved you from death--or worse.  One of us had to be burned, and it was
+I, instead of you.  I chose it, not deliberately, but instinctively,
+because I loved you.  When you came to the hospital, after three
+days----"
+
+"I was ill," he interrupted.  "The gas----"
+
+"You were told," she went on, her voice dominating his, "that I had
+been so badly burned that I would be disfigured for life.  That was
+enough for you.  You never asked to see me, never tried in any way to
+help me, never sent by a messenger a word of thanks for your cowardly
+life, never even waited to be sure it was not a mistake.  You simply
+went away."
+
+"There was no mistake," he muttered, helplessly.  "I made sure."
+
+He turned his eyes away from her miserably.  Through his mind came
+detached fragments of speech.  _The honour of the spoken word still
+holds him . . . Father always does the square thing_ . . .
+
+"I am asking you," said Anthony Dexter, "to be my wife.  I am offering
+you the fulfilment of the promise I made so long ago.  I am asking you
+to marry me, to live with me, to be a mother to my son."
+
+"Yes," repeated Evelina, "you ask me to marry you.  Would you have a
+scarred and disfigured wife?  A man usually chooses a beautiful woman,
+or one he thinks beautiful, to sit at the head of his table, manage his
+house, take the place of a servant when it is necessary, accept gladly
+what money he chooses to give her, and bear and rear his children.
+Poor thing that I am, you offer me this.  In return, I offer you
+release.  I gave you your life once, I give you freedom now.  Take your
+last look at the woman who would not marry you to save you from--hell!"
+
+The man started forward, his face ashen, for she had raised her veil,
+and was standing full in the light.
+
+In the tense silence he gazed at her, fascinated.  Every emotion that
+possessed him was written plainly on his face for her to read.  "The
+night of realisation," she was saying, "turned my hair white.  Since I
+left the hospital, no human being has seen my face till now.  I think
+you understand--why?"
+
+Anthony Dexter breathed hard; his body trembled.  He was suffering as
+the helpless animals had suffered on the table in his laboratory.
+Evelina was merciless, but at last, when he thought she had no pity,
+she lowered her veil.
+
+The length of chiffon fell between them eternally; it was like the
+closing of a door.  "I understand," he breathed, "oh, I understand.  It
+is my punishment--you have scored at last.  Good----"
+
+A sob drowned the last word.  He took her cold hand in his, and,
+bending over it, touched it with his quivering lips.
+
+"Yes," laughed Evelina, "kiss my hand, if you choose.  Why not?  My
+hand was not burned!"
+
+His face working piteously, he floundered out into the night and
+staggered through the gate as he had come--alone.
+
+The night wind came through the open door, dank and cold.  She closed
+it, then bolted it as though to shut out Anthony Dexter for ever.
+
+It was his punishment, he had said.  She had scored at last.  If he had
+suffered, as he told her he had, the sight of her face would be
+torture.  Yes, Evelina knew that she had scored.  From her hand she
+wiped away tears--a man's hot, terrible tears.
+
+Through the night she sat there, wide-eyed and sleepless, fearlessly
+unveiled.  The chiffon trailed its misty length unheeded upon the
+floor.  The man she had loved was as surely dead to her as though he
+had never been.
+
+Anthony Dexter was dead.  True, his body and mind still lived, but he
+was not the man she had loved.  The face that had looked into hers was
+not the face of Anthony Dexter.  It had been cold and calm and cruel,
+until he came to her house.  His eyes were fish-like, and, stirred by
+emotion, he was little less than hideous.
+
+Her suffering had been an obsession--there had been no reason for it,
+not the shadow of an excuse.  A year, as the Piper said, would have
+been long enough for her to grieve.  She saw her long sorrow now as
+something outside of herself, a beast whose prey she had been.  When
+Anthony Dexter had proved himself a coward, she should have thanked God
+that she knew him before it was too late.  And because she was weak in
+body, because her hurt heart still clung to her love for him, she had
+groped in the darkness for more than half of her life.
+
+And now he had come back!  The blood of triumph surged hard.  She loved
+him no longer; then, why was she not free?  Her chains yet lay heavily
+upon her; in the midst of victory, she was still bound.
+
+The night waned.  She was exhausted by stress of feeling and the long
+vigil, but the iron, icy hand that had clasped her .heart so long did
+not for a moment relax its hold.  She went to the window and looked
+out.  Stars were paling, the mysterious East had trembled; soon it
+would be day.
+
+She watched the dawn as though it were for the first time and she was
+privileged to stand upon some lofty peak when "God said: 'Let there be
+light,' and there was light."  The tapestry of morning flamed
+splendidly across the night, reflecting its colour back upon her
+unveiled face.
+
+From far away, in the distant hills, whose summits only as yet were
+touched with dawn, came faint, sweet music--the pipes o' Pan.  She
+guessed that the Piper was abroad with Laddie, in some fantastic spirit
+of sun-worship, and smiled.
+
+Her little hour of triumph was over; her soul was once more back in its
+prison.  The prison house was larger, and different, but it was still a
+prison.  For an instant, freedom had flashed before her and dazed her;
+now it was dark again.
+
+"Why?" breathed Evelina.  "Dear God, why?"
+
+As if in answer, the music came back from the hills in uncertain
+silvery echoes.  "Oh, pipes o' Pan," cried Evelina, choking back a sob,
+"I pray you, find me!  I pray you, teach me joy!"
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+The State of Araminta's Soul
+
+The Reverend Austin Thorpe was in his room at Miss Mehitable's, with a
+pencil held loosely in his wrinkled hand.  On the table before him was
+a pile of rough copy paper, and at the top of the first sheet was
+written, in capitals, the one word: "Hell."  It was underlined, and
+around it he had drawn sundry fantastic flourishes and shadings, but
+the rest of the sheet was blank.
+
+For more than an hour the old man had sat there, his blue, near-sighted
+eyes wandering about the room.  A self-appointed committee from his
+congregation had visited him and requested him to preach a sermon on
+the future abode of the wicked.  The wicked, as the minister gathered
+from the frank talk of the committee, included all who did not belong
+to their own sect.
+
+Try as he might, the minister could find in his heart nothing save
+charity.  Anger and resentment were outside of his nature.  He told
+himself that he knew the world, and had experienced his share of
+injustice, that he had seen sin in all of its hideous phases.  Yet,
+even for the unrepentant sinner, Thorpe had only kindness.
+
+Of one sin only, Thorpe failed in comprehension.  As he had said to
+Anthony Dexter, he could excuse a liar, pardon a thief, and pity a
+murderer, but he had only contempt for a shirk.
+
+Persistently, he analysed and questioned himself, but got no further.
+To him, all sin resolved itself at last into injustice, and he did not
+believe that any one was ever intentionally unjust.  But the
+congregation desired to hear of hell--"as if," thought Thorpe,
+whimsically, "I received daily reports."
+
+With a sigh, he turned to his blank sheet.  "In the earlier stages of
+our belief," he wrote, "we conceived of hell as literally a place of
+fire and brimstone, of eternal suffering and torture.  In the light
+which has come to us later, we perceive that hell is a spiritual state,
+and realise that the consciousness of a sin is its punishment."
+
+Then he tore the sheet into bits, for this was not what his
+congregation wanted; yet it was his sincere belief.  He could not
+stultify himself to please his audience--they must take him as he was,
+or let him go.
+
+Yet the thought of leaving was unpleasant, for he had found work to do
+in a field where, as it seemed to him, he was sorely needed.  His
+parishioners had heard much of punishment, but very little of mercy and
+love.  They were tangled in doctrinal meshes, distraught by quibbles,
+and at swords' points with each other.
+
+He felt that he must in some way temporise, and hold his place until he
+had led his flock to a loftier height.  He had no desire to force his
+opinions upon any one else, but he wished to make clear his own strong,
+simple faith, and spread abroad, if he might, his own perfect trust.
+
+A commanding rap resounded upon his door.  "Come," he called, and Miss
+Mehitable entered.
+
+Thorpe was not subtle, but he felt that this errand was of deeper
+import than usual.  The rustle of her stiffly-starched garments was
+portentous, and there was a set look about her mouth which boded no
+good to anybody.
+
+"Will you sit down?" he asked, offering her his own chair.
+
+"No," snapped Miss Mehitable, "I won't.  What I've got to say, I can
+say standin'.  I come," she announced, solemnly, "from the Ladies' Aid
+Society."
+
+"Yes?" Thorpe's tone was interrogative, but he was evidently not
+particularly interested.
+
+"I'm appointed a committee of one," she resumed, "to say that the
+Ladies' Aid Society have voted unanimously that they want you to preach
+on hell.  The Church is goin' to rack and ruin, and we ain't goin' to
+stand it no longer.  Even the disreputable characters will walk right
+in and stay all through the sermon--Andy Rogers and the rest.  And I
+was particularly requested to ask whether you wished to have us
+understand that you approve of Andy Rogers and his goin's on."
+
+"What," temporised Thorpe, "does Andy Rogers do?"
+
+"For the lands sake!" ejaculated Miss Mehitable.  "Wasn't he drunk four
+months ago and wasn't he caught stealing the Deacon's chickens?  You
+don't mean to tell me you never heard of that?"
+
+"I believe I did hear," returned the minister, in polite recognition of
+the fact that it had been Miss Mehitable's sole conversational topic at
+the time.   "He stole the chickens because he was hungry, and he got
+drunk because he didn't know any better.  I talked with him, and he
+promised me that he would neither steal nor drink any more.  Moreover,
+he earned the money and paid full price for the chickens.  Have you
+heard that he has broken his promise?"
+
+"No I dunno's I have, but he'll do it again if he gets the chance--you
+just see!"
+
+Thorpe drummed idly on the table with his pencil, wishing that Miss
+Mehitable would go.  He had for his fellow-men that deep and abiding
+love which enables one to let other people alone.  He was a
+humanitarian in a broad and admirable sense.
+
+"I was told," said Miss Mehitable, "to get a definite answer."
+
+Thorpe bowed his white head ever so slightly.  "You may tell the
+Ladies' Aid Society, for me, that next Sunday morning I will give my
+congregation a sermon on hell."
+
+"I thought I could make you see the reason in it," remarked Miss
+Mehitable, piously taking credit to herself, "and now that it's
+settled, I want to speak of Araminta."
+
+"She's getting well all right, isn't she?" queried Thorpe, anxiously.
+He had a tender place in his heart for the child.
+
+"That's what I don't know, not bein' allowed to speak to her or touch
+her.  What I do know is that her immortal soul is in peril, now that
+she's taken away from my influence.  I want you to get a permit from
+that black-mailing play-doctor that's curing her, or pretending to, and
+go up and see her.  I guess her pastor has a right to see her, even if
+her poor old aunt ain't.  I want you to find out when she'll be able to
+be moved, and talk to her about her soul, dwellin' particularly on
+hell."
+
+Thorpe bowed again.  "I will be very glad to do anything I can for
+Araminta."
+
+Shortly afterward, he made an errand to Doctor Dexter's and saw Ralph,
+who readily gave him permission to visit his entire clientele.
+
+"I've got another patient," laughed the boy.  "My practice is
+increasing at the rate of one case a month.  If I weren't too
+high-minded to dump a batch of germs into the water supply, I'd have a
+lot more."
+
+"How is Araminta?" asked Thorpe, passing by Ralph's frivolity.
+
+"She's all right," he answered, his sunny face clouding.  "She can go
+home almost any time now.  I hate to send her back into her cage--bless
+her little heart."
+
+It was late afternoon when Thorpe started up the hill, to observe and
+report upon the state of Araminta's soul.  He had struggled vainly with
+his own problem, and had at last decided to read a fiery sermon by one
+of the early evangelists, from a volume which he happened to have.  The
+sermon was lurid with flame, and he thought it would satisfy his
+congregation.  He would preface it with the statement that it was not
+his, but he hoped they would regard it as a privilege to hear the views
+of a man who was, without doubt, wiser and better than he.
+
+Miss Evelina came to the door when he rapped, and at the sight of her
+veiled face, a flood of pity overwhelmed him.  He introduced himself
+and asked whether he might see Araminta.
+
+When he was ushered into the invalid's room, he found her propped up by
+pillows, and her hair was rioting in waves about her flushed face.  A
+small maltese kitten, curled into a fluffy ball, slept on the snowy
+counterpane beside her.  Araminta had been reading the "story book"
+which Doctor Ralph had brought her.
+
+"Little maid," asked the minister, "how is the ankle?"
+
+"It's well, and to-morrow I'm to walk on it for the first time.  Doctor
+Ralph has been so good to me--everybody's been good."
+
+Thorpe picked up the book, which lay face downward, and held it close
+to his near-sighted eyes.  Araminta trembled; she was afraid he would
+take it away from her.
+
+All that day, she had lived in a new land, where men were brave and
+women were fair.  Castle towers loomed darkly purple in the sunset, or
+shone whitely at noon.  Kings and queens, knights and ladies, moved
+sedately across the tapestry, mounted on white chargers with trappings
+of scarlet and gold.  Long lances shimmered in the sun and the armour
+of the knights gave back the light an hundred fold.  Strange music
+sounded in Araminta's ears--love songs and serenades, hymns of battle
+and bugle calls.  She felt the rush of conflict, knew the anguish of
+the wounded, and heard the exultant strains of victory.
+
+And all of it--Araminta had greatly marvelled at this--was done for
+love, the love of man and woman.
+
+A knight in the book had asked the lady of his heart to marry him, and
+she had not seen that she was insulted, nor guessed that he was
+offering her disgrace.  Araminta wondered that the beautiful lady could
+be so stupid, but, of course, she had no Aunt Hitty to set her right.
+Far from feeling shame, the lady's heart had sung for joy, but
+secretly, since she was proud.  Further on, the same beautiful lady had
+humbled her pride for the sake of her love and had asked the gallant
+knight to marry her, since she had once refused to marry him.
+
+"Why, Araminta!" exclaimed Mr. Thorpe, greatly surprised.  "I thought
+Miss Mehitable did not allow you to read novels."
+
+"A novel!  Why, no, Mr. Thorpe, it isn't a novel!  It's just a story
+book.  Doctor Ralph told me so."
+
+Austin Thorpe laughed indulgently.  "A rose by any other name," he
+said, "is--none the less a rose.  Doctor Ralph was right--it is a story
+book, and I am right, too, for it is also a novel."
+
+Araminta turned very pale and her eyes filled with tears.
+
+"Mr. Thorpe," she said, in an anguished whisper, "will I be burned?"
+
+"Why, child, what do you mean?"
+
+"I didn't know it was a novel," sobbed Araminta.  "I thought it was a
+story book.  Aunt Hitty says people who read novels get burned--they
+writhe in hell forever in the lake of fire."
+
+The Reverend Austin Thorpe went to the door and looked out into the
+hall.  No one was in sight.  He closed the door very gently and came
+back to Araminta's bed.  He drew his chair nearer and leaned over her,
+speaking in a low voice, that he might not be heard.
+
+"Araminta, my poor child," he said, "perhaps I am a heretic.  I don't
+know.  But I do not believe that a being divine enough to be a God
+could be human enough to cherish so fiendish a passion as revenge.
+Look up, dear child, look up!"
+
+Araminta turned toward him obediently, but she was still sobbing.
+
+"It is a world of mystery," he went on.  "We do not know why we come
+nor where we go--we only know that we come and that eventually, we go.
+Yet I do not think that any one of us nor any number of us have the
+right to say what the rest of us shall believe.
+
+"I cannot think of Heaven as a place sparsely populated by my own sect,
+with a world of sinners languishing in flames below.  I think of Heaven
+as a sunny field, where clover blooms and birds sing all day.  There
+are trees, with long, cool shadows where the weary may rest; there is a
+crystal stream where they may forget their thirst.  I do not think of
+Heaven as a place of judgment, but rather of pardon and love.
+
+"Punishment there is, undoubtedly, but it has seemed to me that we are
+sufficiently punished here for all we do that is wrong.  We don't
+intend to do wrong, Araminta--we get tired, and things and people worry
+us, and we are unjust.  We are like children afraid in the dark; we
+live in a world of doubting, we are made the slaves of our own fears,
+and so we shirk."
+
+"But the burning," said Araminta, wiping her eyes.  "Is nobody ever to
+be burned?"
+
+"The God I worship," answered Thorpe, passionately, "never could be
+cruel, but there are many gods, it seems, and many strange beliefs.
+Listen, Araminta.  Whom do you love most?"
+
+"Aunt Hitty?" she questioned.
+
+"No, you don't have to say that if it isn't so.  You can be honest with
+me.  Who, of all the world, is nearest to you? Whom would you choose to
+be with you always, if you could have only one?"
+
+"Doctor Ralph!" cried Araminta, her eyes shining.
+
+"I thought so," replied Thorpe.  "I don't know that I blame you.  Now
+suppose Doctor Ralph did things that hurt you; that there was continual
+misunderstanding and distrust.  Suppose he wronged you, cruelly, and
+apparently did everything he could to distress you and make you
+miserable.  Could you condemn him to a lake of fire?"
+
+"Why, no!" she cried.  "I'd know he never meant to do it!"
+
+"Suppose you knew he meant it?" persisted Thorpe, looking at her keenly.
+
+"Then," said Araminta, tenderly, "I'd feel very, very sorry."
+
+"Exactly, and why?  Because, as you say, you love him.  And God is
+love, Araminta.  Do you understand?"
+
+Upon the cramped and imprisoned soul of the child, the light slowly
+dawned.  "God is love," she repeated, "and nobody would burn people
+they loved."
+
+There was an illuminating silence, then Thorpe spoke again.  He told
+Araminta of a love so vast and deep that it could not be measured by
+finite standards; of infinite pity and infinite pardon.  This love was
+everywhere; it was impossible to conceive of a place where it was
+not--it enveloped not only the whole world, but all the shining worlds
+beyond.  And this love, in itself and of itself, was God.
+
+"This," said Araminta, touching the book timidly; "is it bad?"
+
+"Nothing is bad," explained Thorpe, carefully, "which does not harm you
+or some one else.  Of the two, it is better to harm yourself than
+another.  How does the book make you feel?"
+
+"It makes me feel as if the world was a beautiful place, and as if I
+ought to be better, so I could make it still more beautiful by living
+in it."
+
+"Then, Araminta, it is a good book."
+
+Thorpe went down-stairs strangely uplifted.  To him, Truth was not a
+creed, but a light which illumined all creeds.  His soul was aflame
+with eagerness to help and comfort the whole world.  Miss Evelina was
+waiting in the hall, veiled and silent, as always.
+
+She opened the door, but Thorpe lingered, striving vainly for the right
+word.  He could not find it, but he had to speak.
+
+"Miss Evelina," he stammered, the high colour mounting to his temples,
+"if there should ever be anything I can do for you, will you let me
+know?"
+
+She seemed to shrink back into her veil.  "Yes," she said, at length,
+"I will."  Then, fearing she had been ungracious, she added: "Thank
+you."
+
+His mood of exaltation was still upon him, and he wandered long in the
+woods before going home.  His spirit dwelt in the high places, and from
+the height he gained the broad view.
+
+When he entered the house.  Miss Mehitable was waiting for him with a
+torrent of questions.  When he had an opportunity to reply he reported
+that he had seen Doctor Ralph and Araminta could come home almost any
+time, now.  Yes, he had talked with Araminta about her soul, and she
+had cried.  He thought he had done her good by going, and was greatly
+indebted to Miss Mehitable for the suggestion.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+The March of the Days
+
+Out in the garden, the Piper was attending to his belated planting.  He
+had cleared the entire place, repaired the wall, and made flower-beds
+in fantastic shapes that pleased his own fancy.  To-day, he was putting
+in the seeds, while Laddie played about his feet, and Miss Evelina
+stood by, timidly watchful.
+
+"I do not see," she said, "why you take so much trouble to make me a
+garden.  Nobody was ever so good to me before."
+
+The Piper laughed and paused a moment to wipe his ruddy face.  "Did
+nobody ever care before whether or not you had a garden?"
+
+"Never," returned Evelina, sadly.
+
+"Then 't is time some one did, so Laddie and I have come to make it for
+you, but I'm thinking 't is largely for ourselves, too, since the doing
+is the best part of anything."
+
+Miss Evelina made no answer.  Speech did not come easily to her after
+twenty-five years of habitual repression.
+
+"'T will be a brave garden," continued the Piper, cheerily.  "Marigolds
+and larkspur and mignonette; phlox and lad's love, rosemary, lavender,
+and verbena, and many another that you'll not guess till the time comes
+for blossoming."
+
+"Lad's love grew in my garden once," sighed Evelina, after a little.
+"It was sweet while it lasted--oh, but it was sweet!"
+
+She spoke so passionately that the Piper gathered the underlying
+significance of her words.
+
+"You're speaking of another garden, I think," he ventured; "the garden
+in your heart.  "'T is meet that lad's love should grow there.  Are you
+sure 't was not a weed?"
+
+"Yes, it was a weed," she replied, bitterly.  "The mistake was mine."
+
+The Piper leaned on his rake thoughtfully.  "'T is hard, I think," he
+said, "for us to see that the mistakes are all ours.  The Gardener
+plants rightly, but we are never satisfied.  When sweet herbs are meant
+for us, we ask for roses, and 't is not every garden in which a rose
+will bloom.  If we could keep it clean of weeds, and make it free of
+all anger and distrust, there'd be heartsease there instead of thorns."
+
+"Heartsease?" asked Evelina, piteously.  "I thought there was no more!"
+
+"Lady," said the Piper, "there is heartsease for the asking.  I'm
+thinking 't is you who have spoiled your garden."
+
+"No!" cried Evelina.  "Believe me, it was not I!"
+
+"Who else?" queried the Piper, with a look which made her shrink
+farther back into the shelter of her chiffon.  "Ah, I was not asking a
+question that needed an answer; I do not concern myself with names and
+things.  But ask this of yourself--is there sin on your soul?"
+
+"No," she whispered, "unless it be a sin to suffer for twenty-five
+years."
+
+"Another's sin, then? You're grieving because another has done wrong?"
+
+"Because another has done wrong to me." The Piper came to her and laid
+his hand very gently upon hers.  There was reassurance in the friendly,
+human touch.  "'T is there," he said, "that the trouble lies.  'T is
+not for you to suffer because you are wronged, but for the one who has
+wronged you.  He must have been very dear to you, I'm thinking; else
+you would not hide the beauty of your face."
+
+"Beauty?" repeated Evelina, scornfully.  "You do not understand.  I was
+burned--horribly burned."
+
+"Yes," said the Piper, softly, "and what of that? Beauty is of the
+soul."
+
+He went out to the gate and brought in a small, flat box.  "'T is for
+you," he said.  "I got it for you when I went to the city--there was
+none here."
+
+She opened the box, her fingers trembling, and held up length after
+length of misty white chiffon.  "I ask no questions," said the Piper,
+proudly, "but I know that because you are so beautiful, you hide your
+face.  Laddie and I, we got more of the white stuff to help you hide
+it, because you would not let us see how beautiful you are."
+
+The chiffon fluttered in her hand, though there was no wind.  "Why?"
+she asked, in a strange voice; "why did you do this?"
+
+"You gave me a garden," laughed the Piper, "when I had no garden of my
+own, so why should I not get the white stuff for you?  'T was queer,
+the day I got it," he went on, chuckling at the recollection, "for I
+did not know its name.  Every place I went, I asked for white stuff,
+and they showed me many kinds, but nothing like this.  At last I said
+to a young girl: 'What is it that is like a cloud, all white and soft,
+which one can see through, but through which no one can be seen--the
+stuff that ladies wear when they are so beautiful that they do not want
+their faces seen?'  She smiled, and told me it was 'chiffon.'  And
+so--"  A wave of the hand finished his explanation.
+
+After an interval of silence, the Piper spoke again.  "There are chains
+that bind you," he began, "but they are chains of your own forging.  No
+one else can shackle you--you must always do it yourself.  Whatever is
+past is over, and I'm thinking you have no more to do with it than a
+butterfly has with the empty chrysalis from which he came.  The law of
+life is growth, and we cannot linger--we must always be going on.
+
+"You stand alone upon a height," he said, dreamily, "like one in a
+dreary land.  Behind you all is darkness, before you all is darkness;
+there is but one small space of light.  In that one space is a day.
+They come, one at a time, from the night of To-morrow, and vanish into
+the night of Yesterday.
+
+"I have thought of the days as men and women, for a woman's day is not
+at all like a man's.  For you, I think, they first were children, with
+laughing eyes and little, dimpled hands.  One at a time, they came out
+of the darkness, and disappeared into the darkness on the other side.
+Some brought you flowers or new toys and some brought you childish
+griefs, but none came empty-handed.  Each day laid its gift at your
+feet and went on.
+
+"Some brought their gifts wrapped up, that you might have the surprise
+of opening them.  Many a gift in a bright-hued covering turned out to
+be far from what you expected when you were opening it.  Some of the
+happiest gifts were hidden in dull coverings you took off slowly,
+dreading to see the contents.  Some days brought many gifts, others
+only one.
+
+"As the days grew older, some brought you laughter; some gave you light
+and love.  Others came with music and pleasure--and some of them
+brought pain."
+
+"Yes," sighed Evelina, "some brought pain."
+
+"It is of that," went on the Piper, "that I wished to be speaking.  It
+was one day, was it not, that brought you a long sorrow?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Not more than one?  Was it only one day?"
+
+"Yes, only one day,"
+
+"See," said The Piper, gently, "the day came with her gift.   You would
+not let her lay it at your feet and pass on into the darkness of
+Yesterday.  You held her by her grey garments and would not let her go.
+You kept searching her sad eyes to see whether she did not have further
+pain for you.  Why keep her back from her appointed way?  Why not let
+your days go by?"
+
+"The other days," murmured Evelina, "have all been sad."
+
+"Yes, and why?  You were holding fast to one day--the one that brought
+you pain.  So, with downcast eyes they passed you, and carried their
+appointed gifts on into Yesterday, where you can never find them again.
+Even now, the one day you have been holding is struggling to free
+herself from the chains you have put upon her.  You have no right to
+keep a day."
+
+"Should I not keep the gifts?" she asked.  His fancy pleased her.
+
+"The gifts, yes--even the gifts of tears, but never a day.  You cannot
+hold a happy day, for it goes too quickly.  This one sad day that
+marched so slowly by you is the one you chose to hold.  Lady," he
+pleaded, "let her go!"
+
+"The other days," she whispered, brokenly.  "What of them?"
+
+"No man can say.  While you have been holding this one, the others have
+passed you, taking your gifts into Yesterday.  Memory guards Yesterday,
+but there is a veil on the face of To-morrow.  Sometimes I think
+To-morrow is so beautiful that she hides her face."
+
+"God veils her face," cried Evelina, "or else we could not live!"
+
+"Lady," said the Piper, "have you lived so long and never learned this
+simple thing?  Whatever a day may bring you, whatever terrible gifts of
+woe, if you search her closely, you will always find the strength to
+meet her face to face.  Overshadowed by her burden of bitterness, one
+fails to find the balm.  Concealed within her garments or held loosely
+in her hand, she always has her bit of consolation; rosemary in the
+midst of her rue, belief with the doubt, life with the death."
+
+"I found no balm," murmured Evelina, "in the day you say I held."
+
+"Had there been no secret balm, you could never have held her--the
+thorns would have pierced your hands.  Have you not seen that you can
+never have sorrow until you have first had joy?  Happiness is the light
+and sadness the shade.  God sets you right, and you stray from the
+path, into the shadow of the cypress."
+
+"The cypress casts a long shadow," said Evelina, pointing to the tree
+at the gate.
+
+The Piper smiled.  "The shadow of a sorrow is longer than the sorrow,"
+he answered.  "The shadow of one day, with you, has stretched over
+twenty-five years.  'T is approaching night that makes long shadows;
+when life is at noon, they are short.  When life is at its highest,
+there are no shadows at all."
+
+Miss Evelina sighed and leaned uneasily against the wall.
+
+"This, I'm thinking," mused the Piper, "is the inmost truth of
+living--there is always a balance which swings true.  A sorrow is
+precisely equal to a joy, and the shadow can loom no larger unless the
+light slants.  And if you sit always in the sun, the shadow that lies
+behind a joy can be scarcely seen at all."
+
+A faint breath of Spring stirred Miss Evelina's veil.  She caught at it
+and tied the long floating ends about her neck.
+
+"I would not look," said the Piper, softly.  "If your veil should blow
+away, I would close my eyes and feel my way to the gate.  Unless you
+chose to have me see your beauty, I would never ask, nor take advantage
+of an accidental opportunity.  I'm thinking you are very beautiful, but
+you need never be afraid of me."
+
+Miss Evelina did not reply; she only leaned more heavily against the
+wall.
+
+"Lady," he continued, "perhaps you think I do not know.  You may think
+I'm talking blindly, but there are few sorrows in the world that I have
+not seen face to face.  Those I have not had myself, my friends have
+had, and I have been privileged to share with them.  The sorrows of the
+world are not so many--they are few, and, in essence, the same.
+
+"It's very strange, I'm thinking.  The little laughing, creeping days
+go by us, then the awkward ones that bring us the first footsteps, then
+childhood comes, and youth, and then maturity.  But the days have begun
+to grow feeble before one learns how to meet them; how to take the
+gifts humbly, scorning none, and how to make each day give up its
+secret balm.  Memory, the angel who stands at the portal of Yesterday,
+has always an inscrutable smile.  She keeps for us so many things that
+we would be glad to spare, and pushes headlong into Yesterday so much
+that we fain would keep.  I do not yet know all the ways of Memory--I
+only know that she means to be kind."
+
+"Kind!" repeated Evelina.  Her tone was indescribably bitter.
+
+"Yes," returned the Piper, "Memory means to be kind--she is kind.  I
+have said that I do not know her ways, but of that I am sure.  Lady, I
+would that you could let go of the day you are holding back.  Cast her
+from you, and let her go into the Yesterday from which you have kept
+her so long.  Perhaps Memory will be kinder to you then, for, remember,
+she stands at the gate."
+
+"I cannot," breathed Evelina.  "I have tried and I cannot let her go!"
+
+"Yes," said the Piper, very gently, "you can.  'T is that, I'm
+thinking, that has set your life all wrong.  Unclasp your hands from
+her rough garments, cease to question her closed eyes.  Take her gift
+and the balm that infallibly comes with it; meet To-day with kindness
+and To-morrow with a brave heart.  Oh, Spinner in the Shadow," he
+cried, his voice breaking, "I fain would see you a Spinner in the Sun!"
+
+"No," she sighed, "I have been in the dark too long.  There is no light
+for me."
+
+"There is light," he insisted.  "When you admit the shadow, you have at
+the same time acknowledged the light."
+
+Evelina shook her head.  "Too late," she said, despairingly; "it is too
+late."
+
+"Ah," cried the Piper, "if you could only trust me!  I have helped many
+a soul into the sun again."
+
+"I trusted," said Evelina, "and my trust was betrayed."
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I know.  I have trusted, too, and I have been
+betrayed, also, but I know that the one who wronged me must suffer more
+than I."
+
+She laughed; a wild, fantastic laugh.  "The one who wronged me," she
+said, "has not suffered at all.  He married in a year."
+
+"There are different ways of suffering," he explained.  "With a woman,
+it is most often spread out over a long period.  The quick, clean-cut
+stroke is seldom given to a woman--she suffers less and longer than a
+man.  With him, I'm thinking, it has come, or will come, all at once."
+
+"If it does," she cried, her frail body quivering, "what a day for him,
+oh, what a day!"
+
+Her voice was trembling with the hideous passion for revenge, and the
+Piper read her, unerringly.  "Lady," he said, sadly, "'t is a long way
+to the light, but I'm here to help | you find it.  We'll be going now.
+Laddie and I, but we'll come back soon."
+
+He whistled to the dog and the two went off downhill together.  She
+watched him from the gate until the bobbing red feather turned a corner
+at the foot of the hill, and the cheery whistle had ceased.
+
+The stillness was acute, profound.  It was so deep that it seemed
+positive, rather than negative.  She went back into the house, her
+steps dragging painfully.
+
+As in a vision she saw the days passing her while she stood upon a
+height.  All around her were bare rocks and fearful precipices; there
+was nothing but a narrow path in front.  Day by day, they came,
+peacefully, contentedly; till at last dawned that terrible one which
+had blasted her life.  Was it true that she still held that day by the
+garment, and could not unclasp her hands?
+
+One by one they had passed her, leaving no gifts, because she still
+clung to one.  If she could let go, what gifts would the others bring?
+Joy?  Never--there was no joy in the world for her.
+
+Sometime that mystical procession must come to an end.  When the last
+day passed on, she would follow, too, and go into the night of
+Yesterday, where, perhaps, there was peace.  As never before, she
+craved the last gift, praying to see the uplifted head and stately
+figure of the last Day--grave, silent, unfathomable, tender; the Day
+with the veiled face, bearing white poppies in her hands.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+Loved by a Dog
+
+Anthony Dexter sat on the porch in front of his house, alone.  Ralph
+had been out since early morning, attending to his calls.  It was the
+last of April and the trees were brave in their panoply of new leaves.
+Birds were singing and the very air was eloquent with new life.
+
+Between Anthony Dexter and the lilac bush at the gate, there moved
+perpetually the black, veiled figure of Evelina Grey.  He knew she was
+not there and he was fully certain of the fact that it was an
+hallucination, but his assurance had not done away with the phantom.
+
+How mercilessly she followed him!  Since the night he had flung himself
+out of her house, tortured in every nerve, she had not for a moment
+left him.  When he walked through the house, she followed him, her
+stealthy footfall sounding just the merest fraction of a second after
+his.  He avoided the bare polished floors and walked on the rugs
+whenever possible, that he might not hear that soft, slow step so
+plainly.  Ralph had laughed at him, once, for taking a long, awkward
+jump from rug to rug.
+
+Within the line of his vision she moved horizontally, but never back
+and forth.  Sometimes her veiled face was averted, and sometimes,
+through the eternal barrier of chiffon, he could feel her burning eyes
+fixed pitilessly upon his.
+
+He never slept, now, without drugs.  Gradually he had increased the
+dose, but to no purpose.  Evelina haunted his sleep endlessly and he
+had no respite.  Through the dull stupor of the night, she was never
+for a moment absent, and in every horrible dream, she stood in the
+foreground, mute, solitary, accusing.
+
+He was fully aware of the fact that he was in the clutches of a drug
+addiction, but that was nothing to be feared in comparison with his
+veiled phantom.  He had exhausted the harmless soporifics long ago, and
+turned, perforce, to the swift and deadly ministers of forgetfulness.
+
+The veiled figure moved slowly back and forth across the yard, lifting
+its skirts daintily to avoid a tiny pool of water where a thirsty robin
+was drinking.  The robin, evidently, did not fear Evelina.  He could
+hear the soft, slow footfalls on the turf, and the echo of three or
+four steps upon the brick walk, when she crossed.  She kept carefully
+within the line of his vision; he did not have to turn his head to see
+her.  When he did turn his head, she moved with equal swiftness.  Not
+for a single pitying instant was she out of his sight.
+
+Farther on, doubtless, as he thought, she would come closer.  She might
+throw back her veil as she had done on that terrible night, or lay her
+cold hand on his--she might even speak to him.  What hideous
+conversations they might have--he and the woman he had once loved and
+to whom he was still bound!  Anthony Dexter knew now that even his
+marriage had not released him and that Evelina had held him, through
+all the five-and-twenty years.
+
+Such happiness as he had known had been purely negative.  The thrill of
+joyous life had died, for him, the day he took Evelina into the
+laboratory.  He was no longer capable of caring for any one except
+Ralph.  The remnant of his cowardly heart was passionately and wholly
+given to his son.
+
+He meditated laying his case before Ralph.  as one physician to
+another, then the inmost soul of him shuddered at the very thought.
+Rather than have Ralph know, he would die a thousand deaths.  He would
+face the uttermost depths of hell, rather than see those clear, honest
+eyes fixed upon him in judgment.
+
+He might go to the city to see a specialist--it would be an easy matter
+to accomplish, and Ralph would gladly attend to his work.  Yes, he
+might go--he and Evelina.  He could go to a brother physician and say:
+
+"This woman haunts me.  She saved my life and continually follows me.
+I want her kept away.  What, do you not see her, too?"
+
+Anthony Dexter laughed harshly, and fancied that the veiled figure
+paused slightly at the sound.  "No," he said, aloud, "you need not
+prepare for travel, Evelina.  We shall not go to the city--you and I."
+
+That was his mate, walking in his garden before him, veiled.  She was
+his and he was hers.  They were mated as two atoms of hydrogen and one
+of oxygen, forming a molecule of water.  All these years, her suffering
+had reacted upon him, kept him from being happy, and made him fight
+continually to keep her out of his remembrance.  For having kept her
+out, he was paying, now, with compound interest.
+
+Upon a lofty spire of granite stands a wireless telegraph instrument.
+Fogs are thick about it, wild surges crash in the unfathomable depths
+below; the silence is that of chaos, before the first day of creation.
+Out of the emptiness, a world away, comes a message.  At the first
+syllable, the wireless instrument leaps to answer its mate.  With the
+universe between them, those two are bound together, inextricably,
+eternally bound.  One may fancy that a disorder in one might cause
+vague unrest in the other.  In like manner, Evelina's obsession had
+preyed upon Anthony Dexter for twenty-five years.  Now, the line was at
+work again and there was an unceasing flow of communication.
+
+Perhaps, if he had the strength, he might learn to ignore the phantom
+as he had ignored memory.  Eventually, he might be able to put aside
+the eternal presence as he had put aside his own cowardice.  There was
+indefinite comfort in the thought.
+
+Having preached the gospel of work for so long, he began to apply it to
+himself.  Work was undoubtedly what he needed--the one thing which
+could set him right again.  After a little, he could make the rounds
+with Ralph, and dwell constantly in the boy's sunny presence.  In the
+meantime, there was his paper, for the completion of which one more
+experiment was absolutely essential.
+
+He stirred uneasily in his chair.  He wished that Ralph had not been so
+womanish, or else that he had more diplomatically concealed his own
+opinions, to which, indeed, Ralph had admitted his right.  Condemnation
+from Ralph was the one thing he could not bear, but, after all, was it
+needful that Ralph should know?
+
+The experiment would not take long, as he wished to satisfy himself on
+but one minor point.  It could be done, easily, while Ralph was out
+upon his daily round.  Behind the lilac bushes there was yet room for
+one more tiny grave.
+
+One more experiment, and then, in deference to Ralph's foolish,
+effeminate sentiments, he would give it up.  One more heart in action,
+the conclusion of his brilliant paper, and then--why, he would be
+willing to devote the rest of his life, in company with Ralph, to
+curing whooping-cough, measles, and mumps.
+
+The veiled figure still paced restlessly back and forth, now on the
+turf and now on the brick walk.  He closed his eyes, but he still saw
+Evelina and noted the slight difference of sound in her footfalls as
+she crossed the walk.  He heard the swish of her skirts as she lifted
+them when she passed the pool of water--was it possible that his
+hearing was becoming more keen?  He was sure that he had not heard it
+from that distance before.
+
+
+It was certainly an inviting yard and the gate stood temptingly ajar.
+The gravelled highway was rough for a little dog's feet, and Laddie and
+the Piper had travelled far.  For many a mile, there had been no water,
+and in this cool, green yard, there was a small pool.  Laddie whined
+softly and nosed the gate farther open.
+
+A man sat on the porch, but he was asleep--anyhow, his eyes were
+closed.  Perhaps he had a dog of his own.  At any rate, he could not
+object to a tired yellow mongrel quenching his thirst at his pool.  The
+Piper had gone on without observing that his wayworn companion had
+stopped.
+
+Except for a mob of boys who had thrown stones at him and broken his
+leg, humans had been kind to Laddie.  It had been a human, Piper Tom,
+in fact, who had rescued him from the boys and made his leg good again.
+Laddie cherished no resentment against the mob, for he had that eternal
+forgiveness of blows and neglect which lives in the heart of the
+commonest cur.
+
+Opening his eyes, Anthony Dexter noted that a small, rough-coated
+yellow dog was drinking eagerly at the pool of water past which Evelina
+continually moved.  She went by twice while the dog was drinking, but
+he took no notice of her.  Neither robins nor dogs seemed to fear
+Evelina--it was only men, or, to be exact, one man, who had hitherto
+feared nothing save self-analysis.
+
+The turf was cool and soft to a little dog's tired feet.  Laddie walked
+leisurely toward the shrubbery, where there was deep and quiet shade.
+Under the lilac bush, he lay down to rest, but was presently on his
+feet again, curiously exploring the place.
+
+He sniffed carefully at the ground behind the lilac bushes, and the
+wiry hair on his back bristled.  There was something uncanny about it,
+and a guarding instinct warned him away.  But what was this that lay on
+the ground, so soaked with rains that, in the shade, it had not yet
+dried?  Laddie dragged it out into the sunlight to see.
+
+It was small and square and soft on the outside, yet hard within.
+Except for the soft, damp outer covering, it might have been the block
+of pine with which Piper Tom and he would play by the hour.  The Piper
+would throw the block of wood far from him, sometimes even into the
+water, and Laddie would race after it, barking gaily.  When he brought
+it back, he was rewarded with a pat on the head, or, sometimes, a bone.
+Always, there would be friendly talk.  Perhaps the man on the porch had
+thrown this, and was waiting for him to bring it back.
+
+Laddie took the mysterious thing carefully in his strong jaws, and
+trotted exultantly up to the porch, wagging his stub of a tail.
+Strangely enough, just at the steps, the thing opened, and something
+small and cold and snake-like slipped out.  The man could scarcely have
+seen the necklace of discoloured pearls before, with an oath, he rose
+to his feet, and, firmly holding Laddie under his arm, strode into the
+house, entering at the side door.
+
+The Piper had reached home before he missed his dog.  He waited a
+little, then called, but there was no answer.  It was not like Laddie
+to stray, for he was usually close at his master's heels.
+
+"Poor little man," said the Piper to himself, "I'm thinking we went too
+far."
+
+He retraced his steps over the dusty road, searching the ground.  He
+discovered that Laddie's tracks ended in the road near Doctor Dexter's
+house, and turned toward the gate.  Tales of mysterious horrors,
+vaguely hinted at, came back to him now with ominous force.  He
+searched the yard carefully, looking in every nook and corner, then a
+cry of anguish reached his ears.
+
+Great beads of sweat stood out upon Piper Tom's forehead, as he burst
+in at the laboratory door.  On a narrow table, tightly strapped down,
+lay Laddie, fully conscious, his faithful heart laid bare.  The odour
+of anesthetics was so faint as to be scarcely noticeable.  At the dog's
+side stood Doctor Dexter, in a blood-stained linen coat, with a pad of
+paper and a short pencil in his white, firm hands.  He was taking notes.
+
+With infinite appeal in his agonised eyes, Laddie recognised his
+master, who at last had come too late.  Piper Tom seized the knife from
+the table, and, with a quick, clean stroke, ended the torture.  Doctor
+Dexter looked up, his mask-like face wearing an expression of insolent
+inquiry.
+
+"Man," cried the Piper, his voice shaking, "have you never been loved
+by a dog?"
+
+The silence was tense, but Doctor Dexter had taken out his watch, and
+was timing the spasmodic pulsations of the heart he had been so
+carefully studying.
+
+"Aye," said the Piper, passionately, "watch it till the last--you
+cannot hurt him now.  'T is the truest heart in all the world save a
+woman's, and you do well to study it, having no heart of your own.  A
+poor beast you are, if a dog has never loved you.  Take your pencil and
+write down on the bit of paper you have there that you've seen the
+heart of a dog.  Write down that you've seen the heart of one who left
+his own kind to be with you, to fight for you, even against them.
+Write down that 't is a good honest heart with red blood in it, that
+never once failed and never could fail.
+
+"When a man's mother casts him off, when his wife forsakes him, when
+his love betrays him, his dog stays true.  When he's poor and his
+friends pass him by on the other side of the street, looking the other
+way, his dog fares with him, ready to starve with him for very love of
+him.  'T is a man and his dog, I'm thinking, against the whole world.
+
+"This little lad here was only a yellow mongrel, there was no fine
+blood in him; he couldn't bring in the birds nor swim after the ducks
+men kill to amuse themselves.  He was worth no high price to
+anybody--nobody wanted him but me.  When I took him away from the boys
+who were hurting him, and set his poor broken leg as best I could, he
+knew me for his master and claimed me then.
+
+"He's walked with me through four States and never whined.  He's gone
+without food for days at a time, and never complained.  He's been cold
+and hungry, and we've slept together, more than once, on the ground in
+the snow, with only one blanket between us.  He's kept me from freezing
+to death with his warm body, he's suffered from thirst the same as I,
+and never so much as whimpered.  We've been comrades and we've fared
+together, as only man and dog may fare.
+
+"When every man's face was set against you, did you never have a dog to
+trust you?  When there was never a man nor a woman you could call your
+friend, did a dog never come to you and lick your hand?  When you've
+been bent with grief you couldn't stand up under, did a dog never come
+to you and put his cold nose on your face?  Did a dog never reach out a
+friendly paw to tell you that you were not alone--that it was you two
+together?
+
+"When you've come home alone late at night, tired to death with the
+world and its ways, was there never a dog to greet you with his bark of
+welcome?  Did a dog never sit where you told him to sit, and guard your
+property till you came back, though it might be hours?  When you could
+trust no man to guard your treasures, could you never trust a dog?
+Man, man, the world has fair been cruel if you've never known the love
+of a dog!
+
+"I've heard these things of you, but I thought folks were prattling, as
+folks will, but dogs never do.  I thought they were lying about
+you--that such things couldn't be true.  They said you were cutting up
+dogs to learn more of people, and I'm thinking, if we're so much alike
+as that, 't is murder to kill a dog."
+
+"You killed him," said Anthony Dexter, speaking for the first time.  "I
+didn't."
+
+"Yes," answered the Piper, "I killed him, but 't was to keep him from
+being hurt.  I'd do the same for a man or a woman, if there was need.
+If 't was a child you had tied down here with your blood-stained
+straps, cut open to see an innocent heart, your own being black past
+all pardon, I'd do the same for the child and all the more quickly if
+it was my own.  I never had a child--I've never had a woman to love me,
+but I've been loved by a dog.  I've thought that even yet I might know
+the love of a woman, for a man who deserves the love of a dog is worthy
+of a woman, and a man who will torture a dog will torture a woman, too.
+
+"Laddie," said the Piper, laying his hand upon the blood-stained body,
+"no man ever had a truer comrade, and I'll not insult your kind by
+calling this brute a cur.  Laddie, it was you and I, and now it's I
+alone.  Laddie--" here the Piper's voice broke, and, taking up the
+knife again, he cut the straps.  With the tears raining down his face,
+he stumbled out of the laboratory, the mutilated body of his pet in his
+arms.
+
+
+Anthony Dexter looked after him curiously.  The mask-like expression of
+his face was slightly changed.  In a corner of the laboratory, seeming
+to shrink from him, stood the phantom black figure, closely veiled.
+Out of the echoing stillness came the passionate accusation: "A man who
+will torture a dog will torture a woman, too."
+
+He carefully removed the blood stains from the narrow table, and pushed
+it back in its place, behind a screen.  The straps were cut, and
+consequently useless, so he wrapped them up in a newspaper and threw
+them into the waste basket.  He cleaned his knife with unusual care,
+and wiped an ugly stain from his forceps.
+
+Then he took off his linen coat, folded it up, and placed it in the
+covered basket which held soiled linen from the laboratory.  He washed
+his hands and copied the notes he had made, for there was blood upon
+the page.  He tore the original sheet into fine bits, and put the
+pieces into the waste basket.  Then he put on his cuffs and his coat,
+and went out of the laboratory.
+
+He was dazed, and did not see that his own self-torture had filled him
+with primeval lust to torture in return.  He only knew that his
+brilliant paper must remain forever incomplete, since his services to
+science were continually unappreciated and misunderstood.  What was one
+yellow dog, more or less, in the vast economy of Nature?  Was he
+lacking in discernment, because, as Piper Tom said, he had never been
+loved by a dog?
+
+He sat down in the library to collect himself and observed, with a
+curious sense of detachment, that Evelina was walking in the hall
+instead of in the library, as she usually did when he sat there.
+
+An hour--or perhaps two--went by, then, unexpectedly, Ralph came home,
+having paused a moment outside.  He rushed into the library with his
+face aglow.
+
+"Look, Dad," he cried, boyishly, holding it at arm's length; "see what
+I found on the steps!  It's a pearl necklace, with a diamond in the
+clasp!  Some of the stones are discoloured, but they're good and can be
+made right again, I've found it, so it's mine, and I'm going to give it
+to the girl I marry!"
+
+Anthony Dexter's pale face suddenly became livid.  He staggered over to
+Ralph, snatched the necklace out of his hand, and ground the pearls
+under his heel.  "No," he cried, "a thousand times, no!  The pearls are
+cursed!"
+
+Then, for the second time, he fainted.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+Undine
+
+"It's almost as good as new!" cried Araminta, gleefully.  She was clad
+in a sombre calico Mother Hubbard, of Miss Mehitable's painstaking
+manufacture, and hopping back and forth on the bare floor of her room
+at Miss Evelina's.
+
+"Yes," answered Doctor Ralph, "I think it's quite as good as new."  He
+was filled with professional pride at the satisfactory outcome of his
+first case, and yet was not at all pleased with the idea of Araminta's
+returning to Miss Mehitable's, as, perforce, she soon must do.
+
+"Don't walk any more just now," he said "Come here and sit down.  I
+want to talk to you."
+
+Araminta obeyed him unquestioningly.  He settled her comfortably in the
+haircloth easy-chair and drew his own chair closer.  There was a pause,
+then she looked up at him, smiling with childish wistfulness.
+
+"Are you sorry it's well?" he asked.
+
+"I--I think I am," she answered, shyly, the deep crimson dyeing her
+face.
+
+"I can't see you any more, you know," said Ralph, watching her intently.
+
+The sweet face saddened in an instant and Araminta tapped her foot
+restlessly upon the floor.  "Perhaps," she returned, slowly, "Aunt
+Hitty will be taken sick.  Oh, I do hope she will!"
+
+"You miserable little sinner," laughed Ralph, "do you suppose for a
+moment that Aunt Hitty would send for me if she were ill?  Why, I
+believe she'd die first!"
+
+"Maybe Mr. Thorpe might be taken sick," suggested Araminta, hopefully.
+"He's old, and sometimes I think he isn't very strong."
+
+"He'd insist on having my father.  You know they're old friends."
+
+"Mr. Thorpe is old and your father is old," corrected Araminta,
+precisely, "but they haven't been friends long.  Aunt Hitty says you
+must always say what you mean."
+
+"That is what I meant.  Each is old and both are friends.  See?"
+
+"It must be nice to be men," sighed Araminta, "and have friends.  I've
+never had anybody but Aunt Hitty--and you," she added, in a lower tone,
+
+"'No money, no friends, nothing but relatives,'" quoted Ralph,
+cynically.  "It's hard lines, little maid--hard lines."  He walked back
+and forth across the small room, his hands clasped behind his back--a
+favourite attitude, Araminta had noted, during the month of her illness.
+
+He pictured his probable reception should he venture to call upon her.
+Personally, as it was, he stood none too high in the favour of the
+dragon, as he was wont to term Miss Mehitable in his unflattering
+thoughts.  Moreover, he was a man, which counted heavily against him.
+Since he had taken up his father's practice, he had heard a great deal
+about Miss Mehitable's view of marriage, and her determination to
+shield Araminta from such an unhappy fate.
+
+And Araminta had not been intended, by Dame Nature, for such shielding.
+Every line of her body, rounding into womanhood, defied Aunt Hitty's
+well-meant efforts.  The soft curve of her cheek, the dimples that
+lurked unsuspected in the comers of her mouth, the grave, sweet
+eyes--all these marked Araminta for love.  She had, too, a wistful,
+appealing childishness.
+
+"Did you like the story book?" asked Ralph.
+
+"Oh, so much!"
+
+"I thought you would.  What part of it did you like best?"
+
+"It was all lovely," replied Araminta, thoughtfully, "but I think the
+best part of it was when she went back to him after she had made him go
+away.  It made him so glad to know that they were to talk together
+again."
+
+Ralph looked keenly at Araminta, the love of man and woman was so
+evidently outside her ken.  The sleeping princess in the tower had been
+no more set apart.  But, as he remembered; the sleeping princess had
+been wakened by a kiss--when the right man came.
+
+A lump came into his throat and he swallowed hard.  Blindly, he went
+over to her chair.  The girl's flower-like face was lifted
+questioningly to his.  He bent over and kissed her, full upon the lips.
+
+Araminta shrank from him a little, and the colour surged into her face,
+but her eyes, still trustful, still tender, never wavered from his.
+
+"I suppose I'm a brute," Ralph said, huskily, "but God knows I haven't
+meant to be."
+
+Araminta smiled--a sweet, uncomprehending smile.  Ralph possessed
+himself of her hand.  It was warm and steady--his own was cold and
+tremulous.
+
+"Child," he said, "did any one ever kiss you before?"
+
+"No," replied Araminta; "only Aunt Hitty.  It was when I was a baby and
+she thought I was lost.  She kissed me--here."  Araminta pointed to her
+soft cheek.  "Did you kiss me because I was well?"
+
+Ralph shook his head despairingly.  "The man in the book kissed the
+lady," went on Araminta, happily, "because he was so glad they were to
+talk together again, but we--why, I shall never see you any more," she
+concluded, sadly.
+
+His fingers tightened upon hers.  "Yes," he said, in a strange voice,
+"we shall see each other again."
+
+"They both seem very well," sighed Araminta, referring to Aunt Hitty
+and Mr. Thorpe, "and even if I fell off of a ladder again, it might not
+hurt me at all.  I have fallen from lots of places and only got black
+and blue.  I never broke before."
+
+"Listen, child," said Ralph.  "Would you rather live with Aunt Hitty,
+or with me?"
+
+"Why, Doctor Ralph!  Of course I'd rather live with you, but Aunt Hitty
+would never let me!"
+
+"We're not talking about Aunt Hitty now.  Is there anyone in the world
+whom you like better than you do me?"
+
+"No," said Araminta, softly, her eyes shining.  "How could there be?"
+
+"Do you love me, Araminta?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, sweetly, "of course I do!  You've been so good to
+me!"
+
+The tone made the words meaningless.  "Child," said Ralph, "you break
+my heart."
+
+He walked back and forth again, restlessly, and Araminta watched him,
+vaguely troubled.  What in the world had she done?
+
+Meanwhile, he was meditating.  He could not bear to have her go back to
+her prison, even for a little while.  Had he found her only to lose
+her, because she had no soul?
+
+Presently he came back to her and stood by her chair.  "Listen, dear,"
+he said, tenderly.  "You told me there was no one in the world for whom
+you cared more than you care for me.  You said you loved me, and I love
+you--God knows I do.  If you'll trust me, Araminta, you'll never be
+sorry, never for one single minute as long as you live.  Would you like
+to live with me in a little house with roses climbing over it, just us
+two alone?"
+
+"Yes," returned Araminta, dreamily, "and I could keep the little cat."
+
+"You can have a million cats, if you like, but all I want is you.  Just
+you, sweetheart, to love me, with all the love you can give me.  Will
+you come?"
+
+"Oh," cried Araminta, "if Aunt Hitty would only let me, but she never
+would!"
+
+"We won't ask her," returned Ralph.  "We'll go away to-night, and be
+married."
+
+At the word, Araminta started out of her chair.  Her face was white and
+her eyes wide with fear.  "I couldn't," she said, with difficulty.
+"You shouldn't ask me to do what you know is wrong.  Just because my
+mother was married, because she was wicked--you must not think that I
+would be wicked, too."
+
+Hot words were struggling for utterance, but Ralph choked them back.
+The fog was thick before him and he saw Araminta as through a heavy
+veil.  "Undine," he said, moistening his parched lips, "some day you
+will find your soul.  And when you do, come to me.  I shall be waiting."
+
+He went out of the room unsteadily, and closed the door.  He stood at
+the head of the stairs for a long time before he went down.  Apparently
+there was no one in the house.  He went into the parlour and sat down,
+wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, and trying to regain his
+self-control.
+
+He saw, clearly, that Araminta was not in the least to blame; that
+almost ever since her birth, she had been under the thumb of a
+domineering woman who persistently inculcated her own warped ideas.
+Since her earliest childhood, Araminta had been taught that marriage
+was wrong--that her own mother was wicked, because she had been
+married.  And of the love between man and woman, the child knew
+absolutely nothing.
+
+"Good God!" muttered Ralph.  "My little girl, oh, my little girl!"
+Man-like, he loved her more than ever because she had denied him;
+man-like, he wanted her now as he had never wanted her before.  Through
+the weeks that he had seen her every day, he had grown to feel his need
+of her, to hunger for the sweetness of her absolute dependence upon
+him.  Yet, until now, he had not guessed how deeply he cared, nor
+guessed that such caring was possible.
+
+He sat there for the better part of an hour, slowly regaining command
+of himself.  Miss Evelina came through the hall and paused just outside
+the door, feeling intuitively that some one was in the house.  She drew
+down her veil and went in.
+
+"I thought you had gone," she said.  "Did you wish to see me?"
+
+"No," returned Ralph, wearily; "not especially."
+
+She sat down opposite him silently.   All her movements were quiet, for
+she had never been the noisy sort of woman.  There was something
+soothing in the veiled presence.
+
+"I hope I'm not intruding," ventured Ralph, at length.  "I'll go,
+presently.  I've just had a--well, a blow.  That little saint upstairs
+has been taught that marriage is wicked."
+
+"I know," returned Miss Evelina, instantly comprehending.  "Mehitable
+has very strange ideas.  I'm sorry," she added, in a tone she might
+have used in speaking to Anthony Dexter, years before.
+
+Her sympathy touched the right chord.  It was not obtrusive, it had no
+hint of pity; it was simply that one who had been hurt fully understood
+the hurt of another.  Ralph felt a mysterious kinship.
+
+"I've wanted for some time to ask you," he began awkwardly, "if there
+was not something I could do for you.  The--the veil, you know--"  He
+stopped, at a loss for further words.
+
+"Yes?" Miss Evelina's voice was politely inquiring.  She thought it odd
+for Anthony Dexter's son to be concerned about her veil.  She wondered
+whether he meditated giving her a box of chiffon, as Piper Tom had done.
+
+"Believe me," he said, impetuously, "I only want to help.  I want to
+make it possible for you to take that--to take that thing off."
+
+"It is not possible," returned Miss Evelina, after a painful interval.
+"I shall always wear my veil."
+
+"You don't understand," explained Ralph.  It seemed to him that he had
+spent the day telling women they did not understand.  "I know, of
+course, that there was some dreadful accident, and that it happened a
+long time ago.  Since then, wonderful advances have been made in
+surgery--there is a great deal possible now that was not dreamed of
+then.  Of course I should not think of attempting it myself, but I
+would find the man who could do it, take you to him, and stand by you
+until it was over."
+
+The clock ticked loudly and a little bird sang outside, but there was
+no other sound.
+
+"I want to help you," said Ralph, humbly, as he rose to his feet;
+"believe me, I want to help you."
+
+Miss Evelina said nothing, but she followed him to the door.  At the
+threshold, Ralph turned back.  "Won't you let me help you?" he asked.
+"Won't you even let me try?"
+
+"I thank you," said Miss Evelina, coldly, "but nothing can be done."
+
+The door closed behind him with a portentous suggestion of finality.
+As he went down the path, Ralph felt himself shut out from love and
+from all human service.  He did not look back to the upper window,
+where Araminta was watching, her face stained with tears.
+
+As he went out of the gate, she, too, felt shut out from something
+strangely new and sweet, but her conscience rigidly approved, none the
+less.  Against Aunt Hitty's moral precepts, Araminta leaned securely,
+and she was sure that she had done right.
+
+The Maltese kitten was purring upon a cushion, the loved story book lay
+on the table nearby.   Doctor Ralph was going down the road, his head
+bowed.  They would never see each other again--never in all the world.
+
+She would not tell Aunt Hitty that Doctor Ralph had asked her to marry
+him; she would shield him, even though he had insulted her.  She would
+not tell Aunt Hitty that Doctor Ralph had kissed her, as the man in the
+story book had kissed the lady who came back to him.  She would not
+tell anybody.  "Never in all the world," thought Araminta.  "We shall
+never see each other again."
+
+Doctor Ralph was out of sight, now, and she could never watch for him
+any more.  He had gone away forever, and she had broken his heart.  For
+the moment, Araminta straightened herself proudly, for she had been
+taught that it did not matter whether one's heart broke or not--one
+must always do what was right.  And Aunt Hitty knew what was right.
+
+Suddenly, she sank on her knees beside her bed, burying her face in the
+pillow, for her heart was breaking, too.  "Oh, Lord," she prayed,
+sobbing wildly, "keep me from the contamination of marriage, for Thy
+sake.  Amen."
+
+
+The door opened silently, a soft, slow step came near.  The pillow was
+drawn away and a cool hand was laid upon Araminta's burning cheek.
+"Child," said Miss Evelina, "what is wrong?"
+
+Araminta had not meant to tell, but she did.  She sobbed out, in
+disjointed fragments, all the sorry tale.  Wisely, Miss Evelina waited
+until the storm had spent itself, secretly wishing that she, too, might
+know the relief of tears.
+
+"I knew," said Miss Evelina, her cool, quiet hand still upon Araminta's
+face.  "Doctor Ralph told me before he went home."
+
+"Oh," cried Araminta, "does he hate me?"
+
+"Hate you?" repeated Miss Evelina.  "Dear child, no.  He loves you.
+Would you believe me, Araminta, if I told you that it was not wrong to
+be married--that there was no reason in the world why you should not
+marry the man who loves you?"
+
+"Not wrong!" exclaimed Araminta, incredulously.  "Aunt Hitty says it
+is.  My mother was married!"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Evelina, "and so was mine.  Aunt Hitty's mother was
+married, too."
+
+"Are you sure?" demanded Araminta.  "She never told me so.  If her
+mother was married, why didn't she tell me?"
+
+"I don't know, dear," returned Miss Evelina, truthfully.  "Mehitable's
+ways are strange."  Had she been asked to choose, at the moment,
+between Araminta's dense ignorance and all of her own knowledge,
+embracing, as it did, a world of pain, she would have chosen gladly,
+the fuller life.
+
+The door-bell below rang loudly, defiantly.  It was the kind of a ring
+which might impel the dead to answer it.  Miss Evelina fairly ran
+downstairs.
+
+Outside stood Miss Mehitable.  Unwillingly, in her wake, had come the
+Reverend Austin Thorpe.  Under Miss Mehitable's capable and constant
+direction, he had made a stretcher out of the clothes poles and a
+sheet.  He was jaded in spirit beyond all words to express, but he had
+come, as Roman captives came, chained to the chariot wheels of the
+conqueror.
+
+"Me and the minister," announced Miss Mehitable, imperiously, "have
+come to take Minty home!"
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+In the Shadow of the Cypress
+
+The house seemed lonely without Araminta.  Miss Evelina missed the
+child more than she had supposed she could ever miss any one.  She had
+grown to love her, and, too, she missed the work.
+
+Miss Evelina's house was clean, now, and most of the necessary labour
+had been performed by her own frail hands.  The care of Araminta had
+been an added burden, which she had borne because it had been forced
+upon her.  Slowly, but surely, she had been compelled to take thought
+for others.
+
+The promise of Spring had come to beautiful fulfilment, and the world
+was all abloom.  Faint mists of May were rising from the earth, and
+filmy clouds half veiled the moon.  The loneliness of the house was
+unbearable, so Miss Evelina went out into the garden, her veil
+fluttering, moth-like, about her head.
+
+The old pain was still at her heart, yet, in a way, it was changed.
+She had come again into the field of service.  Miss Mehitable had been
+kind to her, indeed, more than kind.  The Piper had made her a garden,
+and she had taken care of Araminta.  Doctor Ralph, meaning to be wholly
+kind, had offered to help her, if he could, and she had been on the
+point of doing a small service for him, when Fate, in the person of
+Miss Mehitable, intervened.  And over and above and beyond all, Anthony
+Dexter had come back, to offer her tardy reparation.
+
+That hour was continually present with her.  She could not forget his
+tortured face when she had thrown back her veil.  What if she had taken
+him at his word, and gone with him, to be, as he said, a mother to his
+son?  Miss Evelina laughed bitterly.
+
+The beauty of the night brought her no peace as she wandered about the
+garden.  Without knowing it, she longed for human companionship.  Piper
+Tom had finished his work.  Doctor Ralph would come no more, Araminta
+had gone, and Miss Mehitable offered little comfort.
+
+She went to the gate and leaned upon it, looking down the road.  Thus
+she had watched for Anthony Dexter in years gone by.  Memories,
+mercilessly keen, returned to her.  As though it were yesterday, she
+remembered the moonlit night of their betrothal, felt his eager arms
+about her and his bearded cheek pressed close to hers.  She heard again
+the music of his voice as he whispered, passionately: "I love you, oh,
+I love you--for life, for death, for all eternity!"
+
+The rose-bush had been carefully pruned and tied up, but it promised
+little, at best.  The cypress had grown steadily, and, at times, its
+long shadow reached through the door and into the house.  Heavily, too,
+upon her heart, the shadow of the cypress lay, for sorrow seems so much
+deeper than joy.
+
+A figure came up the road, and she turned away, intending to go into
+the house.   Then she perceived that it was Piper Tom, and, drawing
+down her veil, turned back to wait for him.  He had never come at night
+before.
+
+Even in the darkness, she noted a change in him; the atmosphere of
+youth was all gone.  He walked slowly, as though he had aged, and the
+red feather no longer bobbed in his hat.
+
+He went past her silently, and sat down on the steps.
+
+"Will you come in?" asked Evelina.
+
+"No," answered the Piper, sadly, "I'll not be coming in.  'T is selfish
+of me, perhaps, but I came to you because I had sorrow of my own."
+
+Miss Evelina sat down on the step beside him, and waited for him to
+speak.
+
+"'T is a small sorrow, perhaps, you'll be thinking," he said, at last.
+"I'm not knowing what great ones you have seen, face to face, but 't is
+so ordered That all sorrows are not the same.  'T is all in the heart
+that bears them.  I told you I had known them all, and at the time, I
+was thinking I spoke the truth.  A woman never loved me, and so I have
+lost the love of no woman, but," he went on with difficulty, "no one
+had ever killed my dog."
+
+"How?" asked Miss Evelina, dully.  It seemed a matter of small moment
+to her.
+
+"I'll not be paining you with that," the Piper answered, "At the last,
+'t was I who killed him to save him from further hurt.  'T was the best
+I could do for the little lad, and I'm thinking he'd take it from me
+rather than from any one else.  I'm missing his cheerful bark and his
+pleasant ways, but I've taken him away for ever from Doctor Dexter and
+his kind."
+
+"Doctor Dexter!"  Evelina sprang to her feet, her body tense and
+quivering.
+
+"Aye, Doctor Dexter--not the young man, but the old one."
+
+A deep-drawn breath was her only answer, but the Piper looked up,
+startled.  Slowly he rose to his feet and leaned toward her intently,
+as though to see her face behind her veil.
+
+"Spinner in the Shadow," he said, with infinite tenderness, "I'm
+thinking 't was he who hurt you, too!"
+
+Evelina's head drooped, she swayed, and would have fallen, had he not
+put his arm around her.  She sat down on the step again, and hid her
+veiled face in her hands.
+
+"'T was that, I'm thinking, that brought me to you," he went on.  "I
+knew you did not care much for the little lad--he was naught to any one
+but me.  'T is this that binds us together--you and I."
+
+The moon climbed higher into the heavens and the clouds were blown
+away.  The shadow of the cypress was thrown toward them, and the dense
+night of it concealed the half-open door.
+
+"See," breathed Evelina, "the shadow of the cypress is long."
+
+"Aye," answered Piper Tom, "the shadow of the cypress is long and the
+rose blooms but once a year.  'T is the way of the world."
+
+He loosened his flute from the cord by which it was slung over his
+shoulder.  "I was going to the woods," he said, "but at the last, I
+could not, for the little lad always fared with me when I went out to
+play.  He would sit quite still when I made the music, so still that he
+never frightened even the birds.  The birds came, too.
+
+"'T is a way I've had for long," he continued.  "I never could be
+learning the printed music, so I made music of my own.  So many laughed
+at it, not hearing any tune, that I've always played by myself.  'T was
+my own soul breathing into it--perhaps I'm not to blame that it never
+made a tune.
+
+"Sometimes I'm thinking that there may be tunes and tunes.  I was once
+in a place where there were many instruments, all playing at once, and
+there was nothing came from it that one could call a tune.  But 't was
+great and beautiful beyond any words of mine to tell you, and the
+master of them all, standing up in front, knew just when each must play.
+
+"Most, of course, I watched the one who played the flute and listened
+to the voice of it.  'T is strange how, if you listen, you can pick out
+one instrument from all the rest.  I saw that sometimes he did not play
+at all, and yet the music went on.  Sometimes, again, he was privileged
+to play just a note or two--not at all like a tune.
+
+"'T was just his part, and, by itself, it would have sounded queer.  I
+might have laughed at it myself if I did not know, and was listening
+for a tune.  But the master of them all was pleased, because the man
+with the flute made his few notes to sing rightly when they should sing
+and because he kept still when there was no need of his instrument.
+
+"So I'm thinking," concluded the Piper, humbly, "that these few notes
+of mine may belong to something I cannot hear, and that the Master
+himself leads me, when 't is time to play."
+
+He put the instrument to his lips and began to play softly.  The low,
+sweet notes were, as he said, no evident part of a tune, yet they were
+not without a deep and tender appeal.
+
+Evelina listened, her head still bowed.  It did not sound like the
+pipes o' Pan, but rather like some fragment of a mysterious,
+heart-breaking melody.  Faint, far echoes rang back from the
+surrounding hills, as though in a distant forest cathedral another
+Piper sat enthroned.
+
+The sound of singing waters murmured through the night as the Piper's
+flute breathed of stream and sea.  There was the rush of a Summer wind
+through swaying branches, the tinkle of raindrops, the deep notes of
+rising storm.  Moonlight shimmered through it, birds sang in green
+silences, and there was scent of birch and pine.
+
+Then swiftly the music changed.  Through the utter sadness of it came
+also a hint of peace, as though one had planted a garden of roses and
+instead there had come up herbs and balm.  In the passionate pain,
+there was also uplifting--a flight on broken wings.  Above and beyond
+all there was a haunting question, to which the answer seemed lost.
+
+At length the Piper laid down his flute.  "You do not laugh," he said,
+"and yet I'm thinking you may not care for music that has no tune."
+
+"I do care," returned Evelina.
+
+"I remember," he answered, slowly.  "It was the day in the woods, when
+I called you and you came."
+
+"I was hurt," she said.  "I had been terribly hurt, only that morning,"
+
+"Yes, many have come to me so.  Often when I have played in the woods
+the music that has no tune, some one who was very sad has come to me.
+I saw you that day from far and I felt you were sad, so I called you.
+I called you," he repeated, lingering on the words, "and you came."
+
+"I do not so much care for the printed music," he went on, after an
+interval, "unless it might be the great, beautiful music which takes so
+many to play.  I have often thought of it and wondered what might
+happen if the players were not willing to follow the master--if one
+should play a tune where no tune was written, and he who has the violin
+should insist on playing the flute.
+
+"I would not want the violin, for I think the flute is best of all.  It
+is made from the trees on the mountains and the silver hidden within,
+and so is best fitted for the message of the mountains--the great, high
+music.
+
+"I'm thinking that the life we live is not unlike the players.  We have
+each our own instrument, but we are not content to follow as the Master
+leads.  We do not like the low, long notes that mean sadness; we will
+not take what is meant for us, but insist on the dancing tunes and the
+light music of pleasure.  It is this that makes the discord and all the
+confusion.  The Master knows his meaning and could we each play our
+part well, at the right time, there would be nothing wrong in all the
+world."
+
+Miss Evelina sighed, deeply, and the Piper put his hand on hers.
+
+"I'm not meaning to reproach you," he said, kindly, "though, truly, I
+do think you have played wrong.  In any music I have heard, there has
+never been any one instrument that has played all the time and sadly.
+When there is sadness, there is always rest, and you have had no rest."
+
+"No," said Evelina, her voice breaking, "I have had no rest--God knows
+that!"
+
+"Then do you not see," asked the Piper very gently, "that you cannot
+help but make the music wrong?  The Master gives you one deep note to
+play, and you hold it, always the same note, till the music is at an
+end.
+
+"'T is something wrong, I'm thinking, that has made you hold it so.
+I'm not asking you to tell me, but I think that one day I shall see.
+Together we shall find what makes the music wrong, and together we
+shall make it right again."
+
+"Together," repeated Evelina, unconsciously.  Once the word had been
+sweet to her, but now it brought only bitterness.
+
+"Aye, together.  'T is for that I stayed.  Laddie and I were going on,
+that very day we saw you in the wood--the day I called you, and you
+came.  I shall see, some day, what has made it wrong--yes.  Spinner in
+the Shadow, I shall see.  I'm grieving now for Laddie and my heart is
+sore, but when I have forgiven him, I shall be at rest."
+
+"Forgiven who?" queried Evelina.
+
+"Why, the man who hurt Laddie--the same, I'm thinking, who hurt you.
+But your hurt was worse than Laddie's, I take it, and so 't is harder
+to forgive."
+
+Evelina's heart beat hard.  Never before had she thought of forgiving
+Anthony Dexter.  She put it aside quickly as altogether impossible.
+Moreover, he had not asked.
+
+"What is it to forgive?" she questioned, curiously.
+
+"The word is not made right," answered the Piper, "I'm thinking 't is
+wrong end to, as many things in this world are until we move and look
+at them from another way.  It's giving for, that's all.  When you have
+put self so wholly aside that you can be sorry for him because he has
+wronged you, why, then, you have forgiven."
+
+"I shall never be able to do that," she returned.  "Why, I should not
+even try."
+
+"Ah," cried the Piper, "I knew that some day I should find what was
+wrong, but I did not think it would be now.  'T is because you have not
+forgiven that you have been sad for so long.  When you have forgiven,
+you will be free."
+
+"He never asked," muttered Evelina.
+
+"No; 't is very strange, I'm thinking, but those who most need to be
+forgiven are those who never ask.  'T is hard, I know, for I cannot yet
+be sorry for him because he hurt Laddie--I can only be sorry for
+Laddie, who was hurt.  But the great truth is there.  When I have grown
+to where I can be sorry for him as well as for Laddie, why, my grieving
+will be done.
+
+"The little chap," mused the Piper, fondly, "he was a faithful comrade.
+'T was a true heart that the brute--ah, what am I saying!  I'll not be
+forgetting how he fared with me in sun and storm, sharing a crust with
+me, often, as man to man, and not complaining, because we were
+together.  A woman never loved me but a dog has, and I'm thinking that
+some day I may have the greater love because I've been worthy of the
+less.
+
+"My mother died when I was born and, because of that, I've tried to
+make the world easier for all women.  I'm not thinking I have wholly
+failed, yet the great love has not come.  I've often thought," went on
+Piper Tom, simply, "that if a woman waited for me at night when I went
+home, with love on her face, and if a woman's hand might be in mine
+when the Master tells me that I am no longer needed for the music, 't
+would make the leaving very easy, and I should not ask for Heaven.
+
+"I've seen, so often, the precious jewel of a woman's love cast aside
+by a man who did not know what he had, having blinded himself with
+tinsel until his true knowledge was lost.  You'll forgive me for my
+rambling talk, I'm thinking, for I'm still grieving for the little
+chap, and I cannot say yet that I have forgiven."
+
+He rose, slung his flute over his shoulder again, and went slowly
+toward the gate.  Evelina followed him, to the cypress tree.
+
+"See," he said, turning, "the shadow of the cypress is long.  'T is
+because you have not forgiven.  I'm thinking it may be easier for us to
+forgive together, since it is the same man."
+
+"Yes," returned Evelina, steadily, "the shadow of the cypress is long,
+and I never shall forgive."
+
+"Aye," said the Piper, "we'll forgive him together--you and I.  I'll
+help you, since your hurt is greater than mine.  You have veiled your
+soul as you have veiled your face, but, through forgiveness, the beauty
+of the one will shine out again, and, I'm thinking, through love, the
+other may shine out, too.  You have hidden your face because you are so
+beautiful; you have hidden your soul because you are so sad.  I called
+you in the woods, and I call you now.  I shall never cease calling,
+until you come."
+
+He went out of the gate, and did not answer her faint "good-night."
+Was it true, as he said, that he should never cease calling her?
+Something in her spirit stirred strangely at his appeal, as a far,
+celestial trumpet blown from on high might summon the valiant soul of a
+warrior who had died in the charge.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+The Secret of the Veil
+
+"Father," said Ralph, pacing back and forth, as was his habit, "I have
+wanted for some time to ask you about Miss Evelina--the woman, you
+know, in the little house on the hill.  She always wears a veil and
+there can be no reason for it except some terrible disfigurement.  Has
+she never consulted you?"
+
+"Never," answered Anthony Dexter, with dry lips.
+
+"I remember, you told me, but it seems strange.  I spoke to her about
+it the other day.  I told her I was sure that something could be done.
+I offered to find the best available specialist for her, go with her,
+and stand by her until it was over."
+
+Anthony Dexter laughed--a harsh, unnatural laugh that jarred upon his
+son.
+
+"I fail to see anything particularly funny about it," remarked Ralph,
+coldly.
+
+"What did she say?" asked his father, not daring to meet Ralph's eyes.
+
+"She thanked me, and said nothing could be done."
+
+"She didn't show you her face, I take it."
+
+"No."
+
+"I should have thought she would, under the circumstances--under all
+the circumstances."
+
+"Have you seen her face?" asked Ralph, quickly, "by chance, or in any
+other way?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How is it?  Is it so bad that nothing can be done?"
+
+"She was perfectly right," returned Anthony Dexter, slowly.  "There is
+nothing to be done."
+
+At the moment, the phantom Evelina was pacing back and forth between
+the man and his son.  Her veiled face was proudly turned away.  "I
+wonder," thought Anthony Dexter, curiously, "if she hears.  If she did,
+though, she'd speak, or throw back her veil, so she doesn't hear."
+
+"I may be wrong," sighed Ralph, "but I've always believed that nothing
+is so bad it can't be made better."
+
+"The unfailing ear-mark of Youth, my son," returned Anthony Dexter,
+patronisingly.  "You'll get over that."
+
+He laughed again, gratingly, and went out, followed by his persistent
+apparition.  "We'll go out for a walk, Evelina," he muttered, when he
+was half-way to the gate.  "We'll see how far you can go without
+getting tired." The fantastic notion of wearying his veiled pursuer
+appealed to him strongly.
+
+Ralph watched his father uneasily.  Even though he had been relieved of
+the greater part of his work, Anthony Dexter did not seem to be
+improving.  He was morose, unreasonable, and given to staring vacantly
+into space for hours at a time.  Ralph often spoke to him when he did
+not hear at all, and at times he turned his head from left to right and
+back again, slowly, but with the maddening regularity of clock-work.
+He ate little, but claimed to sleep well.
+
+Whatever it was seemed to be of the mind rather than the body, and
+Ralph could find nothing in his father's circumstances calculated to
+worry any one in the slightest degree.  He planned, vaguely, to invite
+a friend who was skilled in the diagnosis of obscure mental disorders
+to spend a week-end with him, a little later on, and to ask him to
+observe his father closely.  He did not doubt but that Anthony Dexter
+would see quickly through so flimsy a pretence, but, unless he
+improved, something of the kind would have to be done soon.
+
+Meanwhile, his heart yearned strangely toward Miss Evelina.  It was
+altogether possible that something, might be done.  Ralph was modest,
+but new discoveries were constantly being made, and he knew that his
+own knowledge was more abreast of the times than his father's could be.
+At any rate, he was not so easily satisfied.
+
+He was trying faithfully to forget Araminta, but was not succeeding.
+The sweet, childish face haunted him as constantly as the veiled
+phantom haunted his father, but in a different way.  Through his own
+unhappiness, he came into kinship with all the misery of the world.  He
+longed to uplift, to help, to heal.
+
+He decided to try once more to talk with Miss Evelina, to ask her,
+point blank, if need be, to let him see her face.  He knew that his
+father lacked sympathy, and he was sure that when Miss Evelina once
+thoroughly understood him, she would be willing to let him help her.
+
+On the way uphill, he considered how he should approach the subject.
+He had already planned to make an ostensible errand of the book he had
+loaned Araminta.  Perhaps Miss Evelina had read it, or would like to,
+and he could begin, in that way, to talk to her.
+
+When he reached the gate, the house seemed deserted, though the front
+door was ajar.  It was a warm, sweet afternoon in early Summer, and the
+world was very still, except for the winged folk of wood and field.
+
+He tapped gently at the door, but there was no answer.  He went around
+to the back door, but it was closed, and there was no sign that the
+place was occupied, except quantities of white chiffon hung upon the
+line.  Being a man, Ralph did not perceive that Miss Evelina had washed
+every veil she possessed.
+
+He went back to the front of the house again and found that the door
+was still ajar.  She might have gone away, though it seemed unlikely,
+or it was not impossible that she might have been taken suddenly ill
+and was unable to come to the door.
+
+Ralph went in, softly, as he had often done before.  Miss Evelina had
+frequently left the door open for him at the hour he was expected to
+visit his patient.
+
+He paused a moment in the hall, but heard no sound save slow, deep
+breathing.  He turned into the parlour, but stopped on the threshold as
+if he had been suddenly changed to stone.
+
+Upon the couch lay Miss Evelina, asleep, and unveiled.  Her face was
+turned toward him--a face of such surpassing beauty that he gasped in
+astonishment.  He had never seen such wondrous perfection of line and
+feature, nor such a crown of splendour as her lustreless white hair,
+falling loosely about her shoulders.  Her face was as pure and as cold
+as marble, flawless, and singularly transparent.  Her lips were deep
+scarlet and perfectly shaped; the white slender column of her throat
+held her head proudly.  Long, dark lashes swept her cheek, and the
+years had left no lines.  Feeling the intense scrutiny, Miss Evelina
+opened her eyes, slowly, like one still half asleep.
+
+Her eyes were violet, so deep in colour as to seem almost black.  She
+stared at Ralph, unseeing, then the light of recognition flashed over
+her face and she sat up, reaching back quickly for her missing veil.
+
+"Miss Evelina!" cried Ralph.  "Why, oh why!"
+
+"Why did you come in?" she demanded, resentfully.  "You had no right!"
+
+"Forgive me," he pleaded, coming to her.  "I've often come in when the
+door was open.  Why, you've left it open for me yourself, don't you
+know you have?"
+
+"Perhaps," she answered, a faint colour coming into her cheek.  "I had
+no idea of going to sleep.  I am sorry."
+
+"I thought you might be ill," said Ralph.  excusing himself further.
+"Believe me, Miss Evelina, I had no thought of intruding.  I only came
+to help you."
+
+He stood before her, still staring, and her eyes met his clearly in
+return.  In the violet depths was a world of knowledge and pain
+Suffering had transfigured her face into a noble beauty for which there
+were no words.   Such a face might be the dream of a sculptor, the
+despair of a painter, and the ecstasy of a lover.
+
+"Why?", cried Ralph, again.
+
+"Because," she answered, simply, "my beauty was my curse."
+
+Ralph did not see that the words were melodramatic; he only sat down,
+weakly, in a chair opposite her.  He never once took his eyes away from
+her, but stared at her helplessly, like a man in a dream.
+
+"Why?" he questioned, again.  "Tell me why!"
+
+"It was in a laboratory," explained Miss Evelina.  "I was there with
+the man I loved and to whom I was to be married the next day.  No one
+knew of our engagement, for, in a small town, you know, people will
+talk, and we both felt that it was too sacred to be spoken of lightly.
+
+"He was trying an experiment, and I was watching.  He came to the
+retort to put in another chemical, and leaned over it.  I heard the
+mass seething and pushed him away with all my strength.  Instantly,
+there was a terrible explosion.  When I came to my senses again, I was
+in the hospital, wrapped in bandages.  I had been terribly burned--see?"
+
+She loosened her black gown at the throat and pushed it down over her
+right shoulder.  Ralph shuddered at the deep, flaming scars.
+
+"My arm is worse," she said, quickly covering her shoulder again.  "I
+need not show you that.  My face was burned, too, but scarcely at all.
+To this day, I do not know how I escaped.  I must have thrown up my arm
+instinctively to shield my face.  See, there are no scars."
+
+"I see," murmured Ralph; "and what of him?"
+
+The dark eyes gleamed indescribably.  "What of him?" she asked, with
+assumed lightness.  "Why, he was not hurt at all.  I saved him from
+disfigurement, if not from death.  I bear the scars; he goes free."
+
+"I know," said Ralph, "but why were you not married?  All his life and
+love would be little enough to give in return for that."
+
+Miss Evelina fixed her deep eyes upon Anthony Dexter's son.  In her
+voice there was no hint of faltering.
+
+"I never saw him again," she said, "until twenty-five years afterward,
+and then I was veiled.  He went away."
+
+"Went away!" repeated Ralph, incredulously.  "Miss Evelina, what do you
+mean?"
+
+"What I said," she replied.  "He went away.  He came once to the
+hospital.  As it happened, there was another girl there, named Evelyn
+Grey, burned by acid, and infinitely worse than I.  The two names
+became confused.  He was told that I would be disfigured for life--that
+every feature was destroyed except my sight.  That was enough for him.
+He asked no more questions, but simply went away."
+
+"Coward!" cried Ralph, his face white.  "Cur!"
+
+Miss Evelina's eyes gleamed with subtle triumph.  "What would you?" she
+asked unemotionally.  "He told me that day of the accident that it was
+my soul he loved, and not my body, but at the test, he failed.  Men
+usually fail women, do they not, in anything that puts their love to
+the test?  He went away.  In a year, he was married, and he has a son."
+
+"A son!" repeated Ralph.  "What a heritage of disgrace for a son!  Does
+the boy know?"
+
+There was a significant silence.  "I do not think his father has told
+him," said Evelina, with forced calmness.
+
+"If he had," muttered Ralph, his hands clenched and his teeth set, "his
+son must have struck him dead where he stood.  To accept that from a
+woman, and then to go away!"
+
+"What would you?" asked Evelina again.  A curious, tigerish impulse was
+taking definite shape in her.  "Would you have him marry her?"
+
+"Marry her?  A thousand times, yes, if she would stoop so low!  What
+man is worthy of a woman who saves his life at the risk of her own?"
+
+"Disfigured?  asked Evelina, in an odd voice.
+
+"Yes," cried Ralph, "with the scars she bore for him!"
+
+There was a tense, painful interval.  Miss Evelina was grappling with a
+hideous temptation.  One word from her, and she was revenged upon
+Anthony Dexter for all the years of suffering.  One word from her, and
+sure payment would be made in the most subtle, terrible way.  She
+guessed that he could not bear the condemnation of this idolised son.
+
+The old pain gnawed at her heart.  Anthony Dexter had come back, she
+had had her little hour of triumph, and still she had not been freed.
+The Piper had told her that only forgiveness could loosen her chains.
+And how could Anthony Dexter be forgiven, when even his son said that
+he was a coward and a cur?
+
+"I--"  Miss Evelina's lips moved, then became still.
+
+"And so," said Ralph, "you have gone veiled ever since, for the sake of
+that beast?"
+
+"No, it was for my own sake.  Do you wonder that I have done it?  When
+I first realised what had happened, in an awful night that turned my
+brown hair white, I knew that Love and I were strangers forevermore.
+
+"When I left the hospital, I was obliged, for a time, to wear it.  The
+new skin was tender and bright red; it broke very easily."
+
+"I know," nodded Ralph.
+
+"There were oils to be kept upon it, too, and so I wore the veil.  I
+became accustomed to the shelter of it.  I could walk the streets and
+see, dimly, without being seen.  In those days, I thought that,
+perhaps, I might meet--him."
+
+"I don't wonder you shrank from it," returned Ralph.  His voice was
+almost inaudible.
+
+"It became harder still to put it by.  My heart was broken, and it
+shielded me as a long, black veil shields a widow.  It protected me
+from curious questions.  Never but once or twice in all the twenty-five
+years have I been asked about it, and then, I simply did not answer.
+People, after all, are very kind."
+
+"Were you never ill?"
+
+"Never, though every night of my life I have prayed for death.  At
+first, I clung to it without reason, except what I have told you, then,
+later on, I began to see a further protection.  Veiled as I was, no man
+would ever love me again.  I should never be tempted to trust, only to
+be betrayed.  Not that I ever could trust, you understand, but still,
+sometimes," concluded Miss Evelina, piteously, "I think the heart of a
+woman is strangely hungry for love."
+
+"I understand," said Ralph, "and, believe me, I do not blame you.
+Perhaps it was the best thing you could do.  Let me ask you of the man.
+You said, I think, that he still lives?"
+
+"Yes." Miss Evelina's voice was very low.
+
+"He is well and happy--prosperous?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you know where he lives?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Has he ever suffered at all from his cowardice, his shirking?"
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+"Then, Miss Evelina," said Ralph, his voice thick with passion and his
+hands tightly clenched, "will you let me go to him?  For the honour of
+men, I should like to punish this one brute.  I think I could present
+an argument that even he might understand!"
+
+The temptation became insistent.   The sheathed dagger was in Evelina's
+hands; she had only to draw forth the glittering steel.  A vengeance
+more subtle than she had ever dared to dream of was hers to command.
+
+"Tell me his name," breathed Ralph.  "Only tell me his name!"
+
+Miss Evelina threw back her beautiful head proudly.  "No," she said,
+firmly, "I will not.  Go," she cried, pointing uncertainly to the door.
+"For the love of God, go!"
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+The Poppies Claim Their Own
+
+It was dusk, and Anthony Dexter sat in the library.  Through the day,
+he had wearied himself to the point of exhaustion, but his phantom
+pursuer had not tired.  The veiled figure of Evelina had kept pace
+easily with his quick, nervous stride.  At the point on the river
+road, where he had met her for the first time, she had, indeed,
+seemed to go ahead of him and wait for him there.
+
+Night brought no relief.  By a singular fatality, he could see her in
+darkness as plainly as in sunshine, and even when his eyes were
+closed, she hovered persistently before him.  Throughout his drugged
+sleep she moved continuously; he never dreamed save of her.
+
+In days gone by, he had been certain that he was the victim of an
+hallucination, but now, he was not so sure.  He would not have sworn
+that the living Evelina was not eternally in his sight.  Time and
+time again he had darted forward quickly to catch her, but she
+swiftly eluded him.  "If," he thought, gritting his teeth, "I could
+once get my hands upon her----"
+
+His fists dosed tightly, then, by a supreme effort of will, he put
+the maddening thought away.  "I will not add murder to my sins," he
+muttered; "no, by Heaven, I will not!"
+
+By a whimsical change of his thought, he conceived himself dead and
+in his coffin.  Would Evelina pace ceaselessly before him then?  When
+he was in his grave, would she wait eternally at the foot of it, and
+would those burning eyes pierce the shielding sod that parted them?
+Life had not served to separate them--could he hope that Death would
+prove potent where Life had failed?
+
+Ralph came in, tired, having done his father's work for the day.  The
+room was wholly dark, but he paused upon the threshold, conscious
+that some one was there.
+
+"Alone, father?" he called, cheerily.
+
+"No," returned Anthony Dexter, grimly.
+
+"Who's here?" asked Ralph, stumbling into the room.  "It's so dark, I
+can't see."
+
+Fumbling for a match, he lighted a wax candle which stood in an
+antique candlestick on the library table.  The face of his father
+materialised suddenly out of the darkness, wearing an expression
+which made Ralph uneasy.
+
+"I thought," he said, troubled, "that some one was with you."
+
+"Aren't you here?" asked Anthony Dexter, trying to make his voice
+even.
+
+"Oh," returned Ralph.  "I see."
+
+With the candle flickering uncertainly between them, the two men
+faced each other.  Sharp shadows lay on the floor and Anthony
+Dexter's profile was silhouetted upon the opposite wall.  He noted
+that the figure of Evelina, pacing to and fro, cast no shadow.  It
+seemed strange.
+
+In the endeavour to find some interesting subject upon which to talk,
+Ralph chanced upon the fatal one.  "Father," he began, "you know that
+this morning we were speaking of Miss Evelina?"
+
+The tone was inquiring, but there was no audible answer.
+
+"Well," continued Ralph, "I saw her again to-day.  And I saw her
+face."  He had forgotten that his father had seen it, also, and had
+told him only yesterday.
+
+Anthony Dexter almost leaped from his chair--toward the veiled figure
+now approaching him.  "Did--did she show you her face?" he asked with
+difficulty.
+
+"No.  It was an accident.  She often left the front door open for me
+when I was attending--Araminta--and so, to-day, when I found it open,
+I went in.  She was asleep, on the couch in the parlour, and she wore
+no veil."
+
+At once, the phantom Evelina changed her tactics.  Hitherto, she had
+walked back and forth from side to side of his vision.  Now she
+advanced slowly toward him and as slowly retreated.  Her face was no
+longer averted; she walked backward cautiously, then advanced.  From
+behind her veil, he could feel her burning, accusing eyes.
+
+"Father," said Ralph, "she is beautiful.  She is the most beautiful
+woman I have ever seen in all my life.  Her face is as exquisite as
+if chiselled in marble, and you never saw such eyes.  And she wears
+that veil all the time."
+
+Anthony Dexter's cold fingers were forced to drum on the table with
+apparent carelessness.  Yes, he knew she was beautiful.  He had not
+forgotten it for an instant since she had thrown back her veil and
+faced him.  "Did--did she tell you why?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," answered Ralph.  "She told me why."
+
+A sword, suspended by a single hair, seemed swaying uncertainly over
+Anthony Dexter's head--a two-edged sword, sure to strike mercilessly
+if it fell.  Ralph's eyes were upon him, but not in contempt.  God,
+in His infinite pity, had made them kind.
+
+"Father," said Ralph, again, "she would not tell the name of the man,
+though I begged her to."  Anthony Dexter's heart began to beat again,
+slowly at first, then with a sudden and unbearable swiftness.  The
+blood thundered in his ears like the roar of a cataract.  He could
+hardly hear what Ralph was saying.
+
+"It was in a laboratory," the boy continued, though the words were
+almost lost.  "She was there with the man she loved and whom she was
+pledged to marry.  He was trying a new experiment, and she was
+watching.  While he was leaning over the retort to put in another
+chemical, she heard the mass seethe, and pushed him away, just in
+time to save him.
+
+"There was an explosion, and she was terribly burned.  He was not
+touched, mind you--she had saved him.  They took her to the hospital,
+and wrapped her in bandages.  He went there only once.  There was
+another girl there, named Evelyn Grey, who was so badly burned that
+every feature was destroyed.  The two names became confused, and a
+mistake was made.  They told him she would be disfigured for life,
+and so he went away."
+
+The walls of the room swayed as though they were of fabric.  The
+floor undulated; his chair rocked dizzily.  Out of the accusing
+silence, Thorpe's words leaped to mock him:
+
+_The honour of the spoken word still holds him.  He asked her to
+marry him and she consented . . . he was never released from his
+promise . . . did not even ask for it.  He slunk away like a
+cur . . . sometimes I think there is no sin but shirking. . . I can
+excuse a liar . . . I can pardon a thief . . . I can pity a
+murderer . . . but a shirk, no_.
+
+"Father," Ralph was saying, "you do not seem to understand.  I
+suppose it is difficult for you to comprehend such cowardice--you
+have always done the square thing."  The man winced, but the boy did
+not see it.
+
+"Try to think of a brute like that, Father, and be glad that our name
+means 'right.' She saved him from terrible disfigurement if not from
+death.  Having instinctively thrown up her right arm, she got the
+worst of it there, and on her shoulder.  Her face was badly burned,
+but not so deeply as to be scarred.  She showed me her shoulder--it
+is awful.  I never had seen anything like it.  She said her arm was
+worse, but she did not show me that."
+
+"He never knew?" asked Anthony Dexter, huskily.  Ralph seemed to be
+demanding something of him, and the veiled figure, steadily advancing
+and retreating, demanded more still.
+
+"No," answered Ralph, "he never knew.  He went to the hospital only
+once.  He had told her that very day that he loved her for the
+beautiful soul she had, and at the test, his love failed.  He never
+saw her again.  He went away, and married, and he has a son.  Think
+of the son, Father, only think of the son!  Suppose he knew it!  How
+could he ever bear a disgrace like that!"
+
+"I do not know," muttered Anthony Dexter.  His lips were cold and
+stiff and he did not recognise his own voice.
+
+"When she understood what had happened," Ralph continued, "and how he
+had deserted her for ever, after taking his cowardly life from her as
+a gift, her hair turned white.  She has wonderful hair.  Father--it's
+heavy and white and dull--it does not shine.  She wore the veil at
+first because she had to, because her face was healing, and before it
+had wholly healed she had become accustomed to the shelter of it.
+Then, too, as she said, it kept people away from her--she could not
+be tempted to love or trust again."
+
+There was an interval of silence, though the very walls seemed to be
+crying out: "Tell him!  Tell him!  Confess, and purge your guilty
+soul!"  The clock ticked loudly, the blood roared in his ears.  His
+hands were cold and almost lifeless; his body seemed paralysed, but
+he heard, so acutely that it was agony.
+
+"Miss Evelina said," resumed Ralph, "that she did not think he had
+told his son.  Do you know what I was thinking, Father, while she was
+talking?  I was thinking of you, and how you had always done the
+square thing."
+
+It seemed to Anthony Dexter that all the tortures of his laboratory
+had been chemically concentrated and were being poured out upon his
+head.  "Our name means 'right,'" said the boy, proudly, and the man
+writhed in his chair.
+
+For a moment, the ghostly Evelina went to Ralph, her hands
+outstretched in disapproval.  Immediately she returned to her former
+position, advancing, retreating, advancing, retreating, with the
+regularity of the tide.
+
+"I begged her," continued Ralph, "to tell me the man's name, but she
+would not.  He still lives, she said, he is happy and prosperous and
+he has not suffered at all.  For the honour of men, I want to punish
+that brute.  Father, do you know that when I think of a cur like
+that, I believe I could rend him with my own hands?"
+
+Anthony Dexter got to his feet unsteadily.  The mists about him
+cleared and the veiled figure whisked suddenly out of his sight.  He
+went up to Ralph as he might walk to the scaffold, but his head was
+held high.  All the anguish of his soul crystallised itself into one
+passionate word:
+
+"Strike!"
+
+For an instant the boy faced him, unbelieving.  Then he remembered
+that his father had seen Miss Evelina's face, that he must have known
+she was beautiful--and why she wore the veil.  "Father!" he cried,
+shrilly.  "Oh, never you!"
+
+Anthony Dexter looked into the eyes of his son until he could bear to
+look no more.  The veiled figure no longer stood between them, but
+something else was there, infinitely more terrible.  As he had
+watched the beating of the dog's bared heart, the man watched the
+boy's face.  Incredulity, amazement, wonder, and fear resolved
+themselves gradually into conviction.  Then came contempt, so deep
+and profound and permanent that from it there could never be appeal.
+With all the strength of his young and knightly soul, Ralph despised
+his father--and Anthony Dexter knew it.
+
+"Father," whispered the boy, hoarsely, "it was never you!  Tell me it
+isn't true!  Just a word, and I'll believe you!  For the sake of our
+manhood, Father, tell me it isn't true!"
+
+Anthony Dexter's head drooped, his eyes lowered before his son's.
+The cold sweat dripped from his face; his hands groped pitifully,
+like those of a blind man, feeling his way in a strange place.
+
+His hands fumbled helplessly toward Ralph's and the boy shrank back
+as though from the touch of a snake.  With a deep-drawn breath of
+agony, the man flung himself, unseeing, out of the room.  Ralph
+reeled like a drunken man against his chair.  He sank into it
+helplessly and his head fell forward on the table, his shoulders
+shaking with that awful grief which knows no tears.
+
+"Father!" he breathed.  "Father!  Father!"
+
+Upstairs, Anthony Dexter walked through the hall, followed, or
+occasionally preceded, by the ghostly figure of Evelina.  Her veil
+was thrown back now, and seemed a part of the mist which surrounded
+her.  Sometimes he had told a patient that there was never a point
+beyond which human endurance could not be made to go.  He knew now
+that he had lied.
+
+Ralph's unspoken condemnation had hurt him cruelly.  He could have
+borne words, he thought, better than that look on his son's face.
+For the first time, he realised how much he had cared for Ralph; how
+much--God help him!--he cared for him still.
+
+Yet above it all, dominant, compelling, was man's supreme
+passion--that for his mate.  As Evelina moved before him in her
+unveiled beauty, his hungry soul leaped to meet hers.  Now,
+strangely, he loved her as he had loved her in the long ago, yet with
+an added grace.  There was an element in his love that had never been
+there before--the mysterious bond which welds more firmly into one,
+two who have suffered together.
+
+He hungered for Ralph--for the strong young arm thrown about his
+shoulders in friendly fashion, for the eager, boyish laugh, the
+hearty word.  He hungered for Evelina, radiant with a beauty no woman
+had ever worn before.  Far past the promise of her girlhood, the
+noble, transfigured face, with its glory of lustreless white hair,
+set his pulses to throbbing wildly.  And subtly, unconsciously, but
+not the less surely, he hungered for death.
+
+Anthony Dexter had cherished no sentiment about the end of life; to
+him it had seemed much the same as the stopping of a clock, and of as
+little moment.  He had failed to see why such a fuss was made about
+the inevitable, though he had at times been scientifically interested
+in the hysterical effect he had produced in a household by announcing
+that within an hour or so a particular human clock might be expected
+to stop.  It had never occurred to him, either, that a man had not a
+well-defined right to stop the clock of his own being whenever it
+seemed desirable or expedient.
+
+Now he thought of death as the final, beautiful solution of all
+mundane problems.  If he were dead, Ralph could not look at him with
+contempt; the veiled--or unveiled--Evelina could not haunt him as she
+had, remorselessly, for months.  Yes, death was beautiful, and he
+well knew how to make it sure.
+
+By an incredibly swift transition, his pain passed into an exquisite
+pleasure.  The woman he loved was walking in the hall before him; the
+son he loved was downstairs.  What man could have more?
+
+  "For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
+    The black minute's at end,
+  And the elements' rage, the fiend voices that rave,
+    Shall dwindle, shall blend,
+  Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
+    Then a light, then thy breast--
+  Oh thou soul of my soul, I shall clasp thee again,
+    And with God be the rest!"
+
+The wonderful words sang themselves over in his consciousness.  He
+smiled and the unveiled Evelina smiled back at him, with infinite
+tenderness, infinite love.  To-night he would sleep as he had not
+slept before--in the sleep that knows no waking.
+
+He had the tiny white tablets, plenty of them, but the fancy seized
+him to taste this last bitterness to the full.  He took a wine glass
+from his chiffonier--those white, blunt fingers had never been more
+steady than now.  He lifted the vial on high and poured out the
+laudanum, faltering no more than when he had guided the knife in an
+operation that made him famous throughout the State.
+
+"Evelina," he said, his voice curiously soft, "I pledge you now, in a
+bond that cannot break!"  Was it fancy, or did the violet eyes soften
+with tears, even though the scarlet lips smiled?
+
+He drank.  The silken petals of the poppies, crushed into the peace
+that passeth all understanding, began their gentle ministry.   He
+made his way to his bed, put out his candle, and lay down.  The
+Spirit of the Poppies stood before him--a woman with a face like
+Evelina's, but her garments were scarlet, and Evelina always wore
+black.
+
+In the darkness, he could not distinguish clearly.  "Evelina," he
+called, aloud, "come!  Come to me, and put your hand in mine!"
+
+At once she seemed to answer him, wholly tender, wholly kind.  Was he
+dreaming, or did Evelina come and kneel beside him?  He groped for
+her hand, but it eluded him.
+
+"Evelina," he said, again, "dear heart!  Come!  Forgive," he
+breathed, drowsily.  "Ah, only forgive!"
+
+Then, as if by a miracle, her hand slipped into his and he felt his
+head drawn tenderly to man's first and last resting place--a woman's
+breast.
+
+And so, after a little, Anthony Dexter slept.  The Spirit of the
+Poppies had claimed her own at last.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+Forgiveness
+
+Haggard and worn, after a sleepless night, Ralph went down-stairs.
+Heavily upon his young shoulders, he bore the burden of his father's
+disgrace.  Through their kinship, the cowardice and the shirking became
+a part of his heritage.
+
+There was nothing to be done, for he could not raise his hand in anger
+against his own father.  They must continue to live together, and keep
+an unbroken front to the world, even though the bond between them had
+come to be the merest pretence.  He despised his father, but no one
+must ever know it--not even the father whom he despised.  Ralph did not
+guess that his father had read his face.
+
+He saw, now, why Miss Evelina had refused to tell him the man's name,
+and he honoured her for her reticence.  He perceived, too, the hideous
+temptation with which she was grappling when she begged him to leave
+her.  She had feared that she would tell him, and he must never let her
+suspect that he knew.
+
+The mighty, unseen forces that lie beneath our daily living were
+surging through Ralph's troubled soul.  Love, hatred, shame, remorse,
+anger, despair--the words are but symbols of things that work
+devastation within.
+
+Behold a man, in all outward seeming a gentleman.  Observe his
+courtesy, refinement, and consideration, his perfect self-control.
+Note his mastery of the lower nature, and see the mind in complete
+triumph over the beast.  Remark his education, the luxury of his
+surroundings, and the fine quality of his thought.  Wonder at the high
+levels whereon his life is laid, and marvel at the perfect adjustment
+between him and his circumstances.  Subject this man to the onslaught
+of some vast, cyclonic passion, and see the barriers crumble, then
+fall.  See all the artifice of civilisation swept away at one fell
+stroke, and behold your gentleman, transformed in an instant into a
+beast, with all a beast's primeval qualities.
+
+Under stress like this Ralph was fighting to regain his self mastery.
+He knew that he must force himself to sit opposite his father at the
+table, and exchange the daily, commonplace talk.  No one must ever
+suspect that anything was amiss--it is this demand of Society which
+keeps the structure in place and draws the line between civilisation
+and barbarism.  He knew that he never again could look his father
+straight in the face, that he must always avoid his eyes.  It would be
+hard at first, but Ralph had never given up anything simply because it
+was difficult.
+
+It was a relief to find that he was downstairs first.  Hearing his
+father's step upon the stair, he thought, would enable him to steel
+himself more surely to the inevitable meeting.  After they had once
+spoken together, it would be easier.  At length they might even become
+accustomed to the ghastly thing that lay between them and veil it, as
+it were, with commonplaces.
+
+Ralph took up the morning paper and pretended to read, though the words
+danced all over the page.  The old housekeeper brought in his
+breakfast, and, likewise, he affected to eat.  An hour went by, and
+still the dreaded step did not sound upon the stair.  At length the old
+housekeeper said, with a certain timid deference:
+
+"Your father's very late this morning, Doctor Ralph.  He has never been
+so late before."
+
+"He'll be down, presently.  He's probably overslept."
+
+"It's not your father's way to oversleep.  Hadn't you better go up and
+see?"
+
+Thus forced, Ralph went leisurely up-stairs, intending only to rap upon
+the door, which was always closed.  Perhaps, with the closed door
+between them, the first speech might be easier.
+
+He rapped once, with hesitation, then again, more definitely.  There
+was no answer.  Wholly without suspicion, Ralph opened the door, and
+went in.
+
+Anthony Dexter lay upon his bed, fully dressed.  On his face was a
+smile of ineffable peace.  Ralph went to him quickly, shook him, and
+felt his pulse, but vainly.  The heart of the man made no answer to the
+questioning fingers of his son.  The eyes were closed and, his hands
+trembling now, Ralph forced them open.  The contracted pupils gave him
+all the information he needed.   He found the wineglass, which still
+smelled of laudanum.  He washed it carefully, put it away, then went
+down-stairs.
+
+His first sensation was entirely relief.  Anthony Dexter had chosen the
+one sure way out.  Ralph had a distinct sense of gratitude until he
+remembered that death did not end disgrace.  Never again need he look
+in his father's eyes; there was no imperative demand that he should
+conceal his contempt.  With the hiding of Anthony Dexter's body beneath
+the shriving sod, all would be over save memory.  Could he put by this
+memory as his father had his?  Ralph did not know.
+
+The sorrowful preliminaries were all over before Ralph's feeling was in
+any way changed.  Then the pity of it all overwhelmed him in a blinding
+flood.
+
+Searching for something or some one to lean upon, his thought turned to
+Miss Evelina.  Surely, now, he might go to her.  If comfort was to be
+had, of any sort, he could find it there.  At any rate, they were
+bound, much as his father had been bound to her before, by the logic of
+events.
+
+He went uphill, scarcely knowing how he made his way.  Miss Evelina,
+veiled, as usual, opened the door for him.  Ralph stumbled across the
+threshold, crying out:
+
+"My father is dead!  He died by his own hand!"
+
+"Yes," returned Miss Evelina, quietly.   "I have heard.  I am
+sorry--for you."
+
+"You need not be," flashed Ralph, quickly.  "It is for us, my father
+and I, to be sorry for you--to make amends, if any amends can be made
+by the living or the dead."
+
+Miss Evelina started.  He knew, then?  And it had not been necessary
+for her to draw out the sheathed dagger which only yesterday she had
+held in her hand.  The glittering vengeance had gone home, through no
+direct agency of hers.
+
+"Miss Evelina!" cried the boy.  "I have come to ask you to forgive my
+father!"
+
+A silence fell between them, as cold and forbidding as Death itself.
+After an interval which seemed an hour, Miss Evelina spoke.
+
+"He never asked," she said.  Her tone was icy, repellent.
+
+"I know," answered Ralph, despairingly, "but I, his son, ask it.
+Anthony Dexter's son asks you to forgive Anthony Dexter--not to let him
+go to his grave unforgiven."
+
+"He never asked," said Miss Evelina again, stubbornly.
+
+"His need is all the greater for that," pleaded the boy, "and mine.
+Have you thought of my need of it?  My name meant 'right' until my
+father changed its meaning.  Don't you see that unless you forgive my
+father, I can never hold up my head again?"
+
+What the Piper had said to Evelina came back to her now, eloquent with
+appeal;
+
+_The word is not made right.  I'm thinking 't is wrong end to, as many
+things in this world are until we move and look at them from another
+way.  It's giving for, that's all.  When you have put self so wholly
+aside that you can he sorry for him because he has wronged you, why,
+then you have forgiven_.
+
+She moved about restlessly.  It seemed to her that she could never be
+sorry for Anthony Dexter because he had wronged her; that she could
+never grow out of the hurt of her own wrong.
+
+"Come with me," said Ralph, choking.  "I know it's a hard thing I ask
+of you.  God knows I haven't forgiven him myself, but I know I've got
+to, and you'll have to, too.  Miss Evelina, you've got to forgive him,
+or I never can bear my disgrace."
+
+She let him lead her out of the house.  On the long way to Anthony
+Dexter's, no word passed between them.  Only the sound of their
+footfalls, and Ralph's long, choking breaths, half sobs, broke the
+silence.
+
+At the gate, the usual knot of curious people had gathered.  They were
+wondering, in undertones, how one so skilful as Doctor Dexter had
+happened to take an overdose of laudanum, but they stood by,
+respectfully, to make way for Ralph and the mysterious, veiled woman in
+black.  The audible whispers followed them up to the very door: "Who is
+she?  What had she to do with him?"
+
+As yet, Anthony Dexter's body lay in his own room.  Ralph led Miss
+Evelina in, and closed the door.  "Here he is," sobbed the boy.  "He
+has gone and left the shame for me.  Forgive him, Miss Evelina!  For
+the love of God, forgive him!"
+
+Evelina sighed.  She was standing close to Anthony Dexter now without
+fear.  She had no wish to torture him, as she once had, with the sight
+of her unveiled face.  It was the man she had loved, now--the emotion
+which had made him hideous to her was past and gone.  To her, as to him
+the night before, death seemed the solution of all problems, the
+supreme answer to all perplexing questions.
+
+Ralph crept out of the room and closed the door so softly that she did
+not hear.  She was alone, as every woman some day is; alone with her
+dead.
+
+She threw back her veil.  The morning sun lay strong upon Anthony
+Dexter's face, revealing every line.  Death had been kind to him at
+last, had closed the tortured eyes, blotted out the lines of cruelty
+around his mouth, and changed the mask-like expression to a tender calm.
+
+A hint of the old, loving smile was there; once again he was the man
+she had loved, but the love itself had burned out of her heart long
+ago.  He was naught to her, nor she to him.
+
+The door knob turned, and, quickly, she lowered her veil.  Piper Tom
+came in, with a soft, slow step.  He did not seem to see Miss Evelina;
+one would have said he did not know she was in the room.  He went
+straight to Anthony Dexter, and laid his warm hand upon the cold one.
+
+"Man," he said, "I've come to say I forgive you for hurting Laddie.
+I'm not thinking, now, that you would have done it if you had known.
+I'm sorry for you because you could do it.  I've forgiven you as I hope
+God will forgive you for that and for everything else."
+
+Then he turned to Evelina, and whispered, as though to keep the dead
+from hearing: "'T was hard, but I've done it.  'T is easier, I'm
+thinking, to forgive the dead than the living."  He went out again, as
+silently as he had come, and closed the door.
+
+Was it, in truth, easier to forgive the dead?  In her inmost soul,
+Evelina knew that she could not have cherished lifelong resentment
+against any other person in the world.  To those we love most, we are
+invariably most cruel, but she did not love him now.  The man she had
+loved was no more than a stranger--and from a stranger can come no
+intentional wrong.
+
+"O God," prayed Evelina, for the first time, "help me to forgive!"
+
+She threw back her veil once more.  They were face to face at last,
+with only a prayer between.  His mute helplessness pleaded with her and
+Ralph's despairing cry rang in her ears.  The estranging mists cleared,
+and, in truth, she put self aside.
+
+Intuitively, she saw how he had suffered since the night he came to her
+to make it right, if he could.  He must have suffered, unless he were
+more than human.  "Dear God," she prayed, again, "oh, help me forgive!"
+
+All at once there was a change.  The light seemed thrown into the
+uttermost places of her darkened soul.  She illumined, and a wave of
+infinite pity swept her from head to foot.  She leaned forward, her
+hands seeking his, and upon Anthony Dexter's dead face there fell the
+forgiving baptism of her tears.
+
+
+In the hall, as she went out, she encountered Miss Mehitable.  That
+face, too, was changed.  She had not come, as comes that ghoulish
+procession of merest acquaintances, to gloat, living, over the helpless
+dead.
+
+At the sight of Evelina, she retreated.  "I'll go back," murmured Miss
+Mehitable, enigmatically.  "You had the best right."
+
+Evelina went down-stairs and home again, but Miss Mehitable did not
+enter that silent room.
+
+The third day came, and there was no resurrection.  Since the miracle
+of Easter, the world has waited its three days for the dead to rise
+again.  Ralph sat in the upper hall, just beyond the turn of the stair,
+and beside him, unveiled, was Miss Evelina.
+
+"It's you and I," he had pleaded, "don't you see that?  Have you never
+thought that you should have been my mother?"
+
+From below, in Thorpe's deep voice, came the words of the burial
+service: "I am the resurrection and the life.  He that believeth on me,
+though he were dead, yet shall he live."
+
+For a few moments, Thorpe spoke of death as the inevitable end of life,
+and our ignorance of what lies beyond.  He spoke of that mystic veil
+which never parts save for a passage, and from behind which no word
+ever comes.  He said that life was a rainbow spanning brilliantly the
+two silences, that man's ceasing was no more strange than his
+beginning, and that the God who ordained the beginning had also
+ordained the end.  He said, too, that the love which gave life might
+safely be trusted with that same life, at its mysterious conclusion.
+At length, he struck the personal note.
+
+"It is hard for me," Thorpe went on, "to perform this last service for
+my friend.  All of you are my friends, but the one who lies here was
+especially dear.  He was a man of few friendships, and I was privileged
+to come close, to know him as he was.
+
+"His life was clean, and upon his record there rests no shadow of
+disgrace."  At this Ralph, in the upper hall, buried his face in his
+hands.  Miss Evelina sat quietly, to all intents and purposes unmoved.
+
+"He was a brave man," Thorpe was saying; "a valiant soldier on the
+great battlefield of the world.  He met his temptations face to face,
+and conquered them.  For him, there was no such thing as cowardice--he
+never shirked.  He met every responsibility like a man, and never
+swerved aside.  He took his share, and more, of the world's work, and
+did it nobly, as a man should do.
+
+"His brusque manner concealed a great heart.  I fear that, at times,
+some of you may have misunderstood him.  There was no man in our
+community more deeply and lovingly the friend of us all, and there is
+no man among us more noble in thought and act than he.
+
+"We who have known him cannot but be the better for the knowing.  It
+would be a beautiful world, indeed, if we were all as good as he.  We
+cannot fail to be inspired by his example.  Through knowing him, each
+of us is better fitted for life.  We can conquer cowardice more easily,
+meet our temptations more valiantly, and more surely keep from the sin
+of shirking, because Anthony Dexter has lived.
+
+"To me," said Thorpe, his voice breaking, "it is the greatest loss,
+save one, that I have ever known.  But it is only through our own
+sorrow that we come to understand the sorrow of others, only through
+our own weaknesses that we learn to pity the weakness of others, and
+only through our own love and forgiveness that we can ever comprehend
+the infinite love and forgiveness of God.  If any of you have ever
+thought he wronged you, in some small, insignificant way, I give you my
+word that it was entirely unintentional, and I bespeak for him your
+pardon.
+
+"He goes to his grave to-day, to wait, in the great silence, for the
+final solution of God's infinite mysteries, and, as you and I believe,
+for God's sure reward.  He goes with the love of us all, with the
+forgiveness of us all, and with the hope of us all that when we come to
+die, we may be as certain of Heaven as he."
+
+Perceiving that his grief was overmastering him, Thorpe proceeded
+quickly to the benediction.  In the pause that followed, Ralph leaned
+toward the woman who sat beside him.
+
+"Have you," he breathed, "forgiven him--and me?"
+
+Miss Evelina nodded, her beautiful eyes shining with tears.
+
+"Mother!" said Ralph, thickly.  Like a hurt child, he went to her, and
+sobbed his heart out, in the shelter of her arms.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+Undine Finds Her Soul
+
+The year was at its noon.  Every rose-bush was glorious with bloom, and
+even the old climbing rose which clung, in its decay, to Miss
+Mehitable's porch railing had put forth a few fragrant blossoms.
+
+Soon after Araminta had been carried back home, she discovered that she
+had changed since she went away.  Aunt Hitty no longer seemed
+infallible.  Indeed, Araminta had admitted to herself, though with the
+pangs of a guilty conscience, that it was possible for Aunt Hitty to be
+mistaken.  It was probable that the entire knowledge of the world was
+not concentrated in Aunt Hitty.
+
+Outwardly, things went on as usual.  Miss Mehitable issued orders to
+Araminta as the commander in chief of an army issues instructions to
+his subordinates, and Araminta obeyed as faithfully as before, yet with
+a distinct difference.  She did what she was told to do out of
+gratitude for lifelong care, and not because she felt that she had to.
+
+She went, frequently, to see Miss Evelina, having disposed of
+objections by the evident fact that she could not neglect any one who
+had been so kind to her as Miss Evelina had.  Usually, however, the
+faithful guardian went along, and the three sat in the garden, Evelina
+with her frail hands listlessly folded, and the others stitching away
+at the endless and monotonous patchwork.
+
+Miss Mehitable had a secret fear that the bloom had been brushed from
+her rose.  Until the accident, Araminta had scarcely been out of her
+sight since she brought her home, a toddling infant.  Miss Mehitable's
+mind had unerringly controlled two bodies until Araminta fell off the
+ladder.  Now, the other mind began to show distressing signs of
+activity.
+
+By dint of extra work, Araminta's eighth patchwork quilt was made for
+quilting, and the Ladies' Aid Society was invited to Miss Mehitable's
+for the usual Summer revelry of quilting and gossip.  Miss Evelina was
+invited, but refused to go.
+
+After the festivity was over, Miss Mehitable made a fruitful excavation
+into a huge chest in the attic, and emerged, flushed but happy, with
+enough scraps for three quilts.
+
+"This here next quilt, Minty," she said, with the air of one announcing
+a pleasant surprise, "will be the Risin' Sun and Star pattern.  It's
+harder 'n the others, and that's why I've kep' it until now.  You've
+done all them other quilts real good," she added, grudgingly.
+
+Araminta had her own surprise ready, but it was not of a pleasant
+nature.  "Thank you, Aunt Hitty," she replied, "but I'm not going to
+make any more quilts, for a while, at any rate."
+
+Miss Mehitable's lower jaw dropped in amazement.  Never before had
+Araminta failed to obey her suggestions.  "Minty," she said, anxiously,
+"don't you feel right?  It was hot yesterday, and the excitement, and
+all--I dunno but you may have had a stroke."
+
+Araminta smiled--a lovable, winning smile.  "No, I haven't had any
+'stroke,' but I've made all the quilts I'm going to until I get to be
+an old woman, and have nothing else to do."
+
+"What are you layin' out to do, Minty?" demanded Miss Mehitable.
+
+"I'm going to be outdoors all I want to, and I'm going up to Miss
+Evelina's and play with my kitten, and help you with the housework, or
+do anything else you want me to do, but--no more quilts," concluded the
+girl, firmly.
+
+"Araminta Lee!" cried Miss Mehitable, speech having returned.  "If I
+ain't ashamed of you!  Here's your poor old aunt that's worked her
+fingers to the bone, slaving for you almost ever since the day you was
+born, and payin' a doctor's outrageous bill of four dollars and a
+half--or goin' to pay," she corrected, her conscience reproaching her,
+"and you refusin' to mind!
+
+"Haven't I took good care of you all these eighteen years?  Haven't I
+set up with you when you was sick and never let you out of my sight for
+a minute, and taught you to be as good a housekeeper as any in Rushton,
+and made you into a first-class seamstress, and educated you myself,
+and looked after your religious training, and made your clothes?  Ain't
+I been father and mother and sister and brother and teacher and
+grandparents all rolled into one?  And now you're refusin' to make
+quilts!"
+
+Araminta's heart reproached her, but the blood of some fighting
+ancestor was in her pulses now.  "I know, Aunt Hitty," she said,
+kindly, "you've done all that and more, and I'm not in the least
+ungrateful, though you may think so.  But I'm not going to make any
+more quilts!"
+
+"Araminta Lee," said Miss Mehitable, warningly, "look careful where
+you're steppin'.  Hell is yawning in front of you this very minute!"
+
+Araminta smiled sweetly.  Since the day the minister had gone to see
+her, she had had no fear of hell.  "I don't see it, Aunt Hitty," she
+said, "but if everybody who hasn't pieced more than eight quilts by
+hand is in there, it must be pretty crowded."
+
+"Araminta Lee," cried Miss Mehitable, "you're your mother all over
+again.  She got just as high-steppin' as you before her downfall, and
+see where she ended at.  She was married," concluded the accuser,
+scornfully, "yes, actually married!"
+
+"Aunt Hitty," said Araminta, her sweet mouth quivering ever so little,
+"your mother was married, too, wasn't she?"  With this parting shaft,
+the girl went out of the room, her head held high.
+
+Miss Mehitable stared after her, uncomprehending.  Slowly it dawned
+upon her that some one had been telling tales and undoing her careful
+work.  "Minty!  Minty!" she cried, "how can you talk to me so!"
+
+But 'Minty' was outdoors and on her way to Miss Evelina's, bareheaded,
+this being strictly forbidden, so she did not hear.  She was hoping
+against hope that some day, at Miss Evelina's, she might meet Doctor
+Ralph again and tell him she was sorry she had broken his heart.
+
+Since the day he went away from her, Araminta had not had even a
+glimpse of him.  She had gone to his father's funeral, as everyone else
+in the village did, and had wondered that he was not in the front seat,
+where, in her brief experience of funerals, mourners usually sat.
+
+She admitted, to herself, that she had gone to the funeral solely for
+the sake of seeing Doctor Ralph.  Araminta was wholly destitute of
+curiosity regarding the dead, and she had not joined the interested
+procession which wound itself around Anthony Dexter's coffin before
+passing out, regretfully, at the front door.  Neither had Miss
+Mehitable.  At the time, Araminta had thought it strange, for at all
+previous occasions of the kind, within her remembrance.  Aunt Hitty had
+been well up among the mourners and had usually gone around the casket
+twice.
+
+At Miss Evelina's, she knocked in vain.  There was white chiffon upon
+the line, but all the doors were locked.  Doctor Ralph was not there,
+either, and even the kitten was not in sight, so, regretfully, Araminta
+went home again.
+
+Throughout the day, Miss Mehitable did not speak to her erring niece,
+but Araminta felt it to be a relief, rather than a punishment.  In the
+afternoon, the emancipated young woman put on her best gown--a white,
+cross-barred muslin which she had made herself.  It was not Sunday, and
+Araminta was forbidden to wear the glorified raiment save on occasions
+of high state.
+
+She added further to her sins by picking a pink rose--Miss Mehitable
+did not think flowers were made to pick--and fastening it coquettishly
+in her brown hair.  Moreover, Araminta had put her hair up loosely,
+instead of in the neat, tight wad which Miss Mehitable had forced upon
+her the day she donned long skirts.  When Miss Mehitable beheld her
+transformed charge she would have broken her vow of silence had not the
+words mercifully failed.  Aunt Hitty's vocabulary was limited, and she
+had no language in which to express her full opinion of the wayward
+one, so she assumed, instead, the pose of a suffering martyr.
+
+The atmosphere at the table, during supper, was icy, even though it was
+the middle of June.  Thorpe noticed it and endeavoured to talk, but was
+not successful.  Miss Mehitable's few words, which were invariably
+addressed to him, were so acrid in quality that they made him nervous.
+The Reverend Austin Thorpe, innocent as he was of all intentional
+wrong, was made to feel like a criminal haled to the bar of justice.
+
+But Araminta glowed and dimpled and smiled.  Her eyes danced with
+mischief, and the colour came and went upon her velvety cheeks.  She
+took pains to ask Aunt Hitty for the salt or the bread, and kept up a
+continuous flow of high-spirited talk.  Had it not been for Araminta,
+the situation would have become openly strained.
+
+Afterward, she began to clear up the dishes as usual, but Miss
+Mehitable pushed her out of the room with a violence indicative of
+suppressed passion.  So, humming a hymn at an irreverent tempo,
+Araminta went out and sat down on the front porch, spreading down the
+best rug in the house that she might not soil her gown.  This, also,
+was forbidden.
+
+When the dishes were washed and put away, Miss Mehitable came out, clad
+in her rustling black silk and her best bonnet.  "Miss Lee," she said
+very coldly, "I am going out."
+
+"All right, Aunt Hitty" returned Araminta, cheerfully.  "As it happens,
+I'm not."
+
+Miss Mehitable repressed an exclamation of horror.  Seemingly, then, it
+had occurred to Araminta to go out in the evening--alone!
+
+Miss Mehitable's feet moved swiftly away from the house.  She was going
+to the residence of the oldest and most orthodox deacon in Thorpe's
+church, to ask for guidance in dealing with her wayward charge, but
+Araminta never dreamed of this.
+
+Dusk came, the sweet, June dusk, starred with fireflies and clouded
+with great white moths.  The roses and mignonette and honeysuckle made
+the air delicately fragrant.  To the emancipated one, it was, indeed, a
+beautiful world.
+
+Austin Thorpe came out, having found his room unbearably close.  As the
+near-sighted sometimes do, he saw more clearly at twilight than at
+other times.
+
+"You here, child?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, I'm here," replied Araminta, happily.  "Sit down, won't you?"
+Having taken the first step, she found the others comparatively easy,
+and was rejoicing in her new freedom.  She felt sure, too, that some
+day she should see Doctor Ralph once more and all would be made right
+between them.
+
+The minister sat down gladly, his old heart yearning toward Araminta as
+toward a loved and only child.  "Where is your aunt?" he asked, timidly.
+
+"Goodness knows," laughed Araminta, irreverently.  "She's gone out, in
+all her best clothes.  She didn't say whether she was coming back or
+not."
+
+Thorpe was startled, for he had never heard speech like this from
+Araminta.  He knew her only as a docile, timid child.  Now, she seemed
+suddenly to have grown up.
+
+For her part, Araminta remembered how the minister had once helped her
+out of a difficulty, and taken away from her forever the terrible,
+haunting fear of hell.  Here was a dazzling opportunity to acquire new
+knowledge.
+
+"Mr. Thorpe," she demanded, eagerly, "what is it to be married?"
+
+"To be married," repeated Austin Thorpe, dreamily, his eyes fixed upon
+a firefly that flitted, star-tike, near the rose, "is, I think, the
+nearest this world can come to Heaven."
+
+"Oh!" cried Araminta, in astonishment.  "What does it mean?"
+
+"It means," answered Thorpe, softly, "that a man and a woman whom God
+meant to be mated have found each other at last.  It means there is
+nothing in the world that you have to face alone, that all your joys
+are doubled and all your sorrows shared.  It means that there is no
+depth into which you can go alone, that one other hand is always in
+yours; trusting, clinging, tender, to help you bear whatever comes.
+
+"It means that the infinite love has been given, in part, to you, for
+daily strength and comfort.  It is a balm for every wound, a spur for
+every lagging, a sure dependence in every weakness, a belief in every
+doubt.  The perfect being is neither man nor woman, but a merging of
+dual natures into a united whole.  To be married gives a man a woman's
+tenderness; a woman, a man's courage.  The long years stretch before
+them, and what lies beyond no one can say, but they face it, smiling
+and serene, because they are together."
+
+"My mother was married," said Araminta, softly.  All at once, the stain
+of disgrace was wiped out.
+
+"Yes, dear child, and, I hope, to the man she loved, as I hope that
+some day you will be married to the man who loves you."
+
+Araminta's whole heart yearned toward Ralph--yearned unspeakably.  In
+something else, surely, Aunt Hitty was wrong.
+
+"Araminta," said Thorpe, his voice shaking; "dear child, come here."
+
+She followed him into the house.  His trembling old hands lighted a
+candle and she saw that his eyes were full of tears.  From an inner
+pocket, he drew out a small case, wrapped in many thicknesses of worn
+paper.  He unwound it reverently, his face alight with a look she had
+never seen there before.
+
+"See!" he said.  He opened the ornate case and showed her an old
+daguerreotype.  A sweet, girlish face looked out at her, a woman with
+trusting, loving eyes, a sweet mouth, and dark, softly parted hair.
+
+"Oh," whispered Araminta.  "Were you married--to her?"
+
+"No," answered Thorpe, hoarsely, shutting the case with a snap and
+beginning to wrap it again in the many folds of paper.  "I was to have
+been married to her."  His voice lingered with inexpressible fondness
+upon the words.  "She died," he said, his lips quivering.
+
+"Oh," cried the girl, "I'm sorry!"  A sharp pang pierced her through
+and through.
+
+"Child," said Thorpe, his wrinkled hand closing on hers, "to those who
+love, there is no such thing as Death.  Do you think that just because
+she is dead, I have ceased to care?  Death has made her mine as Life
+could never do.  She walks beside me daily, as though we were hand in
+hand.  Her tenderness makes me tender, her courage gives me strength,
+her great charity makes me kind.  Her belief has made my own faith more
+sure, her steadfastness keeps me from faltering, and her patience
+enables me to wait until the end, when I go, into the Unknown, to meet
+her.  Child, I do not know if there be a Heaven, but if God gives me
+her, and her love, as I knew it once, I shall not ask for more."
+
+Unable to say more, for the tears, Thorpe stumbled out of the room.
+Araminta's own eyes were wet and her heart was strangely tender to all
+the world.  Miss Evelina, the kitten, Mr. Thorpe, Doctor Ralph--even
+Aunt Hitty--were all included in a wave of unspeakable tenderness.
+
+Never stopping to question, Araminta sped out of the house, her feet
+following where her heart led.  Past the crossroads, to the right, down
+into the village, across the tracks, then sharply to the left, up to
+Doctor Dexter's, where, only a few weeks before, she had gone in the
+hope of seeing Doctor Ralph, Araminta ran like some young Atalanta,
+across whose path no golden apples were thrown.
+
+The door was open, and she rushed in, unthinking, turning by instinct
+into the library, where Ralph sat alone, leaning his head upon his hand.
+
+"Doctor Ralph!" she cried, "I've come!"
+
+He looked up, then started forward.  One look into her glorified face
+told him all that he needed to know.  "Undine," he said, huskily, "have
+you found your soul?"
+
+"I don't know what I've found," sobbed Araminta, from the shelter of
+his arms, "but I've come, to stay with you always, if you'll let me!"
+
+"If I'll let you," murmured Ralph, kissing away her happy tears.  "You
+little saint, it's what I want as I want nothing else in the world."
+
+"I know what it is to be married," said Araminta, after a little, her
+grave, sweet eyes on his.  "I asked Mr. Thorpe to-night and he told me.
+It's to be always with the one you love, and never to mind what anybody
+else says or does.  It's to help each other bear everything and be
+twice as happy because you're together.  It means that somebody will
+always help you when things go wrong, and there'll always be something
+you can lean on.  You'll never be afraid of anything, because you're
+together.  My mother was married, your mother was married, and I've
+found out that Aunt Hitty's mother was married, too.
+
+"And Mr. Thorpe--he would have been married, but she died.  He told me
+and he showed me her picture, and he says that it doesn't make any
+difference to be dead, when you love anybody, and that Heaven, for him,
+will be where she waits for him and puts her hand in his again.  He was
+crying, and so was I, but it's because he has her and I have you!"
+
+"Sweetheart!  Darling!" cried Ralph, crushing her into his close
+embrace.  "It's God Himself who brought you to me now!"
+
+"No," returned Araminta, missing the point, "I came all by myself.  And
+I ran all the way.  Nobody brought me.  But I've come, for always, and
+I'll never leave you again.  I'm sorry I broke your heart!"
+
+"You've made it well again," he said, fondly, "and so we'll be
+married--you and I."
+
+"Yes," repeated Araminta, her beautiful face alight with love, "we'll
+be married, you and I!"
+
+"Sweet," he said, "do you think I deserve so much?"
+
+"Being married is giving everything," she explained, "but I haven't
+anything at all.  Only eight quilts and me!  Do you care for quilts?"
+
+"Quilts be everlastingly condemned.  I'm going to tell Aunt Hitty."
+
+"No," said Araminta, "I'm going to tell her my own self, so now!  And
+I'll tell her to-morrow!"
+
+It was after ten when Ralph took Araminta home.  From the parlour
+window Miss Mehitable was watching anxiously.  She had divested herself
+of the rustling black silk and was safely screened by the shutters.
+She had been at home an hour or more, and though she had received
+plenty of good advice, of a stern nature, from her orthodox counsellor,
+her mind was far from at rest.  Having conjured up all sorts of dire
+happenings, she was relieved when she heard voices outside.
+
+Miss Mehitable peered out eagerly from behind the shutters.  Up the
+road came Araminta--may the saints preserve us!--with a man!  Miss
+Mehitable quickly placed him as that blackmailing play-doctor who now
+should never have his four dollars and a half unless he collected it by
+law.  Only in the last ditch would she surrender.
+
+They were talking and laughing, and Ralph's black-coated arm was around
+Araminta's white-robed waist.  They came slowly to the gate, where they
+stopped.  Araminta laid her head confidingly upon Ralph's shoulder and
+he held her tightly in his arms, kissing her repeatedly, as Miss
+Mehitable guessed, though she could not see very well.
+
+At last they parted and Araminta ran lightly into the house, saying, in
+a low, tender voice: "To-morrow, dear, to-morrow!"
+
+She went up-stairs, singing.  Even then Miss Mehitable observed that it
+was not a hymn, but some light and ungodly tune she had picked up,
+Heaven knew where!
+
+She went to her room, still humming, and presently her light was out,
+but her guardian angel was too stiff with horror to move.
+
+"O Lord," prayed Araminta, as she sank to sleep, "keep me from the
+contamination of--not being married to him, for Thy sake, Amen."
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+Telling Aunt Hitty
+
+Araminta woke with the birds.  As yet, it was dark, but from afar came
+the cheery voice of a robin, piping gaily of coming dawn.  When the
+first ray of light crept into her room, and every bird for miles around
+was swelling his tiny throat in song, it seemed to her that, until now,
+she had never truly lived.
+
+The bird that rocked on the maple branch, outside her window, carolling
+with all his might, was no more free than she.  Love had rolled away
+the stone Aunt Hitty had set before the door of Araminta's heart, and
+the imprisoned thing was trying its wings, as joyously as the birds
+themselves.
+
+Every sense was exquisitely alive and thrilling.  Had she been older
+and known more of the world, Love would not have come to her so, but
+rather with a great peace, an unending trust.  But having waked as
+surely as the sleeping princess in the tower, she knew the uttermost
+ecstasy of it--heard the sound of singing trumpets and saw the white
+light.
+
+Her fear of Aunt Hitty had died, mysteriously and suddenly.  She
+appreciated now, as never before, all that had been done for her.  She
+saw, too, that many things had been done that were better left undone,
+but in her happy heart was no condemnation for anybody or anything.
+
+Araminta dressed leisurely.  Usually, she hurried into her clothes and
+ran down-stairs to help Aunt Hitty, who was always ready for the day's
+work before anybody else was awake but this morning she took her time.
+
+She loved the coolness of the water on her face, she loved her white
+plump arms, her softly rounded throat, the velvety roses that blossomed
+on her cheeks, and the wavy brown masses of her hair, touched by the
+sun into tints of copper and gold.  For the first time in all her life,
+Araminta realised that she was beautiful.  She did not know that Love
+brings beauty with it, nor that the light in her eyes, like a new star,
+had not risen until last night.
+
+She was seriously tempted to slide down the banister--this also having
+been interdicted since her earliest remembrance--but, being a grown
+woman, now, she compromised with herself by taking two stairs at a time
+in a light, skipping, perilous movement that landed her, safe but
+breathless, in the lower hall.
+
+In the kitchen, wearing an aspect distinctly funereal, was Miss
+Mehitable.  Her brisk, active manner was gone and she moved slowly.
+She did not once look up as Araminta came in.
+
+"Good-morning, Aunt Hitty!" cried the girl, pirouetting around the bare
+floor.  "Isn't this the beautifullest morning that ever was, and aren't
+you glad you're alive?"
+
+"No," returned Miss Mehitable, acidly; "I am not."
+
+"Aren't you?" asked Araminta, casually, too happy to be deeply
+concerned about anybody else; "why, what's wrong?"
+
+"I should think, Araminta Lee, that you 'd be the last one on earth to
+ask what's wrong!" The flood gates were open now.  "Wasn't it only
+yesterday that you broke away from all restraint and refused to make
+any more quilts?  Didn't you put on your best dress in the afternoon
+when 't want Sunday and I hadn't told you that you could?  Didn't you
+pick a rose and stick it into your hair, and have I ever allowed you to
+pick a flower on the place, to say nothing of doing anything so foolish
+as to put it in your hair?  Flowers and hair don't go together."
+
+"There's hair in the parlour," objected Araminta, frivolously, "made up
+into a wreath of flowers, so I thought as long as you had them made out
+of dead people's hair, I'd put some roses in mine, now, while I'm
+alive."
+
+Miss Mehitable compressed her lips sternly and went on.
+
+"Didn't you take a rug out of the parlour last night and spread it on
+the porch, and have I ever had rugs outdoor except when they was being
+beat?  And didn't you sit down on the front porch, where I've never
+allowed you to sit, it not being modest for a young female to sit
+outside of her house?"
+
+"Yes," admitted Araminta, cheerfully, "I did all those things, and I
+put my hair up loosely instead of tightly, as you've always taught me.
+You forgot that."
+
+"No, I didn't," denied Miss Mehitable, vigorously; "I was coming to
+that.  Didn't you go up to Miss Evelina's without asking me if you
+could, and didn't you go bareheaded, as I've never allowed you to do?"
+
+"Yes," laughed Araminta, "I did."
+
+"After I went away," pursued Miss Mehitable, swiftly approaching her
+climax, "didn't you go up to Doctor Dexter's like a shameless hussy?"
+
+"If it makes a shameless hussy of me to go to Doctor Dexter's, that's
+what I am."
+
+"You went there to see Doctor Ralph Dexter, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, I did," sang Araminta, "and oh, Aunt Hitty, he was there!  He was
+there!"
+
+"Ain't I told you," demanded Miss Mehitable, "how one woman went up
+there when she had no business to go and got burnt so awful that she
+has to wear a veil all the rest of her life?"
+
+"Yes, you told me, Aunt Hitty, but, you see, I didn't get burned."
+
+"Araminta Lee, you're going right straight to hell, just as fast as you
+can get there.  Perdition is yawning at your feet.  Didn't that
+blackmailing play-doctor come home with you?"
+
+"Ralph," Said Araminta--and the way she spoke his name made it a
+caress--"Ralph came home with me."
+
+"I saw you comin' home," continued Miss Mehitable, with her sharp eyes
+keenly fixed upon the culprit.  "I saw his arm around your waist and
+you leanin' your head on his shoulder."
+
+"Yes," laughed Araminta, "I haven't forgotten.  I can feel his arms
+around me now."
+
+"And at the gate--you needn't deny it, for I saw it all--he KISSED you!"
+
+"That's right, Aunt Hitty.  At his house, he kissed me, too, lots and
+lots of times.  And," she added, her eyes meeting her accuser's
+clearly, "I kissed him."
+
+"How do you suppose I feel to see such goin's on, after all I've done
+for you?"
+
+"You needn't have looked, Aunty, if you didn't like to see it."
+
+"Do you know where I went when I went out?  I went up to Deacon
+Robinson's to lay your case before him."  Miss Mehitable paused, for
+the worthy deacon was the fearsome spectre of young sinners.
+
+Araminta executed an intricate dance step of her own devising, but did
+not seem interested in the advice he had given.
+
+"He told me," went on Miss Mehitable, in the manner of a judge
+pronouncing sentence upon a criminal, "that at any cost I must trample
+down this godless uprising, and assert my rightful authority.  'Honour
+thy father and thy mother,' the Bible says, and I'm your father and
+mother, rolled into one.  He said that if I couldn't make you listen in
+any other way, it would be right and proper for me to shut you up in
+your room and keep you on bread and water until you came to your
+senses."
+
+Araminta giggled.  "I wouldn't be there long," she said.  "How funny it
+would be for Ralph to come with a ladder and take me out!"
+
+"Araminta Lee, what do you mean?"
+
+"Why," explained the girl, "we're going to be married--Ralph and I."
+
+A nihilist bomb thrown into the immaculate kitchen could not have
+surprised Miss Mehitable more.  She had no idea that it had gone so
+far.  "Married!" she gasped.  "You!"
+
+"Not just me alone, Aunty, but Ralph and I.  There has to be two, and
+I'm of age, so I can if I want to."  This last heresy had been learned
+from Ralph, only the night before.
+
+"Married!" gasped Miss Mehitable, again.
+
+"Yes," returned Araminta, firmly, "married.  My mother was married, and
+Ralph's mother was married, and your mother was married.  Everybody's
+mother is married, and Mr. Thorpe says it's the nearest there is to
+Heaven.  He was going to be married himself, but she died.
+
+"Dear Aunt Hitty," cooed Araminta, with winning sweetness, "don't look
+so frightened.  It's nothing dreadful, it's only natural and right, and
+I'm the happiest girl the sun shines on to-day.  Don't be selfish,
+Aunty--you've had me all my life, and it's his turn now.  I'll come to
+see you every day and you can come and see me.  Kiss me, and tell me
+you're glad I'm going to be married!"
+
+At this juncture, Thorpe entered the kitchen, not aware that he was
+upon forbidden ground.  Attracted by the sound of voices, he had come
+in, just in time to hear Araminta's last words.
+
+"Dear child!" he said, his fine old face illumined.  "And so you're
+going to be married to the man you love!  I'm so glad!  God bless you!"
+He stooped, and kissed Araminta gently upon the forehead.
+
+Having thus seen, as it were, the sanction of the Church placed upon
+Araminta's startling announcement, Miss Mehitable could say no more.
+During breakfast she did not speak at all, even to Thorpe.  Araminta
+chattered gleefully of everything under the blue heaven, and even the
+minister noted the liquid melody of her voice.
+
+Afterward, she went out, as naturally as a flower turns toward the sun.
+It was a part of the magic beauty of the world that she should meet
+Ralph, just outside the gate, with a face as radiant as her own.
+
+"I was coming," he said, after the first rapture had somewhat subsided,
+"to tell Aunt Hitty."
+
+"I told her," returned the girl, proudly, "all by my own self!"
+
+"You don't mean it!  What did she say?"
+
+"She said everything.  She told me hell was yawning at my feet, but I'm
+sure it's Heaven.  She said that she was my father and mother rolled
+into one, and I was obliged to remind her that I was of age.  You
+thought of that," she said, admiringly.  "I didn't even know that I'd
+ever get old enough not to mind anybody but myself--or you."
+
+"You won't have to 'mind' me," laughed Ralph.  "I'll give you a long
+rope."
+
+"What would I do with a rope?" queried Araminta, seriously.
+
+"You funny, funny girl!  Didn't you ever see a cow staked out in a
+pasture?"
+
+"Yes.  Am I a cow?"
+
+"For the purposes of illustration, yes, and Aunt Hitty represents the
+stake.  For eighteen or nineteen years, your rope has been so short
+that you could hardly move at all.  Now things are changed, and I
+represent the stake.  You've got the longest rope, now, that was ever
+made in one piece.  See?"
+
+"I'll come back," answered Araminta, seriously.  "I don't think I need
+any rope at all."
+
+"No, dear, I know that.  I was only joking.  You poor child, you've
+lived so long with that old dragon that you scarcely recognise a joke
+when you see one.  A sense of humour, Araminta, is a saving grace for
+anybody.  Next to Love, it's the finest gift of the gods."
+
+"Have I got it?"
+
+"I guess so.  I think it's asleep, but we'll wake it up.  Look here,
+dear--see what I brought you."
+
+From his pocket, Ralph took a small purple velvet case, lined with
+white satin.  Within was a ring, set with a diamond, small in
+circumference, but deep, and of unusual brilliancy.  By a singular
+coincidence, it fitted Araminta's third finger exactly.
+
+"Oh-h!" she cried, her cheeks glowing.  "For me?"
+
+"Yes, for you--till I get you another one.  This was my mother's ring,
+sweetheart.  I found it among my father's things.  Will you wear it,
+for her sake and for mine?"
+
+"I'll wear it always," answered Araminta, her great grey eyes on his,
+"and I don't want any other ring.  Why, if it hadn't been for her, I
+never could have had you."
+
+Ralph took her into his arms.  His heart was filled with that supreme
+love which has no need of words.
+
+
+Meanwhile Miss Mehitable was having her bad quarter of an hour.
+Man-like, Thorpe had taken himself away from a spot where he felt there
+was about to be a display of emotion.  She was in the house alone, and
+the acute stillness of it seemed an accurate foreshadowing of the
+future.
+
+Miss Mehitable was not among those rare souls who are seldom lonely.
+Her nature demanded continuous conversation, the subject alone being
+unimportant.  Every thought that came into her mind was destined for a
+normal outlet in speech.  She had no mental reservoir.
+
+Araminta was going away--to be married.  In spite of her trouble, Miss
+Mehitable noted the taint of heredity.  "It's in her blood," she
+murmured, "and maybe Minty ain't so much to blame."
+
+In this crisis, however, Miss Mehitable had the valiant support of her
+conscience.  She had never allowed the child to play with boys--in
+fact, she had not had any playmates at all.  As soon as Araminta was
+old enough to understand, she was taught that boys and men--indeed all
+human things that wore trousers, long or short--were rank poison, and
+were to be steadfastly avoided if a woman desired peace of mind.  Miss
+Mehitable frequently said that she had everything a husband could have
+given her except a lot of trouble.
+
+Daily, almost hourly, the wisdom of single blessedness had been
+impressed upon Araminta.  Miss Mehitable neglected no illustration
+calculated to bring the lesson home.  She had even taught her that her
+own mother was an outcast and had brought disgrace upon her family by
+marrying; she had held aloft her maiden standard and literally
+compelled Araminta to enlist.
+
+Now, all her work had gone for naught.  Nature had triumphantly
+reasserted itself, and Araminta had fallen in love.  The years
+stretched before Miss Mehitable in a vast and gloomy vista illumined by
+no light.  No soft step upon the stair, no sunny face at her table, no
+sweet, girlish laugh, no long companionable afternoons with patchwork,
+while she talked and Araminta listened.  At the thought, her stern
+mouth quivered, ever so slightly, and, all at once, she found the
+relief of tears.
+
+An hour or so afterward, she went up to the attic, walking with a
+stealthy, cat-like tread, though there was no one in the house to hear.
+In a corner, far back under the eaves, three trunks were piled, one on
+top of the other.  Miss Hitty lifted off the two top trunks without
+apparent effort, for her arms were strong, and drew the lowest one out
+into the path of sunlight that lay upon the floor, maple branches
+swaying across it in silhouette.
+
+In another corner of the attic, up among the rafters, was a box
+apparently filled with old newspapers.  Miss Hitty reached down among
+the newspapers with accustomed fingers and drew out a crumpled wad,
+tightly wedged into one corner of the box.
+
+She listened carefully at the door, but there was no step in the house.
+She was absolutely alone.  None the less, she bolted the door of the
+attic before she picked the crumpled paper apart, and took out the key
+of the trunk.
+
+The old lock opened readily, and from the trunk came the musty odour of
+long-dead lavender and rosemary, lemon verbena and rose geranium.  On
+top was Barbara Lee's wedding gown.  Miss Hitty always handled it with
+reverence not unmixed with awe, never having had a wedding gown herself.
+
+Underneath were the baby clothes which the girl-wife had begun to make
+when she first knew of her child's coming.  The cloth was none too fine
+and the little garments were awkwardly cut and badly sewn, but every
+stitch had been guided by a great love.
+
+Araminta's first shoes were there, too--soft, formless things of
+discoloured white kid.  Folded in a yellowed paper was a tiny, golden
+curl, snipped secretly, and marked on the outside: "Minty's hair."
+Farther down in the trunk were the few relics of Miss Mehitable's
+far-away girlhood.
+
+A dog-eared primer, a string of bright buttons, a broken slate, a
+ragged, disreputable doll, and a few blown birds' eggs carefully packed
+away in a small box of cotton--these were her treasures.  There was an
+old autograph album with a gay blue cover which the years in the trunk
+had not served to fade.  Far down in the trunk was a package which Miss
+Mehitable took out reverently.  It was large and flat and tied with
+heavy string in hard knots.  She untied the knots patiently--her mother
+had taught her never to cut a string.
+
+Underneath was more paper, and more string.  It took her half an hour
+to bring to light the inmost contents of the package, bound in layer
+after layer of fine muslin, but not tied.  She unrolled the yellowed
+cloth carefully, for it was very frail.  At last she took out a
+photograph--Anthony Dexter at three-and-twenty--and gazed at it long.
+
+On one page of her autograph album was written an old rhyme.  The ink
+had faded so that it was scarcely legible, but Miss Hitty knew it by
+heart:
+
+  "'If you love me as I love you
+  No knife can cut our love in two.'
+    Your sincere friend,
+      ANTHONY DEXTER."
+
+Like a tiny sprig of lavender taken from a bush which has never
+bloomed, this bit of romance lay far back in the secret places of her
+life.  She had a knot of blue ribbon which Anthony Dexter had once
+given her, a lead pencil which he had gallantly sharpened, and which
+she had never used.
+
+Her life had been barren--Miss Mehitable knew that, and in her hours of
+self-analysis, admitted it.  She would gladly have taken Evelina's full
+measure of suffering in exchange for one tithe of Araminta's joy.
+After Anthony Dexter had turned from her to Evelina, Miss Mehitable had
+openly scorned him.  She had spent the rest of her life, since, in
+showing him and the rest that men were nothing to her and that he was
+least of all.
+
+She had hovered near his patients simply for the sake of seeing
+him--she did not care for them at all.  She sat in the front window
+that she might see him drive by, and counted that day lost which
+brought her no sight of him.  This was her one tenderness, her one
+vulnerable point.
+
+The afternoon shadows grew long and the maple branches ceased to sway.
+Outside a bird crooned a lullaby to his nesting mate.  An oriole
+perched on the topmost twig of an evergreen in a corner of the yard,
+and opened his golden throat in a rapture of song.
+
+Love was abroad in the world that day.  Bees hummed it, birds sang it,
+roses breathed it.  The black and gold messengers of the fields bore
+velvety pollen from flower to flower, moving lazily on shimmering,
+gossamer wings.  A meadow-lark rose from a distant clover field,
+dropping exquisite, silvery notes as he flew.  The scent of green
+fields and honeysuckles came in at the open window, mingled
+inextricably with the croon of the bees, but Miss Mehitable knew only
+that it was Summer, that the world was young, but she was old and alone
+and would be alone for the rest of her life.
+
+She leaned forward to look at the picture, and Anthony Dexter smiled
+back at her, boyish, frank, eager, lovable.  A tear dropped on the
+pictured face--not the first one, for the photograph was blistered
+oddly here and there.
+
+"I've done all I could," said Miss Mehitable to herself, as she wrapped
+it up again in its many yellowed folds of muslin.  "I thought Minty
+would be happier so, but maybe, after all, God knows best."
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+Redeemed
+
+Miss Evelina sat alone, in her house, at peace with Anthony Dexter and
+with all the world.  The surging flood of forgiveness and compassion
+which had swept over her as she gazed at his dead face, had broken down
+all barriers, abrogated all reserves.  She saw that Piper Tom was
+right; had she forgiven him, she would have been free long ago.
+
+She shrank no longer from her kind, but yearned, instead, for friendly
+companionship.  Once she had taken off her veil and started down the
+road to Miss Mehitable's, but the habit of the years was strong upon
+her, and she turned back, affrighted, when she came within sight of the
+house.
+
+Since she left the hospital, no human being had seen her face, save
+Anthony Dexter and his son.  She had crept, nun-like, into the shelter
+of her chiffon, dimly taking note of a world which could not, in turn,
+look upon her.  She clung to it still, yet perceived that it was a lie.
+
+She studied herself in the mirror, no longer hating the sight of her
+own face.  She was not now blind to her own beauty, nor did she fail to
+see that transfiguring touch of sorrow and peace.  These two are
+sculptors, one working both from within and without, and the other only
+from within.
+
+Why should she not put her veil forever away from her now?  Why should
+she not meet the world face to face, as frankly as the world met her?
+Why should she delay?
+
+She had questioned herself continually, but found no answer.  Since she
+came back to her old home, she had been mysteriously led.  Perhaps she
+was to be led further through the deep mazes of life--it was not only
+possible, but probable.
+
+"I'll wait," she said to herself, "for a sign."
+
+She had not seen the Piper since the day they met so strangely, with
+Anthony Dexter lying dead between them.  Quite often, however, she had
+heard the flute, usually at sunrise or sunset, afar off in the hills.
+Once, at the hour of the turning night, the melody had come to her on
+the first grey winds of dawn.
+
+A robin had waked to answer it, for the Piper's fluting was wondrously
+like his own voice.
+
+Contrasting her present peace with her days of torment.  Miss Evelina
+thrilled with gratitude to Piper Tom, who had taken the weeds out of
+her garden in more senses than one.  His hand had guided her, slowly,
+yet surely, to the heights of calm.  She saw her life now as a desolate
+valley lying between two peaks.  One was sunlit, yet opaline with the
+mists of morning; the other was scarcely a peak, but merely a high and
+grassy plain upon which the afternoon shadows lay long.
+
+Ah, but there were terrors in the dark valley which lay between!  Sharp
+crags and treeless wastes, tortuous paths and abysmal depths, with
+never a rest for the wayfarer who struggled blindly on.  She was not
+yet so secure upon the height that she could contemplate the valley
+unmoved.
+
+Her house was immaculate, now, and was kept so by her own hands.  At
+first, she had not cared, and the dust and the cobwebs had not mattered
+at all.  Miss Mehitable, in the beginning, had inspired her to
+housewifely effort, and Doctor Ralph's personal neatness had made her
+ashamed.  She worked in the garden, too, keeping the brick-bordered
+paths free from weeds, and faithfully attending to every plant.
+
+Yet life seemed strangely empty, lifted above its all-embracing pain.
+The house and garden did not occupy her fully, and she had few books.
+These were all old ones, and she knew them by heart, though she had
+found some pleasure in reading again the well-thumbed fairy books of
+her childhood.
+
+She had read the book which Ralph had brought Araminta, and thought of
+asking him to lend her more--if she ever saw him again.  She knew that
+he was very busy, but she felt that, surely, he would come again before
+long.
+
+Araminta danced up the path, singing, and rapped at Miss Evelina's
+door.  When she came in, it was like a ray of sunlight in a gloomy
+place.
+
+"Miss Evelina!" she cried; "Oh, Miss Evelina!  I'm going to be married!"
+
+"I'm glad," said Evelina, tenderly, yet with a certain wistfulness.
+Once the joy of it had been in her feet, too, and the dread valley of
+desolation had opened before her.
+
+"See!" cried Araminta, extending a dimpled hand.  "See my ring!  It's
+my engagement ring," she added, proudly.
+
+Miss Evelina winced a little behind her veil, for the ring was the one
+Anthony Dexter had given her soon after their betrothal.  Fearing
+gossip, she had refused to wear it until after they were married.  So
+he had taken it, to have it engraved, but, evidently, the engraving had
+never been done.  Otherwise Ralph would not have given it to
+Araminta--she was sure of that.
+
+"It was his mother's ring, Miss Evelina, and now it's mine.  His father
+loved his mother just as Ralph loves me.  It's so funny not to have to
+say 'Doctor Ralph.'  Oh, I'm so glad I broke my ankle!  He's coming,
+but I wanted to come first by myself.  I made him wait for five minutes
+down under the elm because I wanted to tell you first.  I told Aunt
+Hitty, all alone, and I wasn't a bit afraid.  Oh, Miss Evelina, I wish
+you had somebody to love you as he loves me!"
+
+"So do I," murmured Evelina, grateful for the chiffon that hid her
+tears.
+
+"Wasn't there ever anybody?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I knew it--you're so sweet nobody could help loving you.  Did he die?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It was that way with Mr. Thorpe," mused Araminta, reminiscently.
+"They loved each other and were going to be married, but she died.  He
+said, though, that death didn't make any difference with loving.
+There's Ralph, now."
+
+"Little witch," said the boy, fondly, as she met him at the door; "did
+you think I could wait a whole five minutes?"
+
+They sat in the parlour for half an hour or more, and during this time
+it was not necessary for their hostess to say a single word.  They were
+quite unaware that they were not properly conducting a three-sided
+conversation, and Miss Evelina made no effort to enlighten them.  Youth
+and laughter and love had not been in her house before for a quarter of
+a century.
+
+"Come again," she begged, when they started home.  Joy incarnate was a
+welcome guest--it did not mock her now.
+
+Half-way down the path, Ralph turned back to the veiled woman who stood
+wistfully in the doorway.  Araminta was swinging, in childish fashion,
+upon the gate.  Ralph took Miss Evelina's hand in his.
+
+"I wish I could say all I feel," he began, awkwardly, "but I can't.
+With all my heart, I wish I could give some of my happiness to you!"
+
+"I am content--since I have forgiven."
+
+"If you had not, I could never have been happy again, and even now, I
+still feel the shame of it.  Are you going to wear that--veil--always?"
+
+"No," she whispered, shrinking back into the shelter of it, "but I am
+waiting for a sign."
+
+"May it soon come," said Ralph, earnestly.
+
+"I am used to waiting.  My life has been made up of waiting.  God bless
+you," she concluded, impulsively.
+
+"And you," he answered, touching his lips to her hand.  He started
+away, but she held him back.  "Ralph," she said, passionately, "be true
+to her, be good to her, and never let her doubt you.  Teach her to
+trust you, and make yourself worthy of her trust.  Never break a
+promise made to her, though it cost you everything else you have in the
+world.  I am old, and I know that, at the end, nothing counts for an
+instant beside the love of two.  Remember that keeping faith with her
+is keeping faith with God!"
+
+"I will," returned Ralph, his voice low and uneven.  "It is what my own
+mother would have said to me had she been alive to-day.  I thank you."
+
+
+The house was very lonely after they had gone, though the echoes of
+love and laughter seemed to have come back to a place where they once
+held full sway.  The afternoon wore to its longest shadows and the
+dense shade of the cypress was thrown upon the garden.  Evelina smiled
+to herself, for it was only a shadow.
+
+The mignonette breathed fragrance into the dusk.  Scent of lavender and
+rosemary filled the stillness with balm.  Drowsy birds chirped sleepily
+in their swaying nests, and the fairy folk of field and meadow set up a
+whirr of melodious wings.  White, ghostly moths fluttered, cloud-like,
+over the quiet garden, and here and there a tiny lamp-bearer starred
+the night.  A flaming meteor sped across the uncharted dark of the
+heavens, where only the love-star shone.  The moon had not yet risen.
+
+From within, Evelina recognised the sturdy figure of Piper Tom, and
+went out to meet him as he approached.  She had drawn down her veil,
+but her heart was strangely glad.
+
+"Shall we sit in the garden?" she asked.
+
+"Aye, in the garden," answered the Piper, "since 't is for the last
+time."
+
+His voice was sad, and Evelina yearned to help him, even as he had
+helped her.  "What is it?" she asked.  "Is it anything you can tell me?"
+
+"Only that I'll be trudging on to-morrow.  My work here is done.  I can
+do no more."
+
+"Then let me tell you how grateful I am for all you have done for me.
+You made me see things in their true relation and taught me how to
+forgive.  I was in bondage, and you made me free."
+
+The Piper sprang to his feet.  "Spinner in the Sun," he cried, "is it
+true?  Just as I thought your night was endless, has the light come?
+Tell me again," he pleaded, "ah, tell me 't is true!"
+
+"It is true," said Evelina, with solemn joy.  "In all my heart there is
+nothing but forgiveness.  The anger and resentment are gone--all gone."
+
+"Spinner in the Sun!" breathed the Piper, scarcely conscious that he
+spoke the words aloud.  "My Spinner in the Sun!"
+
+Slowly the moon climbed toward the zenith, and still, because there was
+no need, they spoke no word.  Dew rose whitely from the clover fields
+beyond, veiling them as with white chiffon.  It was the Piper, at last,
+who broke the silence.
+
+"When I trudge on to-morrow," he said, "'t will be with a glad heart,
+even though the little chap is no longer with me.  'T is a fair, brave
+world, I'm thinking, since I've set your threads to going right again.
+I called you," he added, softly, "and you came."
+
+"Yes," said Evelina, happily, "you called me, and I came."
+
+"Spinner in the Sun," said the Piper, tenderly, "have you guessed my
+work?"
+
+"Why, keeping the shop, isn't it?" asked Evelina, wonderingly; "the
+needles and thread and pins and buttons and all the little trifles that
+women need?  A pedler's pack, set up in a house?"
+
+The Piper laughed.  "No," he replied, "I'm thinking that is not my
+work, nor yet the music that has no tune, which I'm for ever playing on
+my flute.   Lady, I have travelled far, and seen much, and always there
+has been one thing that is strangest of all.  In every place that I
+have been in yet, there has been a church and a minister, whose
+business was to watch over human souls.
+
+"He's told them what was right according to his own thinking, which I'm
+far from saying isn't true for him, and never minded anything more.  In
+spite of blood and tears and agony, he's always held up the one
+standard, and, I'm thinking, has always pointed to the hardest way to
+reach it.  The way has been so hard that many have never reached it at
+all, and those who have--I've not seen that they are the happiest or
+the kindest, nor that they are loved the most.
+
+"In the same place, too, there is always a doctor, whose business it is
+to watch over the body.  If you have a broken leg or a broken arm, or a
+fever, he can set you right again.  Blind eyes can be made to see, and
+deaf ears made to hear, but, Lady, who is there to care about a broken
+heart?
+
+"I have taken in my pedler's pack the things that women need, because
+'t is women, mostly, who bear the heartaches of the world, and I come
+closer to them so.  What you say I have done for you, I have done for
+many more.  I'm trying to make the world a bit easier for all women
+because a woman gave me life.  And because I love another woman in
+another way," he added, his voice breaking, "I'll be trudging on
+to-morrow alone, though 't would be easier, I'm thinking, to linger
+here."
+
+Evelina's heart leaped with a throb of the old pain.  "Tell me about
+her," she said, because it seemed the only thing to say.
+
+"The woman I love," answered the Piper, "is not for me.  She'd never be
+thinking of stooping to such as I, and I'd not be insulting her by
+asking.  She's very proud, but she could be tender if she chose, and
+she's the bravest soul I ever knew--so brave that she fears neither
+death nor life, though life itself has not been kind.
+
+"Her little feet have been set upon the rough pathways, almost since
+the beginning, and her hands catch at my heart-strings, they are so
+frail.  They're fluttering always like frightened birds, and the
+fluttering is in her voice, too."
+
+"And her face?"
+
+"Ah, but I've dreamed of her face!  I've thought it was noble beyond
+all words, with eyes like the first deep violets of Spring, but filled
+with compassion for all the world.  So brave, so true, so tender it
+might be that I'm thinking if I could see it once, with love on it for
+me, that I'd never be asking more."
+
+"Why haven't you seen her face?" asked Evelina, idly, to relieve an
+awkward pause.  "Is she only a dream-woman?"
+
+"Nay, she's not a dream-woman.  She lives and breathes as dreams never
+do, but she hides her face because she is so beautiful.  She veils her
+face from me as once she veiled her soul."
+
+Then, at last, Evelina understood.  She felt the hot blood mantling her
+face, and was thankful, once more, for the shelter of her chiffon.
+
+"Spinner in the Sun," said the Piper, with suppressed tenderness, "were
+you thinking I could see you more than once or twice and not be caring?
+Were you thinking I could have the inmost soul of me torn because you'd
+been hurt, and never be knowing what lay beyond it, for me?  Were you
+thinking I could be talking to you day after day, without having the
+longing to talk with you always?  And now that I've done my best for
+you, and given you all that rests with me for giving, do you see why
+I'll be trudging on to-morrow, alone?
+
+"'T is not for me to be asking it, for God knows I could never be
+worthy, but I've thought of Heaven as a place where you and I might
+fare together always, with me to heal your wounds, help you over the
+rough places, and guide you through the dark.  That part of it, I'm to
+have, I'm thinking, for God has been very good to me.  I'm to know that
+wherever you are, you re happy at last, because it's been given me to
+lead you into the light.  I called you, and you came."
+
+"Yes," said Evelina, her voice lingering upon the words, "you called me
+and I came, and was redeemed.  Tell me, in your thought of Heaven, have
+you ever asked to see my face?"
+
+"Nay," cried the Piper, "do you think I'd be asking for what you hide
+from me?  I know that 't is because you are so beautiful, and such
+beauty is not for my eyes to see."
+
+"Piper Tom," she answered; "dear Piper Tom!  I told you once that I had
+been terribly burned.  I was hurt so badly that when the man I was
+pledged to marry, and whose life I had saved, was told that every
+feature of mine was destroyed except my sight, he went away, and never
+came back any more."
+
+"The brute who hurt Laddie," he said, in a low tone.  "I told him then
+that a man who would torture a dog would torture a woman, too.  I'd not
+be minding the scars," he added, "since they're brave scars, and not
+the marks of sin or shame.  I'm thinking that 't is the brave scars
+that have made you so beautiful--so beautiful," he repeated, "that you
+hide your face."
+
+Into Evelina's heart came something new and sweet--that perfect,
+absolute, unwavering trust which a woman has but once in her life and
+of which Anthony Dexter had never given her the faintest hint.  All at
+once, she knew that she could not let him go; that he must either stay,
+or take her, too.
+
+She leaned forward.  "Piper Tom," she said, unashamed, "when you go,
+will you take me with you?  I think we belong together--you and I."
+
+"Belong together?" he repeated, incredulously.  "Ah, 't is your
+pleasure to mock me.  Oh, my Spinner in the Sun, why would you wish to
+hurt me so?"
+
+Tears blinded Evelina so that, through her veil, and in the night, she
+could not see at all.  When the mists cleared, he was gone.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+The Lifting of the Veil
+
+From afar, at the turn of night, came the pipes o' Pan--the wild,
+mysterious strain which had first summoned Evelina from pain to peace.
+At the sound, she sat up in bed, her heavy, lustreless white hair
+falling about her shoulders.  She guessed that Piper Tom was out upon
+the highway, with his pedler's pack strapped to his sturdy back.  As in
+a vision, she saw him marching onward from place to place, to make the
+world easier for all women because a woman had given him life, and
+because he loved another woman in another way.
+
+Was it always to be so, she wondered; should she for ever thirst while
+others drank?  While others loved, must she eternally stand aside
+heart-hungry?  Unyielding Fate confronted her, veiled inscrutably, but
+she guessed that the veil concealed a mocking smile.
+
+Out of her Nessus-robe of agony, Evelina had emerged with one truth.
+Whatever is may not be right, but it is the outcome of deep and
+far-reaching forces with which our finite hands may not meddle.  The
+problem has but one solution--adjustment.  Hedged in by the iron bars
+of circumstance as surely as a bird within his cage, it remains for the
+individual to choose whether he will beat his wings against the bars
+until he dies, or take his place serenely on the perch ordained for
+him--and sing.
+
+Within his cage, the bird may do as he likes.  He may sleep or eat or
+bathe, or whet his beak uselessly against the cuttlebone thrust between
+the bars.  He may hop about endlessly and chirp salutations to other
+birds, likewise caged, or he may try his eager wings in a flight which
+is little better than no flight at all.  His cage may be a large one,
+yet, if he explores far enough, he will most surely bruise his body
+against the bars of circumstance.  With beak and claws and constant
+toil he may, perhaps, force an opening in the bars wide enough to get
+through, slowly, and with great discomfort.  He has gained, however,
+only a larger cage.
+
+If he is a wise bird, he settles down and tries to become satisfied
+with his surroundings; even to gather pleasure from the gilt wires and
+the cuttlebone thrust picturesquely between them.  When the sea gull
+wings his majestic way past his habitation, free as the wind itself,
+the wise bird will close his eyes, and affect not to see.  So, also,
+will the gull, for there is no loneliness comparable with unlimited
+freedom.
+
+Upon the heights, the great ones stand--alone.  To the dweller in the
+valley, those distant peaks are clad in more than mortal splendour.
+Time and distance veil the jagged cliffs and hide the precipices.  Day
+comes first to the peaks and lingers there longest; while it is night
+in the valley, there is still afterglow upon the hills.
+
+Perhaps, some dweller in the valley longs for the height, and sets
+forth, heeding not the eager hands that, selfishly, as it seems, would
+keep him within their loving reach.  Having once turned his face
+upward, he does not falter, even for the space of a backward look.  He
+finds that the way is steep, that there is no place to rest, and that
+the comfort and shelter of the valley are unknown.  The sun burns him,
+and the cold freezes his very blood, for there are only extremes on the
+way to the peak.  Glittering wastes of ice dazzle him and snow blinds
+him, with terror and not with beauty as from below.  The opaline mists
+are gone, and he sees with dreadful clearness the path which lies
+immediately ahead.
+
+Beyond, there is emptiness, vast as the desert.  At the timber line, he
+pauses, and, for the first time, looks back.  Ah, how fair the valley
+lies below him!  The silvery ribbon of the river winds through a
+pageantry of green and gold.  Upon the banks are woodland nooks,
+fragrant with growing things and filled with a tender quiet broken only
+by the murmer of the stream.  The turf is soft and cool to the
+wayfarer's tired feet, and there is crystal water in abundance to
+quench his thirst.
+
+But, from the peak, no traveller returns, for the way is hopelessly cut
+off.  Above the timber line there is only a waste of rock, worn by vast
+centuries in which every day is an ordinary lifetime, into small,
+jagged stones that cut the feet.  The crags are thunder-swept and blown
+by cataclysmic storms of which the dwellers in the valley have never
+dreamed.  In the unspeakable loneliness, the pilgrim abides for ever
+with his mocking wreath of laurel, cheered only by a rumbling,
+reverberant "All Hail!" which comes, at age-long intervals, from some
+peak before whose infinite distance his finite sight fails.
+
+At intervals throughout the day, Miss Evelina heard the Piper's flute,
+always from the hills.  Each time it brought her comfort, for she knew
+that, as yet, he had not gone.  Once she fancied that he had gone long
+ago, and some woodland deity, magically transported from ancient
+Greece, had taken his place.  Late in the afternoon, she heard it once,
+but so far and faintly that she guessed it was for the last time.
+
+In her garden there were flowers, blooming luxuriantly.  From their
+swaying censers, fragrant incense filled the air.  The weeds had been
+taken out and no trace was left.  From the garden of her heart the
+weeds were gone, too, but there were no flowers.  Rue and asphodel had
+been replaced by lavender and rosemary; the deadly black poppy had been
+uprooted, and where it had grown there were spikenard and balm.  Yet,
+as the Piper had said, she asked for roses, and it is not every garden
+in which roses will bloom.
+
+At dusk she went out into her transformed garden.  Where once the
+thorns had held her back, the paths were straight and smooth.  Dense
+undergrowth and clinging vines no longer made her steps difficult.
+Piper Tom had made her garden right, and opened before her, clearly,
+the way of her soul.
+
+In spite of the beauty there was desolation, because the cheery
+presence had gone to return no more.  Her loneliness was so acute that
+it was almost pain, and yet the pain was bearable, because he had
+taught her how to endure and to look beyond.
+
+Fairy-like, the white moths fluttered through the garden, and the
+crickets piped cheerily.  Miss Evelina stopped her ears that she might
+not hear their piping, rude reminder, as it was, of music that should
+come no more, but, even so, she could not shut out remembrance.
+
+With a flash of her old resentment, she recalled how everything upon
+which she had ever depended had been taken away from her, almost
+immediately.  No sooner had she learned the sweetness of clinging than
+she had been forced to stand alone.  One by one the supports had been
+removed, until she stood alone, desolate and wretched, indeed, but
+alone.  Of such things as these self-reliance is made.
+
+Suddenly, the still air seemed to stir.  A sound that was neither
+breath nor music, so softly was it blown, echoed in from the hills.
+Then came another and another--merest hints of melody, till at last she
+started up, trembling.  Surely these distant flutings were the pipes o'
+Pan!
+
+She set herself to listen, her tiny hands working convulsively.  Nearer
+and nearer the music came, singing of wind and stream and mountain--the
+"music that had no tune." No sooner had it become clear than it ceased
+altogether.
+
+But, an hour or so afterward, when the moon had risen, there was a
+familiar step upon the road outside.  Veiled, Evelina went to the gate
+and met Piper Tom, whose red feather was aloft in his hat again and
+whose flute was slung over his shoulder by its accustomed cord.  His
+pedler's pack was not to be seen.
+
+"I thought you had gone," she said.
+
+"I had," he answered, "but 't is not written, I'm thinking, that a man
+may not change his mind as well as a woman.  My heart would not let my
+feet go away from you until I knew for sure whether or not you were
+mocking me last night."
+
+"Mocking you?  No!  Surely you know I would never do that?"
+
+"No, I did not know.  The ways of women are strange, I'm thinking, past
+all finding out.  In truth, 't would be stranger if you were not
+mocking me than it ever could be if you were.  Tell me," he pleaded,
+"ah, tell me what you were meaning, in words so plain that I can
+understand!"
+
+"Come," said Evelina; "come to where we were sitting last night and I
+will tell you." He followed her back to the maple beside the broken
+wall, where the two chairs still faced each other.  He leaned forward,
+resting his elbows on his knees, and looked at her so keenly that she
+felt, in spite of the darkness and her veil, that he must see her face.
+
+"Piper Tom," she said, "when you came to me, I was the most miserable
+woman on earth.  I had been most cruelly betrayed, and sorrow seized
+upon me when I was not strong enough to stand it.  It preyed upon me
+until it became an obsession--it possessed me absolutely, and from it
+there was no escape but death."
+
+"I know," answered the Piper.  "I found the bottle that had held the
+dreamless sleep.  I'm thinking you had thrown it away."
+
+"Yes, I had thrown it away, but only because I was too proud to die at
+his door--do you understand?"
+
+"Yes, I'm thinking I understand, but go on.  You've not told me whether
+or no you mocked me.  What did you mean?"
+
+"I meant," said Evelina, steadfastly, "that if you cared for the woman
+you had led out of the shadow of the cypress, and for all that was in
+her heart to give you, she was yours.  Not only out of gratitude, but
+because you have put trust into a heart that has known no trust since
+its betrayal, and because, where trust is, there may some day
+come--more."
+
+Her voice sank almost to a whisper, but Piper Tom heard it.  He took
+her hand in his own, and she felt him tremble--she was the strong one,
+now.
+
+"Spinner in the Sun," he began, huskily, "were you meaning that you'd
+go with me when I took the highway again, and help me make the world
+easier for everybody with a hurt heart?"
+
+"Yes," she answered.  "You called me and I came--for always."
+
+"Were you meaning that you'd face the storms and the cold with me, and
+take no heed of the rain--that you'd live on the coarse fare I could
+pick up from day to day, and never mind it?"
+
+"Yes, I meant all that."
+
+"Were you meaning, perhaps, that you'd make a home for me?  Ah, Spinner
+in the Sun, it takes a woman to make a home!"
+
+"Yes, I'd make a home, or go gypsying with you, just as you chose."
+
+The Piper laughed, with inexpressible tenderness.  "You know, I'm
+thinking, that 't would be a home, and not gypsying--that I'd not let
+you face anything I could shield you from."
+
+Evelina laughed, too--a low, sweet laugh.  "Yes, I know," she said.
+
+The Piper turned away, struggling with temptation.  At length he came
+back to her.  "'T is wrong of me, I'm thinking, but I take you as a man
+takes Heaven, and we'll do the work together.  'T is as though I had
+risen from the dead and the gates of pearl were open, with all the
+angels of God beckoning me in."
+
+In the exaltation that was upon him, he had no thought of profaning her
+by a touch.  She stood apart from him as something high and holy,
+enthroned in a sacred place.
+
+"Beloved," he pleaded, "will you be coming; with me now to the place
+where I saw you first?  'T is night now, and then 'twas day, but I'm
+thinking the words are wrong.  'T is day now, with the sun and moon and
+stars all shining at once and suns that I never saw before.  Will you
+come?"
+
+"I'll go wherever you lead me," she answered.  "While you hold my hand
+in yours, I can never be afraid."
+
+They went through the night together, taking the shorter way over the
+hills.  She stumbled and he took her hand, his own still trembling.
+"Close your beautiful eyes," he whispered, "and trust me to lead you."
+
+Though she did not close her eyes, she gave herself wholly to his
+guidance, noting how he chose for himself the rougher places to give
+her the easier path.  He pushed aside the undergrowth before her,
+lifted her gently over damp hollows, and led her around the stones.
+
+At last they came to the woods that opened out upon the upper river
+road, where she had stood the day she had been splashed with mud from
+Anthony Dexter's wheels, and, at the same instant, had heard the
+mysterious flutings from afar.  They entered near the hill to which her
+long wandering had led her, and at the foot of it, the Piper paused.
+
+"You'll have no fear, I'm thinking, since the moon makes the clearing
+as bright as day, and I'll not be letting you out of my sight.  I have
+a fancy to stand upon yonder level place and call you as I called you
+once before.  Only, this time, the heart of me will dance to my own
+music, for I know you'll be coming all the while I play."
+
+He left her and clambered up the hill to the narrow ledge which sloped
+back, and was surrounded with pines.  He kept in the open spaces, so
+that the moonlight was always upon him, and she did not lose sight of
+him more than once or twice, and then only for a moment.  The hill was
+not a high one and the ascent was very gradual.  Within a few minutes,
+he had gained his place.
+
+Clear and sweet through the moonlit forest rang out the pipes o' Pan,
+singing of love and joy.  Never before had the Piper's flute given
+forth such music as this.  The melody was as instinctive as the
+mating-call of a thrush, as crystalline as a mountain stream, and as
+pure as the snow from whence the stream had come.
+
+Evelina climbed to meet him, her face and heart uplifted.  The silvery
+notes dropped about her like rain as she ascended, strangely glad and
+strangely at peace.  When she reached the level place where he was
+standing, his face illumined with unspeakable joy.  He dropped his
+flute and opened his arms.
+
+"My Spinner in the Sun," he whispered, "I called you, and you came."
+
+"Yes," she answered, from his close embrace, "you called me, and I have
+come--for always."
+
+At last, he released her and they stood facing each other.  The Piper
+was stirred to the depths of his soul.  "Last night I dreamed," he
+said, "and 't was the dream that brought me back.  It was a little
+place, with a brook close by, and almost too small to be called a
+house, but 'twas a home, I'm thinking, because you were there.  It was
+night, and I had come back from making the world a bit easier for some
+poor woman-soul, and you were standing in the door, waiting.
+
+"The veil was gone, and there was love on your face--ah, I've often
+dreamed a woman was waiting for me so, but because you hide your beauty
+from me, 't is not for me to be asking more.  God knows I have enough
+given me, now.
+
+"Since the first, I've known you were very beautiful, and very brave.
+I knew, too, that you were sad--that you had been through sorrows no
+man would dare to face.  I've dreamed your eyes were like the first
+violets of Spring, your lips deep scarlet like the Winter berries, and
+I know the wonder of your hair, for The veil does not hide it all.
+I've dreamed your face was cold and pure, as if made from marble, yet
+tender, too, and I well know that it's noble past all words of mine,
+because it bears brave scars.
+
+"I've told you I would never ask, and I'll keep my word, for I know
+well 't is not for the likes of me to see it, but only to dream.  Don't
+think I'm asking, for I never will, but, Spinner in the Sun, because
+you said you would fare with me on the highway and face the cold and
+storm, it gives me courage to ask for this.
+
+"If I close my eyes, will you lift your veil, and let me kiss the brave
+scars, that were never from sin or shame?  The brave scars,
+Beloved--ah, if you would let me, only once, kiss the brave scars!"
+
+Evelina laughed--a laugh that was half a sob--and leaning forward, full
+into the moonlight, she lifted her veil--for ever.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12672 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #12672 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12672)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Spinner in the Sun, by Myrtle Reed
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: A Spinner in the Sun
+
+Author: Myrtle Reed
+
+Release Date: June 21, 2004  [eBook #12672]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPINNER IN THE SUN***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+A SPINNER IN THE SUN
+
+BY
+
+MYRTLE REED
+
+1906
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+     I.  "THE FIRE WAS KIND"
+    II.  MISS MEHITABLE
+   III.  THE PEARLS
+    IV.  "FROM THE DEPTHS OF HIS LOVE"
+     V.  ARAMINTA
+    VI.  PIPES O' PAN
+   VII.  THE HONOUR OF THE SPOKEN WORD
+  VIII.  PIPER TOM
+    IX.  HOUSECLEANING
+     X.  RALPH'S FIRST CASE
+    XI.  THE LOOSE LINK
+   XII.  A GREY KITTEN
+  XIII.  THE RIVER COMES INTO ITS OWN
+   XIV.  A LITTLE HOUR OF TRIUMPH
+    XV.  THE STATE OF ARAMINTA'S SOUL
+   XVI.  THE MARCH OF THE DAYS
+  XVII.  LOVED BY A DOG
+ XVIII.  UNDINE
+   XIX.  IN THE SHADOW OF THE CYPRESS
+    XX.  THE SECRET OF THE VEIL
+   XXI.  THE POPPIES CLAIM THEIR OWN
+  XXII.  FORGIVENESS
+ XXIII.  UNDINE FINDS HER SOUL
+  XXIV.  TELLING AUNT HITTY
+   XXV.  REDEEMED
+  XXVI.  THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL
+
+
+
+
+A Spinner in the Sun
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+"The Fire was Kind"
+
+The little house was waiting, as it had waited for many years.  Grey
+and weather-worn, it leaned toward the sheltering hillside as though to
+gather from the kindly earth some support and comfort for old age.
+Five-and-twenty Winters had broken its spirit, five-and-twenty Springs
+had not brought back the heart of it, that had once gone out, with
+dancing feet and singing, and had returned no more.
+
+For a quarter of a century, the garden had lain desolate.  Summers came
+and went, but only a few straggling blooms made their way above the
+mass of weeds.  In early Autumn, thistles and milkweed took possession
+of the place, the mournful purple of their flowering hiding the garden
+beneath trappings of woe.  And at night, when the Autumn moon shone
+dimly, frail ghosts of dead flowers were set free from the thistles and
+milkweed.   The wind of Indian Summer, itself a ghost, convoyed them
+about the garden, but they never went beyond it.  Each year the panoply
+of purple spread farther, more surely hiding the brave blooms beneath.
+
+Far down the path, beside the broken gate, a majestic cypress cast
+portentous gloom.  Across from it, and quite hiding the ruin of the
+gate, was a rose-bush, which, every June, put forth one perfect white
+rose.  Love had come through the gate and Love had gone out again, but
+this one flower was left behind.
+
+Brambles grew about the doorstep, and the hinges of the door were deep
+in rust.  No friendly light gleamed at night from the lattice, a beacon
+to the wayfarer or a message of cheer to the disheartened, since the
+little house was alone.  The secret spinners had hung a drapery of
+cobwebs before the desolate windows, as though to veil the loneliness
+from passers-by.  No fire warmed the solitary hearth, no gay and
+careless laughter betrayed the sleeping echoes into answer.  Within the
+house were only dreams, which never had come true.
+
+A bit of sewing yet lay upon the marble-topped table in the
+sitting-room, and an embroidery frame, holding still a square of fine
+linen, had fallen from a chair.  An open book was propped against the
+back of the chair, and a low rocker, facing it, was swerved sharply
+aside.  The evidence of daily occupation, suddenly interrupted, was all
+there--a quiet content, overlaid by a dumb, creeping paralysis.
+
+The March wind blew fiercely through the night and the little house
+leaned yet more toward the sheltering hill.  Afar, in the village, a
+train rumbled into the station; the midnight train from the city by
+which the people of Rushton regulated their watches and clocks.
+Strangely enough, it stopped, and more than one good man, turning
+uneasily upon his pillow, wondered if the world might have come to its
+end.
+
+Half an hour afterward, a lone figure ascended the steep road which led
+to the house.  A woman, fearless of the night, because Life had already
+done its worst to her, stumbled up the stony, overgrown way.  The moon
+shone fitfully among the flying clouds, and she guided herself by its
+uncertain gleams, pausing now and then, in complete darkness, to wait
+for more light.
+
+Ghost-like, a long white chiffon veil trailed behind her, too securely
+fastened to her hat to be blown away.  Even in the night, she watched
+furtively and listened for approaching footsteps, one hand holding the
+end of her veil in such a way that she might quickly hide her face.
+
+Outside the gate she paused, irresolute.  At the last moment, it seemed
+as if she could never enter the house again.  A light snow had fallen
+upon the dead garden, covering its scarred face with white.  Miss
+Evelina noted quickly that her garden, too, was hidden as by chiffon.
+
+A gust of wind made her shiver--or was it the veiled garden?  Nerving
+herself to her necessity, she took up her satchel and went up the path
+as one might walk, with bared feet, up a ladder of swords.  Each step
+that took her nearer the house hurt her the more, but she was not of
+those who cry out when hurt.  She set her lips more firmly together and
+continued upon her self-appointed way.
+
+When she reached the house, she already had the key in her uncertain
+fingers.  The rusty lock yielded at length and the door opened noisily.
+Her heart surged painfully as she entered the musty darkness.  It was
+so that Miss Evelina came home, after five-and-twenty years.
+
+The thousand noises of an empty house greeted her discordantly.  A
+rattling window was answered by a creaking stair, a rafter groaned
+dismally, and the scurrying feet of mice pattered across a distant
+floor.
+
+Fumbling in her satchel, Miss Evelina drew out a candle and a box of
+matches.  Presently there was light in the little house--a faint
+glimmering light, which flickered, when the wind shook the walls, and
+twinkled again bravely when it ceased.
+
+She took off her wraps, and, through force of habit, pinned the
+multitudinous folds of her veil to her hair, forgetting that at
+midnight, and in her own house, there were none to see her face.
+
+Then she made a fire, for the body must be warmed, though the heart is
+dead, and the soul stricken dumb.  She had brought with her a box
+containing a small canister of tea, and she soon had ready a cup of it,
+so strong that it was bitter.
+
+With her feet upon the hearth and the single candle flickering upon the
+mantel shelf, she sat in the lonely house and sipped her tea.  Her
+well-worn black gown clung closely to her figure, and the white chiffon
+veil, thrown back, did not wholly hide her abundant hair.  The horror
+of one night had whitened Miss Evelina's brown hair at twenty, for the
+sorrows of Youth are unmercifully keen.
+
+"I have come back," she thought.  "I have come back through that door.
+I went out of it, laughing, at twenty.  At forty-five, I have come
+back, heart-broken, and I have lived.
+
+"Why did I not die?" she questioned, for the thousandth time.  "If
+there had been a God in Heaven, surely I must have died."
+
+The flames leaped merrily in the fireplace and the discordant noises of
+the house resolved themselves into vague harmony.  A cricket, safely
+ensconced for the Winter in a crevice of the hearth, awoke in the
+unaccustomed warmth, piping a shrill and cheery welcome, but Miss
+Evelina sat abstractedly, staring into the fire.
+
+After all, there had never been anything but happiness in the
+house--the misery had been outside.  Peace and quiet content had dwelt
+there securely, but the memory of it brought no balm now.
+
+As though it were yesterday, the black walnut chair, covered with
+haircloth, stood primly against the wall.  Miss Evelina had always
+hated the chair, and here, after twenty-five years, it confronted her
+again.  She mused, ironically, upon the permanence of things usually
+considered transient and temporary.  Her mother's sewing was still upon
+the marble-topped table, but the hands that held it were long since
+mingled with the dust.  Her own embroidery had apparently but just
+fallen from the chair, and the dream that had led to its
+fashioning--was only a dream, from which she awoke to enduring agony.
+With swift hatred, she turned her back upon the embroidery frame, and
+hid her face in her hands.
+
+Time, as time, had ceased to exist for her.  She suffered until
+suffering brought its own far anodyne--the inability to sustain it
+further,--then she slept, from sheer weariness.  Before dawn, usually,
+she awoke, sufficiently rested to suffer again.  When she felt faint,
+she ate, scarcely knowing what she ate, for food was as dust and ashes
+in her mouth.
+
+In the bag that hung from her belt was a vial of laudanum, renewed from
+time to time as she feared its strength was waning.  She had been
+taught that it was wicked to take one's own life, and that God was
+always kind.  Not having experienced the kindness, she began to doubt
+the existence of God, and was immediately face to face with the idea
+that it could not be wrong to die if one was too miserable to live.
+Her mind revolved perpetually in this circle and came continually back
+to a compromise.  She would live one more day, and then she would free
+herself.  There was always a to-morrow when she should be free, but it
+never came.
+
+The fire died down and the candle had but a few minutes more to burn.
+It was the hour of the night when life is at its lowest--when souls
+pass out into the great Beyond.  Miss Evelina took the vial from her
+reticule and uncorked it.  The bitter, pungent odour came as sweet
+incense to her nostrils.  No one knew she had come.  No one would ever
+enter her door again.  She might die peacefully in her own house, and
+no one would know until the walls crumbled to dust--perhaps not even
+then.  And Miss Evelina had a horror of a grave.
+
+She drew a long breath of the bitterness.  The silken leaves of the
+poppies--flowers of sleep--had been crushed into this.  The lees must
+be drained from the Cup of Life before the Cup could be set aside.
+Every one came to this, sooner or later.  Why not choose?  Why not
+drain the Cup now? When it had all been bitter, why hesitate to drink
+the lees?
+
+The monstrous and incredible passion of the race was slowly creeping
+upon her.  Her eyes gleamed and her cheeks burned.  The hunger for
+death at her own hands and on her own terms possessed her frail body to
+the full.  "If there had been a God in Heaven," she said, aloud,
+"surely I must have died!"
+
+The words startled her and her hand shook so that some of the laudanum
+was spilled.  It was long since she had heard her own voice in more
+than a monosyllabic answer to some necessary question.  Inscrutably
+veiled in many folds of chiffon, she held herself apart from the world,
+and the world, carelessly kind, had left her wholly to herself.
+
+Slowly, she put the cork tightly into the vial and slipped it back into
+her bag.  "Tomorrow," she sighed; "to-morrow I shall set myself free."
+
+The fire flickered and without warning the candle went out, in a gust
+of wind which shook the house to its foundations.  Stray currents of
+air had come through the crevices of the rattling windows and kept up
+an imperfect ventilation.  She took another candle from her satchel,
+put it into a candlestick of blackened brass, and slowly ascended the
+stairs.
+
+She went to her own room, though her feet failed her at the threshold
+and she sank helplessly to the floor.  Too weak to stand, she made her
+way on her knees to her bed, leaving the candle in the hall, just
+outside her door.  As she had suspected, it was hardest of all to enter
+this room.
+
+A pink and white gown of dimity, yellowed, and grimed with dust, yet
+lay upon her bed.  Cobwebs were woven over the lace that trimmed the
+neck and sleeves.  Out of the fearful shadows, mute reminders of a lost
+joy mocked her from every corner of the room.
+
+She knelt there until some measure of strength came back to her, and,
+with it, a mad fancy.  "To-night," she said to herself, "I will be
+brave.  For once I will play a part, since to-morrow I shall be free.
+To-night, it shall be as though nothing had happened--as though I were
+to be married to-morrow and not to--to Death!"
+
+She laughed wildly, and, even to her own ears, it had a fantastic,
+unearthly sound.  The empty rooms took up the echo and made merry with
+it, the sound dying at last into a silence like that of the tomb.
+
+She brought in the candle, took the dimity gown from the bed, and shook
+it to remove the dust.  In her hands it fell apart, broken, because it
+was too frail to tear.  She laid it on a chair, folding it carefully,
+then took the dusty bedding from her bed and carried it into the hall,
+dust and all.  In an oaken chest in a corner of her room was her store
+of linen, hemmed exquisitely and embroidered with the initials: "E. G."
+
+She began to move about feverishly, fearing that her resolution might
+fail.  The key of the chest was in a drawer in her dresser, hidden
+beneath a pile of yellowed garments.  Her hands, so long nerveless,
+were alive and sentient now.  When she opened the chest, the scent of
+lavender and rosemary, long since dead, struck her like a blow.
+
+The room swam before her, yet Miss Evelina dragged forth her linen
+sheets and pillow-slips, musty, but clean, and made her bed.  Once or
+twice, her veil slipped down over her face, and she impatiently pushed
+it back.  The candle, burning low, warned her that she must make haste,
+
+In one of the smaller drawers of her dresser was a nightgown of
+sheerest linen, wonderfully stitched by her own hands.  She hesitated a
+moment, then opened the drawer.
+
+Tiny bags of sweet herbs fell from the folds as she shook it out.  It
+was yellowed and musty and as frail as a bit of fine lace, but it did
+not tear in her hands.  "I will wear it," she thought, grimly, "as I
+planned to do, long ago."
+
+At last she stood before her mirror, the ivory-tinted lace falling away
+from her neck and shoulders.  Her neck was white and firm, but her
+right shoulder was deeply, hideously scarred.  "Burned body and burned
+soul," she muttered, "and this my wedding night!"
+
+For the first time in her life, she pitied herself, not knowing that
+self-pity is the first step toward relief from overpowering sorrow.
+When detachment is possible, the long, slow healing has faintly, but
+surely, begun.
+
+She unpinned her veil, took down her heavy white hair, and braided it.
+There was no gleam of silver, even in the light--it was as lustreless
+as a field of snow upon a dark day.  That done, she stood there,
+staring at herself in the mirror, and living over, remorselessly, the
+one day that, like a lightning stroke, had blasted her life.
+
+Her veil slipped, unheeded, from her dresser to the floor.  Leaning
+forward, she studied her face, that she had once loved, then swiftly
+learned to hate.  Even on the street, closely veiled, she would not
+look at a shop window, lest she might see herself reflected in the
+plate glass, and she had kept the mirror, in her room covered with a
+cloth,
+
+Since the day she left the hospital, where they all had been so kind to
+her, no human being, save herself, had seen her face.  She had prayed
+for death, but had not been more than slightly ill, upborne, as she
+was, by a great grief which sustained her as surely as an ascetic is
+kept alive by the passion of his faith.  She hungered now for the sight
+of her face as she hungered for death, and held the flaring candle
+aloft that she might see better.
+
+Then a wave of impassioned self-pity swept her like flame.  "The fire
+was kind," she said, stubbornly, as though to defend herself from it.
+"It showed me the truth."
+
+She leaned yet closer to the glass, holding the dripping candle on
+high.  "The fire was kind," she insisted again.  Then the floodgates
+opened, and for the first time in all the sorrowful years, she felt the
+hot tears streaming over her face.  Her hand shook, but she held her
+candle tightly and leaned so close to the mirror that her white hair
+brushed its cracked surface.
+
+"The fire was kind," sobbed Miss Evelina.  "Oh, but the fire was kind!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Miss Mehitable
+
+The slanting sunbeams of late afternoon crept through the cobwebbed
+window, and Miss Evelina stirred uneasily in her sleep.  The mocking
+dream vanished and she awoke to feel, as always, the iron, icy hand
+that unmercifully clutched her heart.  The room was cold and she
+shivered as she lay beneath her insufficient covering.
+
+At length she rose, and dressed mechanically, avoiding the mirror, and
+pinning her veil securely to her hair.  She went downstairs slowly,
+clinging to the railing from sheer weakness.  She was as frail and
+ghostly as some disembodied spirit of Grief.
+
+Soon, she had a fire.  As the warmth increased, she opened the rear
+door of the house to dispel the musty atmosphere.  The March wind blew
+strong and clear through the lonely rooms, stirring the dust before it
+and swaying the cobwebs.  Suddenly, Miss Evelina heard a footstep
+outside and instinctively drew down her veil.
+
+Before she could close the door, a woman, with a shawl over her head,
+appeared on the threshold, peered curiously into the house, then
+unhesitatingly entered.
+
+"For the land's sake!" cried a cheery voice.  "You scared me most to
+death!  I saw the smoke coming from the chimney and thought the house
+was afire, so I come over to see."
+
+Miss Evelina stiffened, and made no reply.
+
+"I don't know who you are," said the woman again, mildly defiant, "but
+this is Evelina Grey's house."
+
+"And I," answered Miss Evelina, almost inaudibly, "am Evelina Grey."
+
+"For the land's sake!" cried the visitor again.  "Don't you remember
+me?  Why, Evelina, you and I used to go to school together.  You----"
+
+She stopped, abruptly.  The fact of the veiled face confronted her
+stubbornly.  She ransacked her memory for a forgotten catastrophe, a
+quarter of a century back.  Impenetrably, a wall was reared between
+them.
+
+"I--I'm afraid I don't remember," stammered Miss Evelina, in a low
+voice, hoping that the intruder would go.
+
+"I used to be Mehitable Smith, and that's what I am still, having been
+spared marriage.  Mehitable is my name, but folks calls me Hitty--Miss
+Hitty," she added, with a slight accent on the "Miss."
+
+"Oh," answered Miss Evelina, "I remember," though she did not remember
+at all.
+
+"Well, I'm glad you've come back," went on the guest, politely.
+Altogether in the manner of one invited to do so, she removed her shawl
+and sat down, furtively eyeing Miss Evelina, yet affecting to look
+carelessly about the house.
+
+She was a woman of fifty or more, brisk and active of body and kindly,
+though inquisitive, of countenance.  Her dark hair, scarcely touched
+with grey, was parted smoothly in the exact centre and plastered down
+on both sides, as one guessed, by a brush and cold water.  Her black
+eyes were bright and keen, and her gold-bowed spectacles were
+habitually worn half-way down her nose.  Her mouth and chin were
+indicative of great firmness--those whose misfortune it was to differ
+from Miss Hitty were accustomed to call it obstinacy.  People of
+plainer speech said it was "mulishness."
+
+Her gown was dark calico, stiffly starched, and made according to the
+durable and comfortable pattern of her school-days.  "All in one
+piece," Miss Hitty was wont to say.  "Then when I bend over, as folks
+that does housework has to bend over, occasionally, I don't come apart
+in the back.  For my part, I never could see sense in wearing clothes
+that's held by a safety-pin in the back instead of good, firm cloth,
+and, moreover, a belt that either slides around or pinches where it
+ain't pleasant to be pinched, ain't my notion of comfort.  Apron
+strings is bad enough, for you have to have 'em tight to keep from
+slipping."  Miss Hitty had never worn corsets, and had the straight,
+slender figure of a boy.
+
+The situation became awkward.  Miss Evelina still stood in the middle
+of the room, her veiled face slightly averted.  The impenetrable
+shelter of chiffon awed Miss Mehitable, but she was not a woman to give
+up easily when embarked upon the quest for knowledge.  Some unusual
+state of mind kept her from asking a direct question about the veil,
+and meanwhile she continually racked her memory.
+
+Miss Evelina's white, slender hands opened and closed nervously.  Miss
+Hitty set her feet squarely on the floor, and tucked her immaculate
+white apron closely about her knees.  "When did you come?" she demanded
+finally, with the air of the attorney for the prosecution.
+
+"Last night," murmured Miss Evelina.
+
+"On that late train?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I heard it stop, but I never sensed it was you.  Seemed to me I heard
+somebody go by, too, but I was too sleepy to get up and see.  I thought
+I must be dreaming, but I was sure I heard somebody on the walk.  If
+I'd known it was you, I'd have made you stop at my house for the rest
+of the night, instead of coming up here alone."
+
+"Very kind," said Miss Evelina, after an uncomfortable pause.
+
+"You might as well set down," remarked Miss Hitty, with a new
+gentleness of manner.  "I'm going to set a spell."
+
+Miss Evelina sat, helplessly, in the hair-cloth chair which she hated,
+and turned her veiled face yet farther away from her guest.  Seeing
+that her hostess did not intend to talk, Miss Hitty began a
+conversation, if anything wholly one-sided may be so termed.
+
+"I live in the same place," she said.  "Ma died seventeen years ago on
+the eighteenth of next April, and left the house and the income for me.
+There was enough to take care of two, and so I took my sister's child,
+Araminta, to bring up.  You know my poor sister got married.  She ought
+to have known better, but she didn't.  She just put her head into the
+noose, and it slipped up on her, as I told her it would, both before
+and after the ceremony.  Having seen all the trouble men make in the
+world, I sh'd think women would know enough to keep away from 'em, but
+they don't--that is, some women don't." Miss Hitty smoothed her stiff
+white apron with an air of conscious virtue.
+
+"Araminta was only a year old when her ma got enough of marrying and
+went to her reward in Heaven.  What she 'd been through would have
+tried the patience of a saint, and Barbara wasn't no saint.  None of
+the Smith family have ever grown wings here on earth, but it's my
+belief that we'll all be awarded our proper plumage in Heaven.
+
+"He--" the pronoun was sufficiently definite to indicate Araminta's
+hapless father--"was always tracking dirt into the clean kitchen, and
+he had an appetite like a horse.  Barbara would make a cake to set away
+for company, and he'd gobble it all up at one meal just as if 't was a
+doughnut.  She was forever cooking and washing dishes and sweeping up
+after him.  When he come into the house, she'd run for the broom and
+dustpan, and follow him around, sweeping up, and if you'll believe me,
+the brute scolded her for it.  He actually said once, in my presence,
+that if he'd known how neat she was, he didn't believe he'd have
+married her.  That shows what men are--if it needs showing.  It's no
+wonder poor Barbara died.  I hope there ain't any brooms in Heaven and
+that she's havin' a good rest now.
+
+"Araminta's goin' on nineteen, and she's a sensible girl, if I do say
+it as shouldn't.  She's never spoke to a man except to say 'yes' and
+'no.'  I've taught her to steer clear of 'em, and even when she was
+only seven years old, she'd run if she saw one coming.  She knows they
+'re pizen and I don't believe I'll ever have any cause to worry about
+Minty.
+
+"I've got the minister boarding with me," pursued Miss Hitty,
+undaunted, and cheerfully taking a fresh start.  "Ministers don't
+count, and I must say that, for a man, Mr. Thorpe is very little
+trouble.  He wipes his feet sometimes for as much as five minutes when
+he's coming in, and mostly, when it's pleasant weather, he's out.  When
+he's in, he usually stays in his room, except at meals.  He don't eat
+much more 'n a canary, and likes what he eats, and don't need hardly
+any pickin' up after, though a week ago last Saturday he left a collar
+layin' on the bureau instead of putting it into his bag.
+
+"I left it right where 't was, and Sunday morning he put it where it
+belonged.  He's never been married and he's learned to pick up after
+himself.  I wouldn't have had him, on Araminta's account, only that
+there wasn't no other place for him to stay, and it was put to me by
+the elders as being my Christian duty.  I wouldn't have took him,
+otherwise, and we've never had an unmarried minister before.
+
+"Besides, Mr. Thorpe ain't pleasing the congregation, and I don't know
+that he'll stay long.  He's been here six months and three Sundays
+over, and I've been to every single service, church and Sunday-school
+and prayer-meeting, and he ain't never said one word about hell.  It's
+all of the joys of Heaven and a sure reward in the hereafter for
+everybody that's done what they think is right--nothing much, mind you,
+about what is right.  Why, when Mr. Brewster was preaching for us, some
+of the sinners would get up and run right out of the church when he got
+started on hell and the lost souls writhin' in the flames.  That was a
+minister worth having.
+
+"But Mr. Thorpe, now, he doesn't seem to have no sense of the duties of
+his position.  Week before last, I heard of his walkin' along the river
+with Andy Rogers--arm in arm, if you'll believe me, with the worst
+drunkard and chicken thief in town.  The very idea of a minister
+associatin' with sinners!  Mr. Brewster would never have done that.
+Why, Andy was one of them that run out of the church the day the
+minister give us that movin' sermon on hell, and he ain't never dared
+to show his face in a place of worship since.
+
+"As I said, I don't think Mr. Thorpe 'll be with us long, for the
+vestry and the congregation is getting dissatisfied.  There ain't been
+any open talk, except in the Ladies' Aid Society, but public opinion is
+settin' pretty strongly in that direction."  Miss Hitty dropped her
+final g's when she got thoroughly interested in her subject and at
+times became deeply involved in grammatical complications.
+
+"Us older ones, that's strong in the faith, ain't likely to be injured
+by it, I suppose, but there's always the young ones to be considered,
+and it's highly important for Araminta to have the right kind of
+influence.  Of course Mr. Thorpe don't talk on religious subjects at
+home, and I ain't let Araminta go to church the last two Sundays.
+Meanwhile, I've talked hell to her stronger 'n common.
+
+"But, upon my soul, I don't know what Rushton is comin' to.  A month or
+so ago, there was an outlandish, heathen character come here that beats
+anything I've ever heard tell of.  His name is Tom Barnaby and he's set
+up a store on the edge of town, in the front parlour of Widow Simon's
+house.  She's went and rented it to him, and she says he pays his rent
+regular.
+
+"He wears leather leggings and a hat with a red feather stuck in it,
+and he's gone into competition with Mrs. Allen, who's kept the
+dry-goods here for the last twenty years.
+
+"Of course," she went on, a little wistfully, "I've always patronised
+Mrs. Allen, and I always shall.  They do say Barnaby's goods is a great
+deal cheaper, but I'd feel it my duty to buy of a woman, anyhow, even
+though she has been married.  She's been a widow for so long, it's most
+the same as if she'd never been married at ail.
+
+"Barnaby lives with a dog and does for himself, but he's hardly ever in
+his store.  People go there to buy things and find the door propped
+open with a brick, and a sign says to come in and take what you want.
+The price of everything is marked good and plain, and another sign says
+to put the money in the drawer and make your own change.  The
+blacksmith was at him for doing business so shiftless, and Barnaby
+laughed and said that if anybody wanted anything he had bad enough to
+steal it, whoever it was, he was good and welcome to it.  That just
+shows how crazy he is.  Most of the time he's roaming around the
+country, with his yellow dog at his heels, making outlandish noises on
+some kind of a flute.  He can't play a tune, but he keeps trying.
+Folks around here call him Piper Tom.
+
+"Of course I wouldn't want Mrs. Allen to know, but I've thought that
+sometime when he was away and there was nobody there to see, I'd just
+step in for a few minutes and take a look at his goods.  Elmiry Jones
+says his calico is beautiful, and that for her part, she's going to
+trade there instead of at Allen's.  I suppose it is a temptation.   I
+might do it myself, if 't want for my principles."
+
+The speaker paused for breath, but Miss Evelina still sat silently in
+her chair.  "What was it?" thought Miss Hitty.  "I was here, and I knew
+at the time, but what happened?  How did I come to forget?  I must be
+getting old!"
+
+She searched her memory without result.  Her house was situated at the
+crossroads, and, being on higher ground, commanded a good view of the
+village below.  Gradually, her dooryard had become a sort of clearing
+house for neighbourhood gossip.  Travellers going and coming stopped at
+Miss Hitty's to drink from the moss-grown well, give their bit of news,
+and receive, in return, the scandal of the countryside.  Had it not
+been for the faithful and industrious Miss Mehitable, the town might
+have needed a daily paper.
+
+"Strange I can't think," she said to herself.  "I don't doubt it'll
+come to me, though.  Something happened to Evelina, and she went away,
+and her mother went with her to take care of her, and then her mother
+died, all at once, of heart failure.  It happened the same week old
+Mis' Hicks had a doctor from the city for an operation, and the
+Millerses barn was struck by lightning and burnt up, and so I s'pose
+it's no wonder I've sorter lost track of it."
+
+Miss Evelina's veiled face was wholly averted now, and Miss Hitty
+studied her shrewdly.  She noted that the black gown was well-worn, and
+had, indeed, been patched in several places.  The shoes which tapped
+impatiently on the floor were undeniably shabby, though they had been
+carefully blacked.  Against the unrelieved sombreness of her gown.
+Miss Evelina's hands were singularly frail and transparent.  Every line
+of her body was eloquent of weakness and well-nigh insupportable grief.
+
+"Well," said Miss Hitty, again, though she felt that the words were
+flat; "I'm glad you've come back.  It seems like old times for us to be
+settin' here, talkin', and--" here she laughed shrilly--"we've both
+been spared marriage."
+
+A small, slender hand clutched convulsively at the arm of the haircloth
+chair, but Miss Evelina did not speak.
+
+"I see," went on Miss Hitty, not unkindly, "that you're still in
+mourning for your mother.  You mustn't take it so hard.  Sometimes
+folks get to feeling so sorry about something that they can't never get
+over it, and they keep on going round and round all the time like a
+squirrel in a wheel, and keep on getting weaker till it gets to be a
+kind of disease there ain't no cure for.  Leastwise, that's what Doctor
+Dexter says."
+
+"Doctor Dexter!"  With a cry, Miss Evelina sprang to her feet, her
+hands tightly pressed to her heart.
+
+"The same," nodded Miss Hitty, overjoyed to discover that at last her
+hostess was interested.  "Doctor Anthony Dexter, our old schoolmate, as
+had just graduated when you lived here before.  He went away for a year
+and then he came back, bringing a pretty young wife.  She's dead, but
+he has a son, Ralph, who's away studying to be a doctor.  He'll
+graduate this Spring and then he's coming here to help his father with
+his practice.  Doctor Dexter's getting old, like the rest of us, and he
+don't like the night work.  Some folks is inconsiderate enough to get
+sick in the night.  They orter have regular hours for it, same as a
+doctor has hours for business.  Things would fit better.
+
+"Well, I must be going, for I left soup on the stove, and Araminta's
+likely as not to let it burn.  I'm going to send your supper over to
+you, and next week, if the weather's favourable, we'll clean this
+house.  Goodness knows it needs it.  I'd just as soon send over all
+your meals till you get settled--'t wouldn't be any trouble.  Or, you
+can come over to my house if you wouldn't mind eating with the
+minister.  It seems queer to set down to the table with a man, and not
+altogether natural, but I'm beginning to get used to it, and it gives
+us the advantage of a blessing, and, anyway, ministers don't count.
+Come over when you can.  Goodbye!"
+
+With a rustle of stiffly starched garments Miss Mehitable took her
+departure, carefully closing the door and avoiding the appearance of
+haste.  This was an effort, for every fibre of her being ached to get
+back to the clearing house, where she might speculate upon Evelina's
+return.  It was her desire, also, to hunt up the oldest inhabitant
+before nightfall and correct her pitiful lapse of memory.
+
+At the same time, she was planning to send Araminta over with a nice
+hot supper, for Miss Evelina seemed to be far from strong, and, even to
+one lacking in discernment, acutely unhappy.
+
+Down the road she went, her head bowed in deep and fruitless thought.
+Swiftly, as in a lightning flash, and without premonition, she
+remembered.
+
+"Evelina was burnt," she said to herself, triumphantly, "over to Doctor
+Dexter's, and they took her on the train to the hospital.  I guess she
+wears that veil all the time."
+
+Then Miss Hitty stopped at her own gate, catching her breath quickly.
+"She must have been burnt awful," she thought.  "Poor soul!" she
+murmured, her sharp eyes softening with tears.  "Poor soul!"
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+The Pearls
+
+A rap at the door roused Miss Evelina from a deadly stupor which seemed
+stabbed through with daggers of pain.  She sat quite still, determined
+not to open the door.  Presently, she heard the sound of retreating
+footsteps, and was reassured.  Then she saw a bit of folded paper which
+had been slipped under the door, and, mechanically, she picked it up.
+
+"Here's your supper," the note read, briefly.  "When you get done,
+leave the tray outside.  I'll come and get it.  I would like to have
+you come over if you want to.--Mehitable Smith."
+
+Touched by the unexpected kindness, Miss Evelina took in the tray.
+There was a bowl of soup, steaming hot, a baked potato, a bit of thin
+steak, fried, in country fashion, two crisp, buttered rolls, and a pot
+of tea.  Faint and sick of heart, she pushed it aside, then in simple
+justice to Miss Hitty, tasted of the soup.  A little later, she put the
+tray out on the doorstep again, having eaten as she had not eaten for
+months.
+
+She considered the chain of circumstances that had led her back to
+Rushton.  First, the knowledge that Doctor Dexter had left the place
+for good.  She had heard of that, long ago, but, until now, no one had
+told her that he had returned.  She had thought it impossible for him
+ever to return--even to think of it again,
+
+Otherwise--here the thread of her thought snapped, and she clutched at
+the vial of laudanum which, as always, was in the bag at her belt.  She
+perceived that the way of escape was closed to her.  Broken in spirit
+though she was, she was yet too proud to die like a dog at Anthony
+Dexter's door, even after five-and-twenty years.
+
+Bitterest need alone had driven her to take the step which she so
+keenly regretted now.  The death of her mother, hastened by misfortune,
+had left her with a small but certain income, paid regularly from two
+separate sources.  One source had failed without warning, and her
+slender legacy was cut literally in two.  Upon the remaining half she
+must eke out the rest of her existence, if she continued to exist at
+all.  It was absolutely necessary for her to come back to the one
+shelter which she could call her own.
+
+Weary, despairing, and still in the merciless grip of her obsession,
+she had come--only to find that Anthony Dexter had long since preceded
+her.  A year afterward, Miss Hitty said, he had come back, with a
+pretty young wife.  And he had a son.
+
+The new knowledge hurt, and Evelina had fancied that she could be hurt
+no more, that she had reached the uttermost limits of pain.  By a
+singular irony, the last refuge was denied her at the very moment of
+her greatest temptation to avail herself of it.  Long hours of thought
+led her invariably to the one possible conclusion--to avoid every one,
+keep wholly to herself, and, by starvation, if need be, save enough of
+her insignificant pittance to take her far away.  And after
+that--freedom.
+
+Since the night of full realisation which had turned her brown hair to
+a dull white she had thought of death in but one way--escape.  Set free
+from the insufferable bondage of earthly existence.  Miss Evelina
+dreamed of peace as a prisoner in a dungeon may dream of green fields.
+To sleep and wake no more, never to feel again the cold hand upon her
+heart that tore persistently at the inmost fibres of it, to forget----
+
+Miss Evelina took the vial from her bag and uncorked it.  The incense
+of the poppies crept subtly through the room, mingling inextricably
+with the mustiness and the dust.  The grey cobwebs swayed at the
+windows, sunset touching them to iridescence.  Conscious that she was
+the most desolate and lonely thing in all the desolate house, Miss
+Evelina buried her face in her hands.
+
+The poppies breathed from the vial.  In her distorted fancy, she saw
+vast plains of them, shimmering in the sun--scarlet like the lips of a
+girl, pink as the flush of dawn upon the eastern sky, blood-red as the
+passionate heart that never dreamed of betrayal.
+
+The sun was shining on the field of poppies and Miss Evelina walked
+among them, her face unveiled.  Golden masses of bloom were spread at
+her feet, starred here and there by stately blossoms as white as the
+blown snow.  Her ragged garments touched the silken petals, her worn
+shoes crushed them, bud and blossom alike.  Always, the numbing, sleepy
+odour came from the field.  Dew was on the petals of the flowers; their
+deep cups gathered it and held it, never to be surrendered, since the
+dew of the poppies was tears.
+
+Like some evil genius rising from the bottle, the Spirit of the Poppies
+seemed to incarnate itself in the vapour.  A woman with a face of
+deadly white arose to meet Miss Evelina, with outspread arms.  In her
+eyes was Lethe, in her hands was the gift of forgetfulness.  She
+brought pardon for all that was past and to come, eternal healing,
+unfathomable oblivion.  "Come," the drowsy voice seemed to say.  "I
+have waited long and yet you do not come.  The peace that passeth all
+understanding is mine to give and yours to take.  Come--only come!
+Come!  Come!"
+
+Miss Evelina laughed bitterly.  Never in all the years gone by had the
+Spirit of the Poppies pleaded with her thus.  Now, at the hour when
+surrender meant the complete triumph of her enemy, the ghostly figure
+came to offer her the last and supreme gift.
+
+The afterglow yet lingered in the west.  The grey of a March twilight
+was in the valley, but it was still late afternoon on the summit of the
+hill.  Miss Evelina drew her veil about her and went out into the
+garden, the vial in her hand.
+
+Where was it that she had planted the poppies?  Through the mass of
+undergrowth and brambles, she made scant headway.  Thorns pressed
+forward rudely as if to stab the intruder.  Vines, closely matted,
+forbade her to pass, yet she kept on until she reached the western
+slope of the garden.
+
+Here, unshaded, and in the full blaze of the Summer sun, the poppies
+had spread their brilliant pageantry.  In all the village there had
+been no such poppies as grew in Evelina's garden.  Now they were dead
+and only the overgrown stubble was left.
+
+"Dust to dust, earth to earth, and ashes to ashes."  The solemn words
+of the burial service were chanted in her consciousness as she lifted
+the vial high and emptied it.  She held it steadily until the last drop
+was drained from it.  The poppies had given it and to the poppies she
+had returned it.  She put the cork into the empty vial and flung it far
+away from her, then turned back to the house.
+
+There was a sound of wheels upon the road.  Miss Evelina hastened her
+steps, but the dense undergrowth made walking difficult.  Praying that
+she might not be seen, she turned her head.
+
+Anthony Dexter, in the doctor's carriage, was travelling at a leisurely
+pace.  As he passed the old house, he glanced at it mechanically, from
+sheer force of habit.  Long ago, it had ceased to have any definite
+meaning for him.  Once he had even stripped every white rose from the
+neglected bush at the gate, to take to his wife, who, that day, for the
+first time, had held their son in her arms.
+
+Motionless in the wreck of the garden, a veiled figure stood with
+averted face.  Doctor Dexter looked keenly for an instant in the fast
+gathering twilight, then whipped up his horse, and was swiftly out of
+sight.  Against his better judgment, he was shaken in mind and body.
+Could he have seen a ghost?  Nonsense!  He was tired, he had
+overworked, he had had an hallucination.  His cool, calm, professional
+sense fought with the insistent idea.  It was well that Ralph was
+coming to relieve his old father of a part of his burden.
+
+Meanwhile, Miss Evelina, her frail body quivering as though under the
+lash, crept back into the house.  With the sure intuition of a woman,
+she knew who had driven by in the first darkness.  That he should dare!
+That he should actually trespass upon her road; take the insolent
+liberty of looking at her house!
+
+"A pretty young wife," Miss Hitty had said.  Yes, doubtless a pretty
+one.  Anthony Dexter delighted in the beauty of a woman in the same
+impersonal way that another man would regard a picture.  And a son.  A
+straight, tall young fellow, doubtless, with eyes like his
+father's--eyes that a woman would trust, not dreaming of the false
+heart and craven soul.  Why had she been brought here to suffer this
+last insult, this last humiliation?  Weakly, as many a woman before
+her, Miss Evelina groped in the maze of Life, searching for some clue
+to its blind mystery.
+
+Was it possible that she had not suffered enough?  If five-and-twenty
+years of sodden misery were not sufficient for one who had done no
+wrong, what punishment would be meted out to a sinner by a God who was
+always kind?  Miss Evelina's lips curled scornfully.  She had taken
+what he should have borne--Anthony Dexter had gone scot free.
+
+"The man sins and the woman pays."  The cynical saying, which, after
+all, is not wholly untrue, took shape in her thought and said
+itself--aloud.  Yet it was not altogether impossible that he might yet
+be made to pay--could be--
+
+Her cheeks burned and her hands closed tightly.  What if she were the
+chosen instrument?  What if she had been sent here, after all the dead,
+miserable years, for some purpose which hitherto she had not guessed?
+
+What if she, herself, with her veiled face, were to be the tardy
+avenger of her own wrong?  Her soul stirred in its despair as the dead
+might stir in the winding sheet.  Out of her sodden grief, could she
+ever emerge--alive?
+
+"The fire was kind," said Miss Evelina, in a whisper.  "It showed me
+the truth.  The fire was kind and God is kind.  He has brought me here
+to pay my debt--in full."
+
+She began to consider what she might do that would hurt Anthony Dexter
+and make him suffer as she had suffered for half a lifetime.  If he had
+forgotten, she would make him remember--ah, yes, he must remember
+before he could be hurt.  But what could she do?  What had he given her
+aside from the misery that she hungered to give back to him?
+
+The pearls!  Miss Evelina lighted her candle and hurried upstairs.
+
+In her dower chest, beneath the piles of heavy, yellowed linen, was a
+small jewel case.  She knelt before the chest, gasping, and thrust her
+questioning fingers down through the linen to the solid oak.  With a
+little cry, she rose to her feet, the jewel case in her hand.
+
+The purple velvet was crushed, the satin was yellowed, but the string
+of pearls was there--yellowed, too, by the slow passage of the years.
+One or two of them were black.  A slip of paper fluttered out as she
+opened the case, and she caught it as it fell.  The paper was yellow
+and brittle and the ink had faded, but the words were still there,
+written in Anthony Dexter's clear, bold hand; "First from the depths of
+the sea, and then from the depths of my love."
+
+"Depths!" muttered Miss Evelina, from between her clenched teeth.
+
+Once the necklace had been beautiful--a single strand of large,
+perfectly matched pearls.  The gold of the clasp was dull, but the
+diamond gleamed like the eye of some evil thing.  She wound the
+necklace twice about her wrist, then shuddered, for it was cold and
+smooth and sinuous, like a snake.
+
+She coiled the discoloured necklace carefully upon its yellowed satin
+bed, laid the folded slip of paper over it, and closed it with a snap.
+To-morrow--no, this very night, Anthony Dexter should have the pearls,
+that had come first from the depths of the sea, and then from the
+depths of his love.
+
+No hand but hers should give them back, for she saw it written in the
+scheme of vengeance that she herself should, mutely, make him pay.  She
+felt a new strength of body and a fresh clearness of mind as, with grim
+patience, she set herself to wait.
+
+The clocks in the house were all still.  Miss Evelina's watch had long
+ago been sold.  There was no town clock in the village, but the train
+upon which she had come was due shortly after midnight.  She knew every
+step of the way by dark as well as by daylight, but the night was clear
+and there would be the light of the dying moon,
+
+Her own clouded skies were clearing.  Dimly she began to perceive
+herself as a part of things, not set aside helplessly to suffer
+eternally, but in some sort of relation to the rest of the world.
+
+On the Sunday before the catastrophe, Miss Evelina had been to church,
+and even yet, she remembered fragments of the sermon.  "God often uses
+people to carry out His plans," the minister had said.  At the time, it
+had not particularly impressed her, and she had never gone to church
+again.  If she had listened further, she might have heard the minister
+say that the devil was wont to do the same thing.
+
+Minute by minute, the hours passed.  Miss Evelina's heart was beating
+painfully, but, all unknowingly, she had entered upon a new phase.  She
+had turned in the winding sheet of her own weaving, and her hands were
+clutching at the binding fabric.
+
+At last, the train came in.  It did not stop, but thundered through the
+sleeping village, shrieking as it went.  The sound died into a distant
+rumble, then merged into the stillness of the night.  Miss Evelina rose
+from her chair, put on her wraps, slipped the jewel case into her bag,
+and went out, closely veiled.
+
+The light of the waning moon was dim and, veiled as she was, she felt
+rather than saw the way.  Steadfastly, she went down the steep road,
+avoiding the sidewalk, for she remembered that Miss Mehitable's ears
+were keen.  Past the crossroads, to the right, down into the village,
+across the tracks, then sharply to the left--the way was the same, but
+the wayfarer was sadly changed.
+
+She went unemotionally, seeing herself a divinely appointed instrument
+of vengeance.  Something outside her obsession had its clutch upon her
+also, but it was new, and she did not guess that it was fully as
+hideous.
+
+Doctor Dexter's house was near the corner on a shaded street.  At the
+gate.  Miss Evelina paused and, with her veil lifted, carefully
+scrutinised the house for a possible light.  She feared that some one
+might be stirring, late as it was, but the old housekeeper always went
+to bed promptly at nine, and on this particular night, Anthony Dexter
+had gone to his room at ten, making sleep sure by a drug.
+
+With hushed steps, Miss Evelina went furtively up to the house on the
+bare earth beside the brick pavement.  She was in a panic of fear, but
+something beyond her control urged her on.  Reaching the steps, she
+hesitated, baffled for the moment, then sank to her knees.  Slowly she
+crept to the threshold, placed the jewel case so that it would fall
+inward when the door was opened, and started back.  Instinct bade her
+hurry, but reason made her cautious.  She forced herself to walk slowly
+and to muffle the latch of the gate with her skirts as she had done
+when she came in.
+
+It seemed an hour before she crossed the tracks again, at the deserted
+point she had chosen, but, in reality, it was only a few minutes.  At
+last she reached home, utterly exhausted by the strain she had put upon
+herself.  She had seen no one, heard no footstep save her own; she had
+gone and returned as mysteriously as the night itself.
+
+When she slept, she dreamed of the poppy bed on the western slope of
+the garden.  It was twilight, and she stood there with a vial of
+laudanum in one hand and a necklace of discoloured pearls in the other.
+She poured the laudanum upon the earth and a great black poppy with a
+deadly fragrance sprang up at her feet.  Then Anthony Dexter drove up
+in a carriage and took the pearls away from her.  She could not see him
+clearly, because his face was veiled, like her own.
+
+The odour of the black poppy made her faint and she went into the house
+to escape from it, but the scent of it clung to her garments and hands
+and could not be washed away.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+"From the Depths of his Love"
+
+At seven o'clock, precisely, Anthony Dexter's old housekeeper rang the
+rising bell.  Drowsy with the soporific he had taken, the doctor did
+not at once respond to the summons.  In fact, the breakfast bell had
+rung before he was fully awake.
+
+He dressed leisurely, and was haunted by a vague feeling that something
+unpleasant had happened.  At length he remembered that just before
+dusk, in the garden of Evelina Grey's old house, he had seen a ghost--a
+ghost who confronted him mutely with a thing he had long since
+forgotten.
+
+"It was subjective, purely," mused Anthony Dexter.  "I have been
+working too hard." His reason was fully satisfied with the plausible
+explanation, but he was not a man who was likely to have an
+hallucination of any sort.
+
+He was strong and straight of body, finely muscular, and did not look
+over forty, though it was more than eight years ago that he had reached
+the fortieth milestone.  His hair was thinning a little at the temples
+and the rest of it was touched generously with grey.  His features were
+regular and his skin clear.  A full beard, closely cropped, hid the
+weakness of his chin, but did not entirely conceal those fine lines
+about the mouth which mean cruelty.
+
+Someway, in looking at him, one got the impression of a machine,
+well-nigh perfect of its kind.  His dark eyes were sharp and
+penetrating.  Once they had been sympathetic, but he had outgrown that.
+His hands were large, white, and well-kept, his fingers knotted, and
+blunt at the tips.  He had, pre-eminently, the hand of the surgeon,
+capable of swiftness and strength, and yet of delicacy.  It was not a
+hand that would tremble easily; it was powerful and, in a way, brutal.
+
+He was thoroughly self-satisfied, as well he might be, for the entire
+countryside admitted his skill, and even in the operating rooms of the
+hospitals in the city not far distant.  Doctor Dexter's name was well
+known.  He had thought seriously, at times, of seeking a wider field,
+but he liked the country and the open air, and his practice would give
+Ralph the opportunity he needed.  At his father's death, the young
+physician would fail heir to a practice which had taken many years of
+hard work to build up.
+
+At the thought of Ralph, the man's face softened a trifle and his keen
+eyes became a little less keen.  The boy's picture was before him upon
+his chiffonier.  Ralph was twenty-three now and would finish in a few
+weeks at a famous medical school--Doctor Dexter's own alma mater.  He
+had not been at home since he entered the school, having undertaken to
+do in three years the work which usually required four.
+
+He wrote frequently, however, and Doctor Dexter invariably went to the
+post-office himself on the days Ralph's letters were expected.  He had
+the entire correspondence on file and whiled away many a lonely evening
+by reading and re-reading the breezy epistles.  The last one was in his
+pocket now.
+
+"To think, Father," Ralph had written, "in three weeks more or less, I
+shall be at home with my sheepskin and a fine new shingle with 'Dr.
+Ralph Dexter' painted on it, all ready to hang up on the front of the
+house beside yours.  I'll be glad to get out of the grind for a while,
+I can tell you that.  I've worked as His Satanic Majesty undoubtedly
+does when he receives word that a fresh batch of Mormons has hit the
+trail for the good-intentions pavement.  _Decensus facilis Averni_.
+That's about all the Latin I've got left.
+
+"At first, I suppose, there won't be much for me to do.  I'll have to
+win the confidence of the community by listening to the old ladies'
+symptoms three or four hours a day, regularly.  Finally, they'll let me
+vaccinate the kids and the rest will be pitifully easy.  Kids always
+like me, for some occult reason, and if the children cry for me, it
+won't be long till I've got your whole blooming job away from you.
+Never mind, though, dad--I'll be generous and whack up, as you've
+always done with me."
+
+Remembering the boyishness of it, Anthony Dexter smiled a little and
+took another satisfying look at the pictured face before him.  Ralph's
+eyes were as his father's had been--frank and friendly and clear, with
+no hint of suspicion.  His chin was firm and his mouth determined, but
+the corners of it turned up decidedly, and the upper lip was short.
+The unprejudiced observer would have seen merely an honest,
+intelligent, manly young fellow, who looked as if he might be good
+company.  Anthony Dexter saw all this--and a great deal more.
+
+It was his pride that he was unemotional.  By rigid self-discipline, he
+had wholly mastered himself.  His detachment from his kind was at first
+spasmodic, then exceptionally complete.  Excepting Ralph, his relation
+to the world was that of an unimpassioned critic.  He was so sure of
+his own ground that he thought he considered Ralph impersonally, also.
+
+Over a nature which, at the beginning, was warmly human, Doctor Dexter
+had laid this glacial mask.  He did what he had to do with neatness and
+dispatch.  If an operation was necessary, he said so at once, not
+troubling himself to approach the subject gradually.  If there was
+doubt as to the outcome, he would cheerfully advise the patient to make
+a will first, but there was seldom doubt, for those white, blunt
+fingers were very sure.  He believed in the clean-cut, sudden stroke,
+and conducted his life upon that basis.
+
+Without so much as the quiver of an eyelash, Anthony Dexter could tell
+a man that within an hour his wife would be dead.  He could predict the
+death of a child, almost to the minute, without a change in his
+mask-like expression, and feel a faint throb of professional pride when
+his prediction was precisely fulfilled.  The people feared him,
+respected him, and admired his skill, but no one loved him except his
+son.
+
+Among all his acquaintances, there was none who called him friend
+except Austin Thorpe, the old minister who had but lately come to town.
+This, in itself, was no distinction, for Thorpe was the friend of every
+man, woman, child, and animal in the village.  No two men could have
+been more unlike, but friendship, like love, is often a matter of
+chemical affinity, wherein opposites rush together in obedience to a
+hidden law.
+
+The broadly human creed of the minister included every living thing,
+and the man himself interested Doctor Dexter in much the same way that
+a new slide for his microscope might interest him.  They exchanged
+visits frequently when the duties of both permitted, and the Doctor
+reflected that, when Ralph came, Thorpe would be lonely.
+
+The Dexter house was an old one but it had been kept in good repair.
+From time to time, wings had been added to the original structure,
+until now it sprawled lazily in every direction.  One wing, at the
+right of the house, contained the Doctor's medical library, office,
+reception room, and laboratory.  Doors were arranged in metropolitan
+fashion, so that patients might go out of the office without meeting
+any one.  The laboratory, at the back of the wing, was well fitted with
+modern appliances for original research, and had, too, its own outside
+door.
+
+When Ralph came home, the other wing, at the left of the house, was to
+be arranged in like manner for him if he so desired.  Doctor Dexter had
+some rough drawings under consideration, but wanted Ralph to order the
+plans in accordance with his own ideas.
+
+The breakfast bell rang again, and Doctor Dexter went downstairs.  The
+servant met him in the hall.  "Breakfast is waiting, sir," she said.
+
+"All right," returned the Doctor, absently.  "I'll be there in a
+moment."
+
+He opened the door for a breath of fresh air, and immediately perceived
+the small, purple velvet box at his feet.  He picked it up,
+wonderingly, and opened it.
+
+Inside were the discoloured pearls on their bed of yellowed satin, and
+the ivory-tinted slip of paper on which he had written, so long ago, in
+his clear, boyish hand: "First, from the depths of the sea, and then
+from the depths of my love."
+
+Being unemotional, he experienced nothing at first, save natural
+surprise.  He stood there, staring into vacancy, idly fingering the
+pearls.  By some evil magic of the moment, the hour seemed set back a
+full quarter of a century.  As though it were yesterday, he saw Evelina
+before him.
+
+She had been a girl of extraordinary beauty and charm.  He had
+travelled far and seen many, but there had been none like Evelina.  How
+he had loved her, in those dead yesterdays, and how she had loved him!
+The poignant sweetness of it came back, changed by some fatal alchemy
+into bitterness.
+
+Anthony Dexter had seen enough of the world to recognise cowardice when
+he saw it, even in himself.  His books had taught him that the mind
+could hold but one thought at a time, and, persistently, he had
+displaced the unpleasant ones which constantly strove for the right of
+possession.
+
+Hard work and new love and daily wearying of the body to the point of
+exhaustion had banished those phantoms of earlier years, save in his
+dreams.  At night, the soul claims its own--its right to suffer for its
+secret sins, its shirking, its betrayals.
+
+It is not pleasant for a man to be branded, in his own consciousness, a
+coward.  Refusal to admit it by day does not change the hour of the
+night when life is at its lowest ebb, and, sleepless, man faces himself
+as he is.
+
+The necklace slipped snakily over his hand--one of those white, firm
+hands which could guide the knife so well--and Anthony Dexter
+shuddered.  He flung the box far from him into the shrubbery, went back
+into the house, and slammed the door.
+
+He sat down at the table, but could not eat.  The Past had come from
+its grave, veiled, like the ghost in the garden that he had seen
+yesterday.
+
+It was not an hallucination, then.  Only one person in the world could
+have laid those discoloured pearls at his door in the dead of night.
+The black figure in the garden, with the chiffon fluttering about its
+head, was Evelina Grey--or what was left of her.
+
+"Why?" he questioned uneasily of himself.  "Why?"  He had repeatedly
+told himself that any other man, in his position, would do as he had
+done, yet it was as though some one had slipped a stiletto under his
+armour and found a vulnerable spot.
+
+Before his mental vision hovered two women.  One was a girl of twenty,
+laughing, exquisitely lovely.  The other was a bent and broken woman in
+black, whose veil concealed the dreadful hideousness of her face.
+
+"Pshaw!" grumbled Doctor Dexter, aloud.  "I've overworked, that's all."
+
+He determined to vanquish the spectre that had reared itself before
+him, not perceiving that Remorse incarnate, in the shape of Evelina,
+had come back to haunt him until his dying day.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+Araminta
+
+"Araminta," said Miss Mehitable, "go and get your sewing and do your
+stent."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Hitty," answered the girl, obediently.
+
+Each year, Araminta made a new patchwork quilt.  Seven were neatly
+folded and put away in an old trunk in the attic.  The eighth was
+progressing well, but the young seamstress was becoming sated with
+quilts.  She had never been to school, but Miss Mehitable had taught
+her all she knew.  Unkind critics might have intimated that Araminta
+had not been taught much, but she could sew nicely, keep house
+neatly, and write a stilted letter in a queer, old-fashioned hand
+almost exactly like Miss Mehitable's.
+
+That valiant dame saw no practical use in further knowledge.  She was
+concerned with no books except the Bible and the ancient ledger in
+which, with painstaking exactness, she kept her household accounts.
+She deemed it wise, moreover, that Araminta should not know too much.
+
+From a drawer in the high, black-walnut bureau in the upper hall,
+Araminta drew forth an assortment of red, white, and blue cotton
+squares and diamonds.  This was to be a "patriotic" quilt, made after
+a famous old pattern which Miss Hitty had selfishly refused to give
+to any one else, though she had often been asked for it by
+contemporary ladies of similar interests.
+
+The younger generation was inclined to scout at quilt-making, and
+needlework heresy was rampant in the neighbourhood.  Tatting,
+crocheting, and knitting were on the wane.  An "advanced" woman who
+had once spent a Summer in the village had spread abroad the delights
+of Battenberg and raised embroidery.  At all of these, Miss Hitty
+sniffed contemptuously.
+
+"Quilt makin' was good enough for their mas and their grandmas," she
+said scornfully, "and I reckon it's good enough for anybody else.
+I've no patience with such things."
+
+Araminta knew that.  She had never forgotten the vial of wrath which
+broke upon her luckless head the day she had timorously suggested
+making lace as a pleasing change from unending quilts.
+
+She sat now, in a low rocker by the window, with one foot upon a
+wobbly stool.  A marvellous cover, of Aunt Hitty's making, which
+dated back to her frivolous and girlish days, was underneath.  Nobody
+ever saw it, however, and the gaudy woollen roses blushed unseen.  A
+white linen cover, severely plain, was put upon the footstool every
+Wednesday and every Saturday, year in and year out.
+
+Unlike most good housewives, Miss Mehitable used her parlour every
+day in the week.  She was obliged to, in fact, for it was the only
+room in her house, except Mr. Thorpe's, which commanded an
+unobstructed view of the crossroads.  A cover of brown denim
+protected the carpet, and the chairs were shrouded in shapeless
+habiliments of cambric and calico.  For the rest, however, the room
+was mildly cheerful, and had a habitable look which was distinctly
+uncommon in village parlours.
+
+There was a fireplace, which was dusted and scrubbed at intervals,
+but never, under any circumstances, profaned by a fire.  It was
+curtained by a gay remnant of figured plush, however, so nobody
+missed the fire.  White and gold china vases stood on the mantel, and
+a little china dog, who would never have dared to bark had he been
+alive, so chaste and humble of countenance was he, sat forever
+between the two vases, keeping faithful guard over Miss Mehitable's
+treasures.
+
+The silver coffin plates of the Smiths, matted with black, and deeply
+framed, occupied the place of honour over the mantel.  On the
+marble-topped table in the exact centre of the room was a basket of
+wax flowers and fruit, covered by a bell-shaped glass shade.  Miss
+Hitty's album and her Bible were placed near it with mathematical
+precision.  On the opposite wall was a hair wreath, made from the
+shorn locks of departed Smiths by Miss Hitty's mother.  The proud
+possessor felt a covert reproach in the fact that she herself was
+unable to make hair wreaths.  It was a talent for which she had great
+admiration.
+
+Araminta rocked back and forth in her low chair by the window.  She
+hummed a bit of "Sweet Bye and Bye" to herself, for hymns were the
+only songs she knew.  She could play some of them, with one hand, on
+the melodeon in the corner, but she dared not touch the yellow keys
+of the venerated instrument except when Miss Hitty was out.
+
+The sunlight shone lovingly on Araminta's brown hair, tightly combed
+back, braided, and pinned up, but rippling riotously, none the less.
+Her deep, thoughtful eyes were grey and her nose turned up
+coquettishly.  To a guardian of greater penetration, Araminta's mouth
+would have given deep concern.  It was a demure, rosy mouth, warning
+and tantalising by turns.  Mischievous little dimples lurked in the
+corners of it, and even Aunt Hitty was not proof against the magic of
+Araminta's smile.  The girl's face had the creamy softness of a white
+rose petal, but her cheeks bloomed with the flush of health and she
+had a most disconcerting trick of blushing.  With Spartan
+thoroughness, Miss Mehitable constantly strove to cure Araminta of
+this distressing fault, but as yet she had not succeeded.
+
+The pretty child had grown into an exquisitely lovely woman, to her
+stern guardian's secret uneasiness.  "It's goin' to be harder to keep
+Minty right than 't would be if she was plain," mused Miss Hitty,
+"but t guess I'll be given strength to do it.  I've done well by her
+so far."
+
+"In the Sweet Bye and Bye," sang Araminta, in a piping, girlish
+soprano, "we shall meet on that beautiful shore."
+
+"Maybe we shall and maybe we sha'n't," said Miss Hitty, grimly.
+"Some folks 'll never see the beautiful shore.  They'll go to the bad
+place."
+
+Araminta lifted her great, grey, questioning eyes.  "Why?" she asked,
+simply.
+
+"Because they've been bad," answered Miss Hitty, defiantly.
+
+"But if they didn't know any better?" queried Araminta, threading her
+needle.  "Would they go to the bad place just because they didn't
+know?"
+
+Miss Mehitable squirmed in her chair, for never before had Araminta
+spoken thus.  "There's no excuse for their not knowin'," she said,
+sharply.
+
+"Perhaps not," sighed Araminta, "but it seems dreadful to think of
+people being burned up just for ignorance.  Do you think I'll be
+burned up, Aunt Hitty?" she continued, anxiously.  "There's so many
+things I don't know!"
+
+Miss Mehitable set herself firmly to her task.  "Araminta Lee," she
+said, harshly, "don't get to bothering about what you don't know.
+That's the sure way to perdition.  I've told you time and time again
+what's right for you to believe and what's right for you to do.  You
+walk in that path and turn neither to the right nor the left, and you
+won't have no trouble--here or anywheres else."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Hitty," said the girl, dutifully.  "It must be awful to be
+burned."
+
+Miss Mehitable looked about her furtively, then drew her chair closer
+to Araminta's.  "That brings to my mind something I wanted to speak
+to you about, and I don't know but what this is as good a chance as
+any.  You know where I told you to go the other day with the tray,
+and to set it down at the back door, and rap, and run?"
+
+"Yes."  Araminta's eyes were wide open now.  She had wondered much at
+her mysterious errand, but had not dared to ask questions.
+
+"Well," continued Aunt Hitty, after an aggravating pause, "the woman
+that lives in that house has been burnt."
+
+Araminta gasped.  "Oh, Aunt Hitty, was she bad?  What did she do and
+how did she get burned before she was dead?"
+
+Miss Mehitable brushed aside the question as though it were an
+annoying fly.  "I don't want it talked of," she said, severely.
+"Evelina Grey was a friend of mine, and she is yet.  If there's
+anything on earth I despise, it's a gossip.  People who haven't
+anything better to do than to go around prying into other folks's
+affairs are better off dead, I take it.  My mother never permitted me
+to gossip, and I've held true to her teachin'."  Aunt Hitty smoothed
+her skirts with superior virtue and tied a knot in her thread.
+
+"How did she get burned?" asked Araminta, eagerly.
+
+"Gossip," said Miss Mehitable, sententiously, "does a lot of harm and
+makes a lot of folks miserable.  It's a good thing to keep away from,
+and if I ever hear of your gossiping about anybody, I'll shut you up
+in your room for two weeks and keep you on bread and water."
+
+Araminta trembled.  "What is gossiping, Aunt Hitty?" she asked in a
+timid, awe-struck tone.
+
+"Talking about folks," explained Miss Hitty.  "Tellin' things about
+'em they wouldn't tell themselves."
+
+It occurred to Araminta that much of the conversation at the
+crossroads might appropriately be classed under that head, but, of
+course, Aunt Hitty knew what she was talking about.  She remembered
+the last quilting Aunt Hitty had given, when the Ladies' Aid Society
+had been invited, en masse, to finish off the quilt Araminta's
+rebellious fingers had just completed.  One of the ladies had been
+obliged to leave earlier than the rest, and----
+
+"I don't believe," thought Araminta, "that Mrs. Gardner would have
+told how her son ran away from home, nor that she didn't dust her bed
+slats except at house-cleaning time, nor that they ate things other
+people would give to the pigs."
+
+"I expect there'll be a lot of questions asked about Evelina,"
+observed Miss Mehitable, breaking in rudely upon Araminta's train of
+thought, "as soon 's folks finds out she's come back to live here,
+and that she has to wear a veil all the time, even when she doesn't
+wear her hat.  What I'm telling you for is to show you what happens
+to women that haven't sense enough to keep away from men.  If Evelina
+'d kept away from Doctor Dexter, she wouldn't have got burnt."
+
+"Did Doctor Dexter burn her?" asked Araminta, breathlessly.  "I
+thought it was God."
+
+At the psychological moment, Doctor Dexter drove by, bowing to Miss
+Mehitable as he passed.  Araminta had observed that this particular
+event always flustered her aunt.
+
+"Maybe, it was God and maybe it was Doctor Dexter," answered Miss
+Mehitable, quickly.  "That's something there don't nobody know except
+Evelina and Doctor Dexter, and it's not for me to ask either one of
+'em, though I don't doubt some of the sewin' society 'll make an
+errand to Evelina's to find out.  I've got to keep 'em off 'n her, if
+I can, and that's a big job for one woman to tackle.
+
+"Anyhow, she got burnt and got burnt awful, and it was at his house
+that it happened.  It was shameless, the way Evelina carried on.
+Why, if you'll believe me, she'd actually go to his house when there
+wa'n't no need of it--nobody sick, nor no medicine to be bought, nor
+anything.  Some said they was goin' to be married."
+
+The scorn which Miss Mehitable managed to throw into the word
+"married" indicated that the state was the crowning ignominy of the
+race.  The girl's cheek flamed into crimson, for her own mother had
+been married, and everybody knew it.  Sometimes the deep disgrace
+seemed almost too much for Araminta to endure.
+
+"That's what comes of it," explained Miss Hitty, patiently, as a
+teacher might point to a demonstration clearly made out on a
+blackboard for an eager class.  "If she'd stayed at home as a girl
+should stay, and hadn't gone to Doctor Dexter's, she wouldn't have
+got burnt.  Anybody can see that.
+
+"There was so much goin' on at the time that I sorter lost track of
+everything, otherwise I'd have known more about it, but I guess I
+know as much as anybody ever knew.  Evelina was to Doctor
+Dexter's--shameless hussy that she was--and she got burnt.  She was
+there all the afternoon and they took her to the hospital in the city
+on the night train and she stayed there until she was well, but she
+never came back here until just now.  Her mother went with her to
+take care of her and before Evelina came out of the hospital, her
+mother keeled over and died.  Sarah Grey always had a weak heart and
+a weak head to match it.  If she hadn't have had, she'd have brought
+up Evelina different,
+
+"Neither of 'em was ever in the house again.  Neither one ever came
+back, even for their clothes.  They had plenty of money, then, and
+they just bought new ones.  When the word come that Evelina was
+burnt, Sarah Grey just put on her hat and locked her doors and run up
+to Doctor Dexter's.  Nobody ever heard from them again until Jim
+Gardner's second cousin on his father's side sent a paper with Sarah
+Grey's obituary in it.  And now, after twenty-five years, Evelina's
+come back.
+
+"The poor soul's just sittin' there, in all the dust and cobwebs.
+When I get time, I aim to go over there and clean up the house for
+her--'t ain't decent for a body to live like that.  I'll take you
+with me, to help scrub, and what I'm telling you all this for is so
+'s you won't ask any questions, nor act as if you thought it was
+queer for a woman to wear a white veil all the time.  You'll have to
+act as if nothing was out of the way at all, and not look at her any
+more than you can help.  Just pretend it's the style to wear a veil
+pinned to your hair all the time, and you've been wearin' one right
+along and have forgot and left it to home.  Do you understand me?"
+
+"Yes, Aunt Hitty."
+
+"And when people come here to find out about it, you're not to say
+anything.  Leave it all to me.  'T ain't necessary for you to lie,
+but you can keep your mouth shut.  And I hope you see now what it
+means to a woman to walk straight on her own path that the Lord has
+laid out for her, and to let men alone.  They're pizen, every one of
+'em."
+
+Nun-like, Araminta sat in her chair and sewed steadily at her dainty
+seam, but, none the less, she was deeply stirred with pity for women
+who so forgot themselves--who had not Aunt Hitty's superior wisdom.
+At the end of the prayer which Miss Mehitable had taught the child,
+and which the woman still repeated in her nightly devotions, was this
+eloquent passage:
+
+"And, Oh Lord, keep me from the contamination of marriage.  For Thy
+sake.  Amen."
+
+"Araminta," said Aunt Hitty, severely, "cover up your foot!"
+Modestly, Araminta drew down her skirt.  One foot was on the
+immaculate footstool and her ankle was exposed to view--a lovely
+ankle, in spite of the broad-soled, common-sense shoes which she
+always wore.
+
+"How often have I told you to keep your ankles covered ?" demanded
+Miss Mehitable.  "Suppose the minister had come in suddenly!
+Suppose--upon my word!  Speakin' of angels--if there ain't the
+minister now!"
+
+The Reverend Austin Thorpe came slowly up the brick-bordered path,
+his head bowed in thought.  He was painfully near-sighted, but he
+refused to wear glasses.  On the doorstep he paused and wiped his
+feet upon the corn-husk mat until even Miss Mehitable, beaming at him
+through the window, thought he was overdoing it.  Unconsciously, she
+took credit to herself for the minister's neatness.
+
+Stepping carefully, lest he profane the hall carpet by wandering off
+the rug, the minister entered the parlour, having first taken off his
+coat and hat and hung them upon their appointed hooks in the hall.
+It was cold, and the cheery warmth of the room beckoned him in.  He
+did not know that he tried Miss Hitty by trespassing, so to speak,
+upon her preserves.  She would have been better pleased if he
+remained in his room when he was not at the table or out, but, to do
+him justice, the reverend gentleman did not often offend her thus.
+
+Araminta, blushing, took her foot from the footstool and pulled
+feverishly at her skirts.  As Mr. Thorpe entered the room, she did
+not look up, but kept her eyes modestly upon her work.
+
+"There ain't no need to tear out the gathers," Miss Hitty said, in a
+warning undertone, referring to Aramlnta's skirts.  "Why, Mr. Thorpe!
+How you surprised me!  Come in and set a spell," she added,
+grudgingly.
+
+Steering well away from the centre-table with its highly prized
+ornament, Thorpe gained the chair in which, if he did not lean
+against the tidy, he was permitted to sit.  He held himself bolt
+upright and warmed his hands at the stove.  "It is good to be out,"
+he said, cheerfully, "and good to come in again.  A day like this
+makes one appreciate the blessing of a home."
+
+Miss Hitty watched the white-haired, inoffensive old man with the
+keen scrutiny of an eagle guarding its nest.  He did not lean upon
+the tidy, nor rest his elbows upon the crocheted mats which protected
+the arms of the chair.  In short, he conducted himself as a gentleman
+should when in the parlour of a lady.
+
+His blue, near-sighted eyes rested approvingly upon Araminta.  "How
+the child grows!" he said, with a friendly smile upon his kindly old
+face.  "Soon we shall have a young lady on our hands."
+
+Araminta coloured and bent more closely to her sewing.
+
+"I hope I'm not annoying you?" questioned the minister, after an
+interval.
+
+"Not at all," said Miss Mehitable, politely.
+
+"I wanted to ask about some one," pursued the Reverend Mr. Thorpe.
+"It seems that there is a new tenant in the old house on the hill
+that has been empty for so long--the one the village people say is
+haunted.  It seems a woman is living there, quite alone; and she
+always wears a veil, on account of some--some disfigurement."
+
+Miss Hitty's false teeth clicked, sharply, but there was no other
+sound except the clock, which, in the pause, struck four.  "I
+thought--" continued the minister, with a rising inflection.
+
+Hitherto, he had found his hostess of invaluable assistance in his
+parish work.  It had been necessary to mention only the name.  As
+upon the turning of a faucet a stream of information gushed forth
+from the fountain of her knowledge.  Age, date and place of birth,
+ancestry on both sides three generations back, with complete and
+illuminating biographical details of ancestry and individual;
+education, financial standing, manner of living, illnesses in the
+family, including dates and durations of said illnesses, accidents,
+if any, medical attendance, marriages, births, deaths, opinions,
+reverses, present locations and various careers of descendants, list
+of misfortunes, festivities, entertainments, church affiliation past
+and present, political leanings, and a vast amount of other personal
+data had been immediately forthcoming.  Tagged to it, like the
+postscript of a woman's letter, was Miss Hitty's own concise,
+permanent, neatly labelled opinion of the family or individual, the
+latter thrown in without extra charge.
+
+"Perhaps you didn't know," remarked the minister, "that such a woman
+had come."  His tone was inquiring.  It seemed to him that something
+must be wrong if she did not know.
+
+"Minty," said Miss Hitty, abruptly, "leave the room!"
+
+Araminta rose, gathered up her patchwork, and went out, carefully
+closing the door.  It was only in moments of great tenderness that
+her aunt called her "Minty."
+
+The light footsteps died away upon the stairs.  Tactlessly, the
+minister persisted.  "Don't you know?" he asked.
+
+Miss Mehitable turned upon him.  "If I did," she replied, hotly, "I
+wouldn't tell any prying, gossiping man.  I never knew before it was
+part of a minister's business to meddle in folks' private affairs.
+You'd better be writing your sermon and studyin' up on hell."
+
+"I--I--" stammered the minister, taken wholly by surprise, "I only
+hoped to give her the consolation of the church."
+
+"Consolation nothing!" snorted Miss Hitty.  "Let her alone!" She went
+out of the room and slammed the door furiously, leaving the Reverend
+Austin Thorpe overcome with deep and lasting amazement.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+Pipes o' Pan
+
+Sleet had fallen in the night, but at sunrise, the storm ceased.  Miss
+Evelina had gone to sleep, lulled into a sense of security by the icy
+fingers tapping at her cobwebbed window pane.  She awoke in a
+transfigured world.  Every branch and twig was encased in crystal, upon
+which the sun was dazzling.  Jewels, poised in midair, twinkled with
+the colours of the rainbow.  On the tip of the cypress at the gate was
+a ruby, a sapphire gleamed from the rose-bush, and everywhere were
+diamonds and pearls.
+
+Frosty vapour veiled the spaces between the trees and javelins of
+sunlight pierced it here and there.  Beyond, there were glimpses of
+blue sky, and drops of water, falling from the trees, made a musical,
+cadence upon the earth beneath.
+
+Miss Evelina opened her window still more.  The air was peculiarly soft
+and sweet.  It had the fragrance of opening buds and growing things and
+still had not lost the tang of the frost.
+
+She drew a long breath of it and straightway was uplifted, though
+seemingly against her will.  Spring was stirring at the heart of the
+world, sending new currents of sap into the veins of the trees, new
+aspirations into dead roots and fibres, fresh hopes of bloom into every
+sleeping rose.  Life incarnate knocked at the wintry tomb; eager,
+unseen hands were rolling away the stone.  The tide of the year was
+rising, soon to break into the wonder of green boughs and violets,
+shimmering wings and singing winds.
+
+The cold hand that clutched her heart took a firmer hold.  With acute
+self-pity, she perceived her isolation.  Of all the world, she alone
+was set apart; branded, scarred, locked in a prison house that had no
+door.  The one release was denied her until she could get away.
+
+Poverty had driven her back.  Circumstances outside her control had
+pushed her through the door she had thought never to enter again.
+Through all the five-and-twenty years, she had thought of the house
+with a shudder, peopling it with a thousand terrors, not knowing that
+there was no terror save her own fear.
+
+Sorrow had put its chains upon her suddenly, at a time when she had not
+the strength to break the bond.  At first she had struggled; then
+ceased.  Since then, her faculties had been in suspense, as it were.
+She had forgotten laughter, veiled herself from joy, and walked hand in
+hand with the grisly phantom of her own conjuring.
+
+Behind the shelter of her veil she had mutely prayed for peace--she
+dared not ask for more.  And peace had never come.  Her crowning
+humiliation would be to meet Anthony Dexter face to face--to know him,
+and to have him know her.  Not knowing where he was, she had travelled
+far to avoid him.  Now, seeking the last refuge, the one place on earth
+where he could not be, she found herself separated from him by less
+than a mile.  More than that, she had gone to his house, as she had
+gone on the fateful day a quarter of a century ago.  She had taken back
+the pearls, and had not died in doing it.  Strangely enough, it had
+given her a vague relief.
+
+Miss Evelina's mind had paused at twenty; she had not grown.  The acute
+suffering of Youth was still upon her, a woman of forty-five.  It was
+as though a clock had gone on ticking and the hands had never moved;
+the dial of her being was held at that dread hour, while her broken
+heart beat on.
+
+She had not discovered that secret compensation which clings to the
+commonest affairs of life.  One sees before him a mountain of toil, an
+apparently endless drudgery from which there is no escape.  Having once
+begun it, an interest appears unexpectedly; new forces ally themselves
+with the fumbling hands.  Misfortunes come, "not singly, but in
+battalions."  After the first shock of realisation, one perceives
+through the darkness that the strength to bear them has come also, like
+some good angel.
+
+A lover shudders at the thought of Death, yet knows that some day, on
+the road they walk together, the Grey Angel with the white poppies will
+surely take one of them by the hand.  The road winds through shadows,
+past many strange and difficult places, and wrecks are strewn all along
+the way.  They laugh at the storms that beat upon them, take no reck of
+bruised feet nor stumbling, for, behold, they are together, and in that
+one word lies all.
+
+Sometimes, in the mist ahead, which, as they enter it, is seen to be
+wholly of tears, the road forks blindly, and there is nothing but night
+ahead for each.  The Grey Angel with the unfathomable eyes approaches
+slowly, with no sound save the hushed murmur of wings.  The dread white
+poppies are in his outstretched hand--the great, nodding white poppies
+which have come from the dank places and have never known the sun.
+
+There is no possible denial.  At first, one knows only that the
+faithful hand has grown cold, then, that it has unclasped.  In the
+intolerable darkness, one fares forth alone on the other fork of the
+road, too stricken for tears.
+
+At length there is a change.  Memories troop from the shadow to whisper
+consolation, to say that Death himself is powerless against Love, when
+a heart is deep enough to hold a grave.  The clouds lift, and through
+the night comes some stray gleam of dawn.  No longer cold, the dear
+hand nestles once more into the one that held it so long.  Not as an
+uncertain presence but as a loved reality, that other abides with him
+still.
+
+Shut out forever from the possibility of estrangement, for there is
+always that drop of bitterness in the cup of Life and Love; eternally
+beyond the reach of misunderstanding or change, spared the pitfalls and
+disasters of the way ahead, blinded no longer by the mists of earth,
+but immortally and unchangeably his, that other fares with him, though
+unseen, upon the selfsame road.
+
+From the broken night comes singing, for the white poppies have also
+brought balm.  Step by step, his Sorrow has become his friend, and at
+the last, when the old feet are weary and the steep road has grown
+still more steep, the Grey Angel comes once more.
+
+Past the mist of tears in which he once was shrouded, the face of the
+Grey Angel is seen to be wondrously kind.  By his mysterious alchemy,
+he has crystallised the doubtful waters, which once were in the cup of
+Life and Love, into a jewel which has no flaw.  He has kept the child
+forever a child, caught the maiden at the noon of her beauty to
+enshrine her thus for always in the heart that loved her most; made the
+true and loving comrade a comrade always, though on the highways of the
+vast Unknown.
+
+It is seen now that the road has many windings and that, unconsciously,
+the wayfarer has turned back.  Eagerly the trembling hands reach
+forward to take the white poppies, and the tired eyes close as though
+the silken petals had already fluttered downward on the lids, for,
+radiant past all believing, the Grey Angel still holds the Best Beloved
+by the hand, and the roads that long ago had forked in darkness, have
+come together, in more than mortal dawn, at the selfsame place.
+
+Upon the beauty of the crystalline March morning, the memory of the
+Winter sorrow still lay.  The bare, brown earth was not wholly hidden
+by the mantle of sleet and snow, yet there was some intangible Easter
+close at hand.  Miss Evelina felt it, stricken though she was.
+
+From a distant thicket came a robin's cheery call, a glimmer of blue
+wings flashed across the desolate garden, a south wind stirred the
+bending, icy branches to a tinkling music, and she knew that Spring had
+come to all but her.
+
+Some indefinite impulse sent her outdoors.  Closely veiled, she started
+off down the road, looking neither to the right nor the left.  Miss
+Hitty saw her pass, but graciously forbore to call to her; Araminta
+looked up enquiringly from her sewing, but the question died on her
+lips.
+
+Down through the village she went, across the tracks, and up to the
+river road.  It had been a favourite walk of hers in her girlhood.
+Then she had gone with a quick, light step; now she went slowly, like
+one grown old.
+
+Yet, all unconsciously, life was quickening in her pulses; the old
+magic of Spring was stirring in her, too.  Dark and deep, the waters of
+the river rolled dreamily by, waiting for the impulse which should send
+the shallows singing to the sea, and stir the depths to a low,
+murmurous symphony.
+
+Upon the left, as she walked, the road was bordered with elms and
+maples, stretching far back to the hills.  The woods were full of
+unsuspected ravines and hollows, queer winding paths, great rocks, and
+tiny streams.  The children had called it the enchanted forest, and
+played that a fairy prince and princess dwelt therein.
+
+The childhood memories came back to Evelina with a pang.  She stopped
+to wipe away the tears beneath her veil, to choke back a sob that
+tightened her throat.  Suddenly, she felt a presentiment of oncoming
+evil, a rushing destiny that could not be swerved aside.  Frightened,
+she turned to go back; then stopped again.
+
+From above, on the upper part of the road, came the tread of horse's
+feet and the murmur of wheels.  Her face paled to marble, her feet
+refused to move.  The heart within her stood portentously still.  With
+downcast eyes she stood there, petrified, motionless, like a woman
+carved in stone and clothed in black, veiled impenetrably in chiffon.
+
+At a furious pace, Anthony Dexter dashed by, his face as white as her
+chiffon.  She had known unerringly who was coming; and had felt the
+searing consciousness of his single glance before, with a muttered
+oath, he had lashed his horse to a gallop.  This, then, was the last;
+there was nothing more.
+
+The sound of the wheels died away in the distance.  He had the pearls,
+he had seen her, he knew that she had come back.  And still she lived.
+
+Clear and high, like a bugle call, a strain of wild music came from the
+enchanted forest.  Evelina threw back her head, gasping for breath; her
+sluggish feet stirred forward.  Some forgotten valour of her spirit
+leaped to answer the summons, as a soldier, wounded unto death, turns
+to follow the singing trumpets that lead the charge.
+
+Strangely soft and tender, the strain came again, less militant, less
+challenging.  Swiftly upon its echo breathed another, hinting of peace.
+Shaken to her inmost soul by agony, she took heed of the music with the
+precise consciousness one gives to trifles at moments of unendurable
+stress.  Blindly she turned into the forest.
+
+"What was it?" she asked herself, repeatedly, wondering that she could
+even hear at a time like this.  A bird?  No, there was never a bird to
+sing like that.  Almost it might be Pan himself with his syrinx,
+walking abroad on the first day of Spring.
+
+The fancy appealed to her strongly, her swirling senses having become
+exquisitely acute.  "Pipes o' Pan," she whispered, "I will find and
+follow you."  To see the face of Pan meant death, according to the old
+Greek legend, but death was something of which she was not afraid.
+
+Lyric, tremulous, softly appealing, the music came again.  The bare
+boughs bent with their chiming crystal, and a twig fell at her feet,
+Sunlight starred the misty distance with pearl; shining branches swayed
+to meet her as she passed.
+
+Farther in the wood, she turned, unconsciously in pursuit of that
+will-o'-the-wisp of sound.  Here and there out of the silence, it came
+to startle her; to fill her with strange forebodings which were not
+wholly of pain.
+
+Some subliminal self guided her, for heart and soul were merged in a
+quivering ecstasy of torture which throbbed and thundered and
+overflowed.  "He saw me!  He saw me!  He saw me!  He knew me!  He knew
+me!  He knew me!"  In a triple rhythm the words vibrated back and forth
+unceasingly, as though upon a weaver's shuttle.
+
+For nearly an hour she went blindly in search of the music, pausing now
+and then to listen intently, at times disheartened enough to turn back.
+She had a mad fancy that Death was calling her, from some far height,
+because Anthony Dexter had passed her on the road.
+
+Now trumpet-like and commanding, now tender and appealing, the mystic
+music danced about her capriciously.  Her feet grew weary, but the
+blood and the love of life had begun to move in her, too, when her
+whole nature was unspeakably stirred.  She paused and leaned against a
+tree, to listen for the pipes o' Pan.  But all was silent; the white
+stillness of the enchanted forest was like that of another world.  With
+a sigh, she turned to the left, reflecting that a long walk straight
+through the woods would bring her out on the other road at a point near
+her own home.
+
+Exquisitely faint and tender, the call rang out again.  It was like
+some far flute of April blown in a March dawn.  "Oh, pipes o' Pan,"
+breathed Evelina, behind her shielding veil; "I pray you find me!  I
+pray you, give me joy--or death!"
+
+Swiftly the music answered, like a trumpet chanting from a height.
+Scarcely knowing what she did, she began to climb the hill.  It was a
+more difficult way, but a nearer one, for just beyond the hill was her
+house.
+
+Half-way up the ascent, the hill sloped back.  There was a small level
+place where one might rest before going on to the summit.  It was not
+more than a little nook, surrounded by pines.  As she came to it, there
+was a frightened chirp, and a flock of birds fluttered up from her
+feet, leaving a generous supply of crumbs and grain spread upon the
+earth.
+
+Against a great tree leaned a man, so brown and shaggy in his short
+coat that he seemed like part of the tree trunk.  He was of medium
+height, wore high leather gaiters, and a grey felt hat with a long red
+quill thrust rakishly through the band.  His face was round and rosy
+and the kindest eyes in the world twinkled at Evelina from beneath his
+bushy eyebrows.  At his feet, quietly happy, was a bright-eyed, yellow
+mongrel with a stubby tail which wagged violently as Evelina
+approached.  Slung over the man's shoulder by a cord was a
+silver-mounted flute.
+
+From his elevated position, he must have seen her when she entered the
+wood, and had glimpses of her at intervals ever since.  It was evident
+that he thoroughly enjoyed the musical hide-and-seek he had forced her
+to play while he was feeding the birds.  His eyes laughed and there
+were mischievous dimples in his round, rosy cheeks.
+
+"Oh," cried Evelina, in a tone of dull disappointment.
+
+"I called you," said the Piper, gently, "and you came."
+
+She turned on her heel and walked swiftly away.  She went downhill with
+more haste than dignity, turned to her right, and struck out through
+the woods for the main road.
+
+The Piper watched her until she was lost among the trees.  The birds
+came back for their crumbs and grain and he stood patiently until his
+feathered pensioners had finished and flown away, chirping with
+satisfaction.  Then he stooped to pat the yellow mongrel.
+
+"Laddie," he said, "I'm thinking there's no more gypsying for us just
+now.  To-morrow, we will not pack our shop upon our back and march on,
+as we had thought to do.  Some one needs us here, eh, Laddie?"
+
+The dog capered about his master's feet as if he understood and fully
+agreed.  He was a pitiful sort, even for a mongrel.  One of his legs
+had been broken and unskilfully set, so he did not run quite like other
+dogs.
+
+"'T isn't a very good leg, Laddie," the Piper observed, "but I'm
+thinking 't is better than none.  Anyway, I did my best with it, and
+now we'll push on a bit.  It's our turn to follow, and we 're fain,
+Laddie, you and I, to see where she lives."
+
+Bidding the dog stay at heel, the Piper followed Miss Evelina's track.
+By dint of rapid walking, he reached the main road shortly after she
+did.   Keeping a respectful distance, and walking at the side of the
+road, he watched her as she went home.  From the safe shelter of a
+clump of alders just below Miss Mehitable's he saw the veiled figure
+enter the broken gate.
+
+"'T is the old house, Laddie," he said to the dog; "the very one we
+were thinking of taking ourselves.  Come on, now; we'll be going.
+Down, sir!  Home!"
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+"The Honour of the Spoken Word"
+
+Anthony Dexter sat in his library, alone, as usual.  Under the lamp,
+Ralph's letters were spread out before him, but he was not reading.
+Indeed, he knew every line of them by heart, but he could not keep his
+mind upon the letters.
+
+Between his eyes and the written pages there came persistently a veiled
+figure, clothed shabbily in sombre black.  Continually he fancied the
+horror the veil concealed; continually, out of the past, his cowardice
+and his shirking arose to confront him.
+
+A photograph of his wife, who had died soon after Ralph was born, had
+been taken from the drawer.  "A pretty, sweet woman," he mused.  "A
+good wife and a good mother."  He told himself again that he had loved
+her--that he loved her still.
+
+Yet behind his thought was sure knowledge.  The woman who had entered
+the secret fastnesses of his soul, and before whom he had trembled, was
+the one whom he had seen in the dead garden, frail as a ghost, and
+again on the road that morning.
+
+Dimly, and now for the first time, there came to his perception that
+recognition of his mate which each man carries in his secret heart when
+he has found his mate at all.  Past the anguish that lay between them
+like a two-edged sword, and through the mists of the estranging years,
+Evelina had come back to claim her own.
+
+He saw that they were bound together, scarred in body or scarred in
+soul; crippled, mutilated, or maimed though either or both might be,
+the one significant fact was not altered.
+
+He knew now that his wife and the mother of his child had stood
+outside, as all women but the one must ever stand.  Nor did he guess
+that she had known it from the first and that heart-hunger had hastened
+her death.
+
+Aside from a very deep-seated gratitude to her for his son, Anthony
+Dexter cherished no emotion for the sake of his dead wife.  She had
+come and gone across his existence as a butterfly crosses a field,
+touching lightly here and there, but lingering not at all.  Except for
+Ralph, it was as though she had never been, so little did she now exist
+for him.
+
+Yet Evelina was vital, alive, and out of the horror she had come back.
+To him?  He did not believe that she had come definitely to seek
+him--he knew her pride too well for that.  His mind strove to grasp the
+reason of her coming, but it eluded him; evaded him at every point.
+She had not forgotten; if she had, she would not have given back that
+sinuous necklace of discoloured pearls.
+
+By the way, what had he done with the necklace? He remembered now.  He
+had thrown it far into the shrubbery, for the pearls were dead and the
+love was dead.
+
+"First from the depths of the sea and then from the depths of my love."
+The mocking words, written in faded ink on the yellowed slip of paper,
+danced impishly across the pages of Ralph's letters.  He had a curious
+fancy that if his love had been deep enough the pearls would not have
+turned black.
+
+Impatiently, he rose from the table and paced back and forth restlessly
+across the library.  "I'm a fool," he growled; "a doddering old fool.
+No, that's not it--I've worked too hard."
+
+Valiantly he strove to dispel the phantoms that clustered about him.  A
+light step behind him chimed in with his as he walked and he feared to
+look around, not knowing it was but the echo of his own.
+
+He went to a desk in the corner of the room and opened a secret drawer
+that had not been opened for a long time.  He took out a photograph,
+wrapped in yellowed tissue paper, and went back to the table.  He
+unwrapped it, his blunt white fingers trembling ever so slightly, and
+sat down.
+
+A face of surpassing loveliness looked back at him.  It was Evelina, at
+the noon of her girlish beauty, her face alight with love.  Anthony
+Dexter looked long at the perfect features, the warm, sweet, tempting
+mouth, the great, trusting eyes, and the brown hair that waved so
+softly back from her face; the all-pervading and abiding womanliness.
+There was strength as well as beauty; tenderness, courage, charm.
+
+"Mate for a man," said Dexter, aloud.  For such women as Evelina, the
+knights of old did battle, and men of other centuries fought with their
+own temptations and weaknesses.  It was such as she who led men to the
+heights, and pointed them to heights yet farther on.
+
+Insensibly, he compared Ralph's mother with Evelina.  The two women
+stood as far apart as a little, meaningless song stands from a great
+symphony.  One would fire a man with high ambition, exalt him with
+noble striving--ah, but had she?  Was it Evelina's fault that Anthony
+Dexter was a coward and a shirk?  Cravenly, he began to blame the
+woman, to lay the burden of his own shortcomings at Evelina's door.
+
+Yet still the face stirred him.  There was life in those walled
+fastnesses of his nature which long ago he had denied.  Self-knowledge
+at last confronted him, and would not be put away.
+
+"And so, Evelina," he said aloud, "you have come back.  And what do you
+want?  What can I do for you?"
+
+The bell rang sharply, as if answering his question.  He started from
+his chair, having heard no approaching footsteps.  He covered the
+photograph of Evelina with Ralph's letters, but the sweet face of the
+boy's mother still looked out at him from its gilt frame.
+
+The old housekeeper went to the door with the utmost leisure.  It
+seemed to him an eternity before the door was opened.  He stood there,
+waiting, summoning his faculties of calmness and his powers of control,
+to meet Evelina--to have out, at last, all the shame of the years.
+
+But it was not Evelina.  The Reverend Austin Thorpe was wiping his feet
+carefully upon the door-mat, and asking in deep, vibrant tones: "Is the
+Doctor in?"
+
+Anthony Dexter could have cried out from relief.  When the white-haired
+old man came in, floundering helplessly among the furniture, as a
+near-sighted person does, he greeted him with a cordiality that warmed
+his heart.
+
+"I am glad," said the minister, "to find you in.  Sometimes I am not so
+fortunate.  I came late, for that reason."
+
+"I've been busy," returned the Doctor.  "Sit down."
+
+The minister sank into an easy chair and leaned toward the light.  "I
+wish I could have a lamp like this in my room," he remarked.  "It gives
+a good light."
+
+"You can have this one," returned Dexter, with an hysterical laugh,
+
+"I was not begging," said Mr. Thorpe, with dignity.  "Miss Mehitable's
+lamps are all small.  Some of them give no more light than a candle."
+
+"'How far that little candle throws its beams,'" quoted Dexter.  "'So
+shines a good deed in a naughty world.'"
+
+There was a long interval of silence.  Sometimes Thorpe and Doctor
+Dexter would sit for an entire evening with less than a dozen words
+spoken on either side, yet feeling the comfort of human companionship.
+
+"I was thinking," said, Thorpe, finally, "of the supreme isolation of
+the human soul.  You and I sit here, talking or not, as the mood
+strikes us, and yet, what does speech matter?  You know no more of me
+than I choose to give you, nor I of you."
+
+"No," responded Dexter, "that is quite true."  He did not realise what
+Thorpe had just said, but he felt that it was safe to agree.
+
+"One grows morbid in thinking of it," pursued Thorpe, screening his
+blue eyes from the light with his hand.  "We are like a vast plain of
+mountain peaks.  Some of us have our heads in the clouds always, up
+among the eternal snows.  Thunders boom about us, lightning rives us,
+storm and sleet beat upon us.  There is a rumbling on some distant peak
+and we know that it rains there, too.  That is all we ever know.  We
+are not quite sure when our neighbours are happy or when they are
+troubled; when there is sun and when there is storm.  The secret forces
+in the interior of the mountain work on unceasingly.  The distance
+hides it all.  We never get near enough to another peak to see the
+scars upon its surface, to know of the dead timber and the dried
+streams, the marks of avalanches and glacial drift, the precipices and
+pitfalls, the barren wastes.  In blue, shimmering distance, the peaks
+are veiled and all seem fair but our own."
+
+At the word "veiled," Dexter shuddered.  "Very pretty," he said, with a
+forced laugh which sounded flat.  "Why don't you put it into a sermon?"
+
+Thorpe's face became troubled.  "My sermons do not please," he
+answered, with touching simplicity.  "They say there is not enough of
+hell."
+
+"I'm satisfied," commented the Doctor, in a grating voice.  "I think
+there's plenty of hell."
+
+"You never come to church," remarked the minister, not seeing the point.
+
+"There's hell enough outside--for any reasonable mortal," returned
+Dexter.  He was keyed to a high pitch.  He felt that, at any instant,
+something might snap and leave him inert.
+
+Thorpe sighed.  His wrinkled old hand strayed out across the papers and
+turned the face of Ralph's mother toward him.  He studied it closely,
+not having seen it before.  Then he looked up at the Doctor, whose face
+was again like a mask.
+
+"Your--?"  A lift of the eyebrows finished the question.
+
+Dexter nodded, with assumed carelessness.  There was another long pause.
+
+"Sometimes I envy you," said Thorpe, laying the picture down carefully,
+"you have had so much of life and joy.  I think it is better for you to
+have had her and lost her than not to have had her at all," he
+continued, unconsciously paraphrasing.  "Even in your loneliness, you
+have the comfort of memory, and your boy--I have wondered what a son
+might mean to me, now, in my old age.  Dead though she is, you know she
+still loves you; that somewhere she is waiting to take your hand in
+hers."
+
+"Don't!" cried Dexter.  The strain was well-nigh insupportable.
+
+"Forgive me, my friend," returned Thorpe, quickly.  "I--"  Then he
+paused.  "As I was saying," he went on, after a little, "I have often
+envied you."
+
+"Don't," said Dexter, again.  "As you were also saying, distance hides
+the peak and you do not see the scars."
+
+Thorpe's eyes sought the picture of Dexter's wife with an evident
+tenderness, mingled with yearning.  "I often think," he sighed, "that
+in Heaven we may have a chance to pay our debt to woman.  Through
+woman's agony we come into the world, by woman's care we are nourished,
+by woman's wisdom we are taught, by woman's love we are sheltered, and,
+at the last, it is a woman who closes our eyes.  At every crisis of a
+man's life, a woman is always waiting, to help him if she may, and I
+have seen that at any crisis in a woman's life, we are apt to draw back
+and shirk.  She helps us bear our difficulties; she faces hers alone."
+
+Dexter turned uneasily in his chair.  His face was inscrutable.  The
+silent moment cried out for speech--for anything to relieve the
+tension.  Through Ralph's letters Evelina's eyes seemed to be upon him,
+beseeching him to speak.
+
+"I knew a man,", said Anthony Dexter, hoarsely, "who unintentionally
+contracted quite an unusual debt to a woman."
+
+"Yes?" returned, Thorpe, inquiringly.  He was interested.
+
+"He was a friend of mine," the Doctor continued, with difficulty, "or
+rather a classmate.  I knew him best at college and afterward--only
+slightly."
+
+"The debt," Thorpe reminded him, after a pause.  "You were speaking, of
+his debt to a woman."
+
+Dexter turned his face away from Thorpe and from the accusing eyes
+beneath Ralph's letters.  "She was a very beautiful girl," he went on,
+carefully choosing his words, "and they loved each other as people love
+but once.  My--my friend was much absorbed in chemistry and had a
+fondness for original experiment.  She--the girl, you know--used to
+study with him.  He was teaching her and she often helped him in the
+laboratory.
+
+"They were to be married," continued Dexter.  "The day before they were
+to be married, he went to her house and invited her to come to the
+laboratory to see an experiment which he was trying for the first time
+and which promised to be unusually interesting.  I need not explain the
+experiment--you would not understand.
+
+"On the way to the laboratory, they were talking, as lovers will.  She
+asked him if he loved her because she was herself; because, of all the
+women in the world, she was the one God meant for him, or if he loved
+her because he thought her beautiful.
+
+"He said that he loved her because she was herself, and, most of all,
+because she was his.  'Then,' she asked, timidly, 'when I am old and
+all the beauty has gone, you will love me still?  It will be the same,
+even when I am no longer lovely?'
+
+"He answered her as any man would, never dreaming how soon he was to be
+tested.
+
+"In the laboratory, they were quite alone.  He began the experiment,
+explaining as he went, and she watched it as eagerly as he.  He turned
+away for a moment, to get another chemical.  As he leaned over the
+retort to put it in, he heard it seethe.  With all her strength, she
+pushed him away instantly.  There was an explosion which shook the
+walls of the laboratory, a quantity of deadly gas was released, and, in
+the fumes, they both fainted.
+
+"When he came to his senses, he learned that she had been terribly
+burned, and had been taken on the train to the hospital.  He was the
+one physician in the place and it was the only thing to be done.
+
+"As soon as he could, he went to the hospital.  They told him there
+that her life would be saved and they hoped for her eyesight, but that
+she would be permanently and horribly disfigured.  All of her features
+were destroyed, they said--she would be only a pitiful wreck of a
+woman."
+
+Thorpe was silent.  His blue eyes were dim with pity.  Dexter rose and
+stood in front of him.  "Do you understand?" he asked, in a voice that
+was almost unrecognisable.  "His face was close to the retort when she
+pushed him away.  She saved his life and he went away--he never saw her
+again.  He left her without so much as a word."
+
+"He went away?" asked the minister, incredulously.  "Went away and left
+her when she had so much to bear?  Deserted her when she needed him to
+help her bear it, and when she had saved him from death, or worse?"
+
+"You would not believe it possible?" queried Dexter, endeavouring to
+make his voice even.
+
+"Of a cur, yes," said the minister, his voice trembling with
+indignation, "but of a man, no."
+
+Anthony Dexter shrank back within himself.  He was breathing heavily,
+but his companion did not notice.
+
+"It was long ago," the Doctor continued, when he had partially regained
+his composure.  He dared not tell Thorpe that the man had married in
+the meantime, lest he should guess too much.  "The woman still lives,
+and my--friend lives also.  He has never felt right about it.  What
+should he do?"
+
+"The honour of the spoken word still holds him," said Thorpe, evenly.
+"As I understand, he asked her to marry him and she consented.  He was
+never released from his promise--did not even ask for it.  He slunk
+away like a cur.  In the sight of God he is bound to her by his own
+word still.  He should go to her and either fulfil his promise or ask
+for release.  The tardy fulfilment of his promise would be the only
+atonement he could make."
+
+The midnight train came in and stopped, but neither heard it.
+
+"It would be very difficult," Thorpe was saying, "to retain any shred
+of respect for a man like that.  It shows your broad charity when you
+call him 'friend.'  I myself have not so much grace."
+
+Anthony Dexter's breath came painfully.  He tightened his fingers on
+the arm of the chair and said nothing.
+
+"It is a peculiar coincidence," mused Thorpe, He was thinking aloud
+now.  "In the old house just beyond Miss Mehitable's, farther up, you
+know, a woman has just come to live who seems to have passed through
+something like that.  It would be strange, would it not, if she were
+the one whom your--friend--had wronged?"
+
+"Very," answered Dexter, in a voice the other scarcely heard.
+
+"Perhaps, in this way, we may bring them together again.  If the woman
+is here, and you can find your friend, we may help him to wash the
+stain of cowardice off his soul.  Sometimes," cried Thorpe
+passionately, "I think there is no sin but shirking.  I can excuse a
+liar, I can pardon a thief, I can pity a murderer, but a shirk--no!"
+His voice broke and his wrinkled old hands trembled.
+
+"My--my friend," lied Anthony Dexter, wiping the cold sweat from his
+forehead, "lives abroad.  I have no way of finding him."
+
+"It is a pity," returned Thorpe.  "Think of a man meeting his God like
+that!  It tempts one to believe in a veritable hell!"
+
+"I think there is a veritable hell," said Dexter, with a laugh which
+was not good to hear.  "I think, by this time, my friend must believe
+in it as well.  I remember that he did not, before the--it, I mean,
+happened."
+
+Far from feeling relief, Anthony Dexter was scourged anew.  A thousand
+demons leaped from the silence to mock him; the earth rolled beneath
+his feet.  The impulse of confession was strong upon him, even in the
+face of Thorpe's scorn.  He wondered why only one church saw the need
+of the confessional, why he could not go, even to Thorpe, and share the
+burden that oppressed his guilty soul.
+
+The silence was not to be borne.  The walls of the room swayed back and
+forth, as though they were of fabric and stirred by all the winds of
+hell.  The floor undulated; his chair sank dizzily beneath him.
+
+Dexter struggled to his feet, clutching convulsively at the table.  His
+lips were parched and his tongue clung to the roof of his mouth.
+"Thorpe," he said, in a hoarse whisper, "I----"
+
+The minister raised his hand.  "Listen!  I thought I heard----"
+
+A whistle sounded outside, the gate clanged shut.  A quick, light step
+ran up the walk, the door opened noisily, and a man rushed in.  He
+seemed to bring into that hopeless place all the freshness of immortal
+Youth.
+
+Blinded, Dexter moved forward, his hands outstretched to meet that
+eager clasp.
+
+"Father!  Father!" cried Ralph, joyously; "I've come home!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+Piper Tom
+
+"Laddie," said the Piper to the yellow mongrel, "we'll be having
+breakfast now."
+
+The dog answered with a joyous yelp.  "You talk too much," observed his
+master, in affectionate reproof; "'t is fitting that small yellow dogs
+should be seen and not heard."
+
+It was scarcely sunrise, but the Piper's day began--and ended--early.
+He had a roaring fire in the tiny stove which warmed his shop, and the
+tea-kettle hummed cheerily.  All about him was the atmosphere of
+immaculate neatness.  It was not merely the lack of dust and dirt, but
+a positive cleanliness.
+
+His beardless face was youthful, but the Piper's hair was tinged with
+grey at the temples.  One judged him to be well past forty, yet fully
+to have retained his youth.  His round, rosy mouth was puckered in a
+whistle as he moved about the shop and spread the tiny table with a
+clean cloth.
+
+Ranged about him in orderly rows was his merchandise.  Tom Barnaby
+never bothered with fixtures and showcases.  Chairs, drygoods boxes,
+rough shelves of his own making, and a few baskets sufficed him.
+
+In the waterproof pedler's pack which he carried on his back when his
+shop was in transit, he had only the smaller articles which women
+continually need.  Calico, mosquito netting, buttons, needles, thread,
+tape, ribbons, stationery, hooks and eyes, elastic, shoe laces, sewing
+silk, darning cotton, pins, skirt binding, and a few small frivolities
+in the way of neckwear, veils, and belts--these formed Piper Tom's
+stock in trade.  By dint of close packing, he wedged an astonishing
+number of things into a small space, and was not too heavily laden
+when, with his dog and his flute, he set forth upon the highway to
+establish his shop in the next place that seemed promising.
+
+"All unknowing, Laddie," he said to the dog, as he sat down to his
+simple breakfast, "we've come into competition with a woman who keeps a
+shop like ours, which we didn't mean to do.  It's for this that we were
+making a new set of price tags all day of yesterday, which happened to
+be the Sabbath.  It wouldn't be becoming of us to charge less than she
+and take her trade away from her, so we've started out on an even basis.
+
+"Poor lady," laughed the Piper, "she was not willing for us to know her
+prices, thinking we were going to sell cheaper than she.  'T is a hard
+world for women, Laddie.  I'm thinking 'tis no wonder they grow
+suspicious at times."
+
+The dog sat patiently till Piper Tom finished his breakfast, well
+knowing that a generous share would be given him outside.  While the
+dog ate, his master put the shop into the most perfect order, removing
+every particle of dust, and whistling meanwhile.
+
+When the weather permitted, the shop was often left to keep itself, the
+door being hospitably propped open with a brick, while the dog and his
+master went gypsying.  With a ragged, well-worn book in one pocket, a
+parcel of bread and cheese in another, and his flute slung over his
+shoulder, the Piper was prepared to spend the day abroad.  He carried,
+too, a bone for the dog, well wrapped in newspaper, and an old silver
+cup to drink from.
+
+Having finished his breakfast, the dog scampered about eagerly,
+indicating, by many leaps and barks, that it was time to travel, but
+the Piper raised his hand.
+
+"Not to-day, Laddie," he said.  "If we travel to-day, we'll not be
+going far.  Have you forgotten that 't was only day before yesterday we
+found our work?  Come here."
+
+The dog seated himself before the Piper, his stubby tail wagging
+impatiently.
+
+"She's a poor soul, Laddie," sighed the Piper, at length.  "I'm
+thinking she's seen Sorrow face to face and has never had the courage
+to turn away.  She was walking in the woods, trying to find the strange
+music, and was disappointed when she saw 't was only us.  We must make
+her glad 't was us."
+
+After a long time, the Piper spoke again, with a lingering tenderness.
+"She must be very beautiful, I'm thinking, Laddie; else she would not
+hide her face.  Very beautiful and very sad."
+
+When the sun was high, Piper Tom climbed the hill, followed by his
+faithful dog.  On his shoulder he bore a scythe and under the other arm
+was a spade.  He entered Miss Evelina's gate without ceremony and made
+a wry face as he looked about him.  He scarcely knew where to begin.
+
+The sound of the wide, even strokes roused Miss Evelina from her
+lethargy, and she went to the window, veiled.  At first she was
+frightened when she saw the queer man whom she had met in the woods
+hard at work in her garden.
+
+The red feather in his hat bobbed cheerfully up and down, the little
+yellow dog ran about busily, and the Piper was whistling lustily an
+old, half-forgotten tune.
+
+She watched him for some time, then a new thought frightened her again.
+She had no money with which to pay him for clearing out her garden, and
+he would undoubtedly expect payment.  She must go out and tell him not
+to work any more; that she did not wish to have the weeds removed.
+
+Cringing before the necessity, she went out.  The Piper did not see her
+until she was very near him, then, startled in his turn, he said, "Oh!"
+and took off his hat.
+
+"Good-morning, madam," he went on, making a low bow.  She noted that
+the tip of his red feather brushed the ground.  "What can I do for you,
+more than I'm doing now?"
+
+"It is about that," stammered Evelina, "that I came.  You must not work
+in my garden."
+
+"Surely," said the Piper, "you don't mean that!  Would you have it all
+weeds?  And 't is hard work for such as you."
+
+"I--I--" answered Miss Evelina, almost in a whisper; "I have no money."
+
+The Piper laughed heartily and put on his hat again.  "Neither have I,"
+he said, between bursts of seemingly uncalled-for merriment, "and
+probably I'm the only man in these parts who's not looking for it.  Did
+you think I'd ask for pay for working in the garden?"
+
+His tone made her feel that she had misjudged him and she did not know
+what to say in reply.
+
+"Laddie and I have no garden of our own," he explained, "and so we're
+digging in yours.  The place wants cleaning, for 't is a long time
+since any one cared enough for it to dig.  I was passing, and I saw a
+place I thought I could make more pleasant.  Have I your leave to try?"
+
+"Why--why, yes," returned Miss Evelina, slowly.  "If you'd like to, I
+don't mind."
+
+He dismissed her airily, with a wave of his hand, and she went back
+into the house, never once turning her head.
+
+"She's our work, Laddie," said the Piper, "and I'm thinking we've begun
+in the right way.  All the old sadness is piled up in the garden, and
+I'm thinking there's weeds in her life, too, that it's our business to
+take out.  At any rate, we'll begin here and do this first.  One step
+at a time, Laddie--one step at a time.  That's all we have to take,
+fortunately.  When we can't see ahead, it's because we can't look
+around a corner."
+
+All that day from behind her cobwebbed windows, Miss Evelina watched
+the Piper and his dog.  Weeds and thistles fell like magic before his
+strong, sure strokes.  He carried out armful after armful of rubbish
+and made a small-sized mountain in the road, confining it with stray
+boards and broken branches, as it was too wet to be burned.
+
+Wherever she went, in the empty house, she heard that cheery,
+persistent whistle.  As usual, Miss Hitty left a tray on her doorstep,
+laden with warm, wholesome food.  Since that first day, she had made no
+attempt to see Miss Evelina.  She brought her tray, rapped, and went
+away quietly, exchanging it for another when it was time for the next
+meal.
+
+Meanwhile, Miss Evelina's starved body was responding, slowly but
+surely, to the simple, well-cooked food.  Hitherto, she had not cared
+to eat and scarcely knew what she was eating.  Now she had learned to
+discriminate between hot rolls and baking-powder biscuit, between thick
+soups and thin broths, custards and jellies.
+
+Miss Evelina had wound one of the clocks, setting it by the midnight
+train, and loosening the machinery by a few drops of oil which she had
+found in an old bottle, securely corked.  At eight, at one, and at six,
+Miss Hitty's tray was left at her back door--there had not been the
+variation of a minute since the first day.  Preoccupied though she was,
+Evelina was not insensible of the kindness, nor of the fact that she
+was stronger, physically, than she had been for years.
+
+And now in the desolate garden, there was visible evidence of more
+kindness.  Perhaps the world was not wholly a place of grief and tears.
+Out there among the weeds a man laboured cheerfully--a man of whom she
+had no knowledge and upon whom she had no claim.
+
+He sang and whistled as he strove mightily with the weeds.  Now and
+then, he sharpened his scythe with his whetstone and attacked the dense
+undergrowth with yet more vigour.  The little yellow mongrel capered
+joyfully and unceasingly, affecting to hide amidst the mass of rubbish,
+scrambling out with sharp, eager barks when his master playfully buried
+him, and retreating hastily before the oncoming scythe.
+
+Miss Evelina could not hear, but she knew that the man was talking to
+the dog in the pauses of his whistling.  She knew also that the dog
+liked it, even if he did not understand.  She observed that the dog was
+not beautiful--could not be called so by any stretch of the
+imagination--and yet the man talked to him, made a friend of him, loved
+him.
+
+At noon, the Piper laid down his scythe, clambered up on the crumbling
+stone wall, and ate his bread and cheese, while the dog nibbled at his
+bone.  From behind a shutter in an upper room, Miss Evelina noted that
+the dog also had bread and cheese, sharing equally with his master.
+
+The Piper went to the well, near the kitchen door, and drank copiously
+of the cool, clear water from his silver cup.  Then he went back to
+work again.
+
+Out in the road, the rubbish accumulated.  When the Piper stood behind
+it.  Miss Evelina could barely see the tip of the red feather that
+bobbed rakishly in his hat.  Once he disappeared, leaving the dog to
+keep a reluctant guard over the spade and scythe.  When he came back,
+he had a rake and a large basket, which made the collection of rubbish
+easier.
+
+Safe in her house, Miss Evelina watched him idly.  Her thought was
+taken from herself for the first time in all the five-and-twenty years.
+She contemplated anew the willing service of Miss Mehitable, who asked
+nothing of her except the privilege of leaving daily sustenance at her
+barred and forbidding door.  "Truly," said Miss Evelina to herself, "it
+is a strange world."
+
+The personality of the Piper affected her in a way she could not
+analyse.  He did not attract her, neither was he wholly repellent.  She
+did not feel friendly toward him, yet she could not turn wholly aside.
+There had been something strangely alluring in his music, which haunted
+her even now, though she resented his making game of her and leading
+her through the woods as he had.
+
+Over and above and beyond all, she remembered the encounter upon the
+road, always with a keen, remorseless pain which cut at her heart like
+a knife.  Miss Evelina thought she was familiar with knives, but this
+one hurt in a new way and cut, seemingly, at a place which had not been
+touched before.
+
+Since the "white night" which had turned her hair to lustreless snow,
+nothing had hurt her so much.  Her coming to the empty house, driven,
+as she was, by poverty--entering alone into a tomb of memories and dead
+happiness,--had not stabbed so deeply or so surely.  She saw herself
+first on one peak and then on another, a valley of humiliation and
+suffering between which it had taken twenty-five years to cross.  From
+the greatest hurt at the beginning to the greatest hurt--at the end?
+Miss Evelina started from her chair, her hands upon her leaping heart.
+The end?  Ah, dear God, no!  There was no end to grief like hers!
+
+Insistently, through her memory, sounded the pipes o' Pan--the wild,
+sweet, tremulous strain which had led her away from the road where she
+had been splashed with the mud from Anthony Dexter's carriage wheels.
+The man with the red feather in his hat had called her, and she had
+come.  Now he was digging in her garden, making the desolate place
+clean, if not cheerful.
+
+Conscious of an unfamiliar detachment, Miss Evelina settled herself to
+think.  The first hurt and the long pain which followed it, the blurred
+agony of remembrance when she had come back to the empty house, then
+the sharp, clean-cut stroke when she stood on the road, her eyes
+downcast, and heard the wheels rush by, then clear and challenging, the
+pipes o' Pan.
+
+"'There is a divinity that shapes our ends,'" she thought, "'rough-hew
+them how we may.'" Where had she heard that before? She remembered,
+now--it was a favourite quotation of Anthony Dexter's.
+
+Her lip curled scornfully.  Was she never to be free from Anthony
+Dexter?  Was she always to be confronted with his cowardice, his
+shirking, his spoken and written thoughts?  Was she always to see his
+face as she had seen it last, his great love for her shining in his
+eyes for all the world to read?  Was she to see forever his pearl
+necklace, discoloured, snaky, and cold, as meaningless as the yellow
+slip of paper that had come with it?
+
+Where was the divinity that had shaped her course hither?  Why had she
+been driven back to the place of her crucifixion, to stand veiled in
+the road while he drove by and splashed her with mud from his wheels?
+
+Out in the garden, the Piper still strove with the weeds.  He had the
+place nearly half cleared now.  The space on the other side of the
+house was, as yet, untouched, and the trees and shrubbery all needed
+trimming.  The wall was broken in places, earth had drifted upon it,
+and grass and weeds had taken root in the crevices.
+
+Upon one side of the house, nearly all of the bare earth had been raked
+clean.  He was on the western slope, now, where the splendid poppies
+had once grown.  Pausing in his whistling, the Piper stooped and picked
+up some small object.  Miss Evelina cowered behind her shielding
+shutters, for she guessed that he had found the empty vial which had
+contained laudanum.
+
+The Piper sniffed twice at the bottle.  His scent was as keen as a
+hunting dog's.  Then he glanced quickly toward the house where Miss
+Evelina, unveiled, shrank back into the farthest corner of an upper
+room.
+
+He walked to the gate, no longer whistling, and slowly, thoughtfully,
+buried it deep in the rubbish.  Could Miss Evelina have seen his face,
+she would have marvelled at the tenderness which transfigured it and
+wondered at the mist that veiled his eyes.
+
+He stood at the gate for a long time, leaning on his scythe, his back
+to the house.  In sympathy with his master's mood, the dog was quiet,
+and merely nosed about among the rubbish.  By a flash of intuition,
+Miss Evelina knew that the finding of the bottle had made clear to the
+Piper much that he had not known before.
+
+She felt herself an open book before those kind, keen eyes, which
+neither sought nor avoided her veiled face.  All the sorrow and the
+secret suffering would be his, if he chose to read it.  Miss Evelina
+knew that she must keep away.
+
+The sun set without splendour.  Still the Piper stood there, leaning on
+his scythe, thinking.  All the rubbish in the garden was old, except
+the empty laudanum bottle.  The label was still legible, and also the
+warning word, "Poison."  She had put it there herself--he had no doubt
+of that.
+
+The dog whined and licked his master's hand, as though to say it was
+time to go home.  At length the Piper roused himself and gathered up
+his tools.  He carried them to a shed at the back of the house, and
+Miss Evelina, watching, knew that he was coming back to finish his
+self-appointed task.
+
+"Yes," said the Piper, "we'll be going.  'T is not needful to bark."
+
+He went down-hill slowly, the little dog trotting beside him and
+occasionally licking his hand.  They went into the shop, the door of
+which was still propped open.  The Piper built a fire, removed his coat
+and hat, took off his leggings, cleaned his boots, and washed his hands.
+
+Then, unmindful of the fact that it was supper-time, he sat down.  The
+dog sat down, too, pressing hard against him.  The Piper took the dog's
+head between his hands and looked long into the loving, eager eyes.
+
+"She will be very beautiful, Laddie," he sighed, at length, "very
+beautiful and very brave."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+Housecleaning
+
+The brisk, steady tap sounded at Miss Evelina's door.  It was a little
+after eight, and she opened it, expecting to find her breakfast, as
+usual.  Much to her surprise, Miss Mehitable stood there, armed with a
+pail, mop, and broom.  Behind her, shy and frightened, was Araminta,
+similarly equipped.
+
+The Reverend Austin Thorpe, having carried a step-ladder to the back
+door, had then been abruptly dismissed.  Under the handle of her
+scrubbing pail, the ministering angel had slipped the tray containing
+Miss Evelina's breakfast.
+
+"I've slopped it over some," she said, in explanation, "but you won't
+mind that.  Someway, I've never had hands enough to do what I've had to
+do.  Most of the work in the world is slid onto women, and then, as if
+that wasn't enough, they're given skirts to hold up, too.  Seems to me
+that if the Almighty had meant for women to be carrying skirts all
+their lives, He'd have give us another hand and elbow in our backs,
+like a jinted stove-pipe, for the purpose.  Not having the extra hand,
+I go short on skirts when I'm cleaning."
+
+Miss Mehitable's clean, crisp, calico gown ceased abruptly at her
+ankles.  Araminta's blue and white gingham was of a similar length, and
+her sleeves, guiltless of ruffles, came only to her dimpled elbows.
+Araminta was trying hard not to stare at Miss Evelina's veil while Aunt
+Hitty talked.
+
+"We've come," asserted Miss Mehitable, "to clean your house.  We've
+cleaned our own and we ain't tired yet, so we're going to do some
+scrubbing here.  I guess it needs it."
+
+Miss Evelina was reminded of the Piper, who was digging in her garden
+because he had no garden of his own.  "I can't let you," she said,
+hesitating over the words.  "You're too kind to me, and I'm going to do
+my cleaning myself."
+
+"Fiddlesticks!" snorted Miss Hitty, brushing Miss Evelina from her path
+and marching triumphantly in.  "You ain't strong enough to do cleaning.
+You just set down and eat your breakfast.  Me and Minty will begin
+upstairs."
+
+In obedience to a gesture from her aunt, Araminta crept upstairs.  The
+house had not yet taken on a habitable look, and as she stood in the
+large front room, deep in dust and draped with cobwebs, she was afraid.
+
+Meanwhile Miss Mehitable had built a fire in the kitchen stove, put
+kettles of water on to heat, stretched a line across the yard, and
+brought in the step-ladder.  Miss Evelina sat quietly, and apparently
+took no notice of the stir that was going on about her.  She had not
+touched her breakfast.
+
+"Why don't you eat?" inquired Miss Hitty, not unkindly.
+
+"I'm not hungry," returned Miss Evelina, timidly.
+
+"Well," answered Miss Mehitable, her perception having acted in the
+interval, "I don't wonder you ain't, with all this racket goin' on.
+I'll be out of here in a minute and then you can set here, nice and
+quiet, and eat.  I never like to eat when there's anything else going
+on around me.  It drives me crazy."
+
+True to her word, she soon ascended the stairs, where the quaking
+Araminta awaited her.  "It'll take some time for the water to heat,"
+observed Miss Hitty, "but there's plenty to do before we get to
+scrubbing.  Remember what I've told you, Minty.  The first step in
+cleaning a room is to take out of it everything that ain't nailed to
+it."
+
+Every window was opened to its highest point.  Some were difficult to
+move, but with the aid of Araminta's strong young arms, they eventually
+went up as desired.  From the windows descended torrents of bedding,
+rugs, and curtains, a veritable dust storm being raised in the process.
+
+"When I go down after the hot water, I'll hang these things on the
+line," said Miss Mehitable, briskly.  "They can't get any dustier on
+the ground than they are now."
+
+The curtains were so frail that they fell apart in Miss Hitty's hands.
+"You can make her some new ones, Minty," she said.  "She can get some
+muslin at Mis' Allen's, and you can sew on curtains for a while instead
+of quilts.  It'll be a change."
+
+None too carefully, Miss Mehitable tore up the rag carpet and threw it
+out of the window, sneezing violently.  "There's considerable less dirt
+here already than there was when we come," she continued, "though we
+ain't done any real cleaning yet.  She can't never put that carpet down
+again, it's too weak.  We'll get a bucket of paint and paint the
+floors.  I guess Sarah Grey had plenty of rugs.  She's got a lot of rag
+carpeting put away in the attic if the moths ain't ate it, and, now
+that I think of it, I believe she packed it into the cedar chest.
+Anyway I advised her to.  'It'll come handy,' I told her, 'for Evelina,
+if you don't live to use it yourself.'  So if the moths ain't got the
+good of it, there's carpet that can be made into rugs with some fringe
+on the ends.  I always did like the smell of fresh paint, anyhow.
+There's nothin' you can put into a house that'll make it smell as fresh
+and clean as paint.  Varnish is good, too, but it's more expensive.
+I'll go down now, and get the hot water and the ladder.  I reckon she's
+through with her breakfast by this time."
+
+Miss Evelina had finished her breakfast, as the empty tray proved.  She
+sat listlessly in her chair and the water on the stove was boiling over.
+
+"My sakes, Evelina," cried Miss Hitty, sharply, "I should think
+you'd--I should think you'd hear the water fallin' on the stove," she
+concluded, lamely.  It was impossible to scold her as she would have
+scolded Araminta.
+
+"I'm goin' out now to put things on the line," continued Miss Hitty.
+"When I get Minty started to cleanin', I'll come down and beat."
+
+Miss Evelina made no response.  She watched her brisk neighbour
+wearily, without interest, as she hurried about the yard, dragging
+mattresses into the sunlight, hanging musty bedding on the line, and
+carrying the worn curtains to the mountain of rubbish which the Piper
+had reared in front of the house.
+
+"That creeter with the red feather can clean the yard if he's a mind
+to," mused Miss Hitty, who was fully conversant with the Piper's work,
+"but he can't clean the house.  I'm going to do that myself."
+
+She went in and was presently in her element.  The smell of yellow soap
+was as sweet incense in the nostrils of Miss Hitty, and the sound of
+the scrubbing brush was melodious in her ears.  She brushed down the
+walls with a flannel cloth tied over a broom, washed the windows,
+scrubbed every inch of the woodwork, and prepared the floor for its
+destined coat of paint.
+
+Then she sent Araminta into the next room with the ladder, and began on
+the furniture.  This, too, was thoroughly scrubbed, and as much paint
+and varnish as would come off was allowed to come.  "It'll have to be
+painted," thought Miss Hitty, scrubbing happily, "but when it is
+painted, it'll be clean underneath, and that's more than it has been.
+Evelina 'll sleep clean to-night for the first time since she come
+here.  There's a year's washin' to be done in this house and before I
+get round to that, I'll lend her some of my clean sheets and a quilt or
+two of Minty's."
+
+Adjourning to the back yard, Miss Mehitable energetically beat a
+mattress until no more dust rose from it.  With Araminta's aid she
+carried it upstairs and put it in place.  "I'm goin' home now after my
+dinner and Evelina's," said Miss Hitty, "and when I come back I'll
+bring sheets and quilts for this.  You clean till I come back, and then
+you can go home for your own lunch."
+
+Araminta assented and continued her work.  She never questioned her
+aunt's dictates, and this was why there was no friction between the two.
+
+When Miss Mehitable came back, however, half buried under the mountain
+of bedding, she was greeted by a portentous silence.  Hurrying
+upstairs, she discovered that Araminta had fallen from the ladder and
+was in a white and helpless heap on the floor, while Miss Evelina
+chafed her hands and sprinkled her face with water.
+
+"For the land's sake!" cried Miss Hitty.  "What possessed Minty to go
+and fall off the ladder!  Help me pick her up, Evelina, and we'll lay
+her on the bed in the room we've just cleaned.  She'll come to
+presently.  She ain't hurt."
+
+But Araminta did not "come to."  Miss Mehitable tried everything she
+could think of, and fairly drenched the girl with cold water, without
+avail.
+
+"What did it?" she demanded with some asperity.  "Did she see anything
+that scared her?"
+
+"No," answered Miss Evelina, shrinking farther back into her veil.  "I
+was downstairs and heard her scream, then she fell and I ran up.  It
+was just a minute or two before you came in."
+
+"Well," sighed Miss Hitty, "I suppose we'll have to have a doctor.  You
+fix that bed with the clean things I brought.  It's easy to do it
+without movin' her after the under sheet is on and I'll help you with
+that.  Don't pour any more cold water on her.  If water would have
+brung her to she'd be settin' up by now.  And don't get scared.  Minty
+ain't hurt."
+
+With this comforting assurance, Miss Hitty sped down-stairs, but her
+mind was far from at rest.  At the gate she stopped, suddenly
+confronted by the fact that she could not bring Anthony Dexter to
+Evelina's house.
+
+"What'll I do!" moaned Miss Hitty.  "What'll I do!  Minty'll die if she
+ain't dead now!"
+
+The tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks, but she ran on, as fast as
+her feet would carry her, toward Doctor Dexter's.  "The way'll be
+opened," she thought--"I'm sure it will."
+
+The way was opened in an unexpected fashion, for Doctor Ralph Dexter
+answered Miss Hitty's frantic ring at his door.
+
+"I'd clean forgotten you," she stammered, wholly taken aback.  "I don't
+believe you're anything but a play doctor, but, as things is, I reckon
+you'll have to do."
+
+Doctor Ralph Dexter threw back his head and laughed--a clear, ringing
+boyish laugh which was very good to hear.
+
+"'Play doctor' is good," he said, "when anybody's worked as much like a
+yellow dog as I have.  Anyhow, I'll have to do, for father's not at
+home.  Who's dead?"
+
+"It's Araminta," explained Miss Hitty, already greatly relieved.  "She
+fell off a step-ladder and ain't come to yet."
+
+Doctor Ralph's face grew grave.  "Wait a minute."  He went into the
+office and returned almost immediately.  As luck would have it, the
+doctor's carriage was at the door, waiting for a hurry call.
+
+"Jump in," commanded Doctor Ralph.  "You can tell me about it on the
+way.  Where do we go?"
+
+Miss Hitty issued directions to the driver and climbed in.  In spite of
+her trouble, she was not insensible of the comfort of the cushions nor
+the comparative luxury of the conveyance.  She was also mindful of the
+excitement her presence in the doctor's carriage produced in her
+acquaintances as they rushed past.
+
+By dint of much questioning, Doctor Ralph obtained a full account of
+the accident, all immaterial circumstances being brutally eliminated as
+they cropped up in the course of her speech.  "It's God's own mercy,"
+said Miss Hitty, as they stopped at the gate, "that we'd cleaned that
+room.  We couldn't have got it any cleaner if 't was for a layin' out
+instead of a sickness.  Oh, Ralph," she pleaded, "don't let Minty die!"
+
+"Hush!" said Doctor Ralph, sternly.  He spoke with an authority new to
+Miss Hitty, who, in earlier days, had been wont to drive Ralph out of
+her incipient orchard with a bed slat, sharpened at one end into a
+formidable weapon of offence.
+
+Araminta was still unconscious, but she was undressed, and in bed, clad
+in one of Miss Evelina's dainty but yellowed nightgowns.  Doctor Ralph
+worked with incredible quickness and Miss Hitty watched him, wondering,
+frightened, yet with a certain sneaking confidence in him.
+
+"Fracture of the ankle," he announced, briefly, "and one or two bad
+bruises.  Plaster cast and no moving."
+
+When Araminta returned to consciousness, she thought she was dead and
+had gone to Heaven.  The room was heavy with soothing antiseptic
+odours, and she seemed to be suspended in a vapoury cloud.  On the edge
+of the cloud hovered Miss Evelina, veiled, and Aunt Hitty, who was most
+assuredly crying.  There was a stranger, too, and Araminta gazed at him
+questioningly.
+
+Doctor Ralph's hand, firm and cool, closed over hers.  "Don't you
+remember me, Araminta?" he asked, much as one would speak to a child.
+"The last time I saw you, you were hanging out a basket of clothes.
+The grass was very green and the sky was a bright blue, and the petals
+of apple blossoms were drifting all round your feet.  I called to you,
+and you ran into the house.  Now I've got you where you can't get away."
+
+Araminta's pale cheeks flushed.  She looked pleadingly at Aunt Hitty,
+who had always valiantly defended her from the encroachments of boys
+and men.
+
+"You come downstairs with me, Ralph Dexter," commanded Aunt Hitty.
+"I've got some talking to do to you.  Evelina, you set here with
+Araminta till I get back."
+
+Miss Evelina drew a damp, freshly scrubbed chair to the bedside.  "I
+fell off the step-ladder, didn't I?" asked Araminta, vaguely.
+
+"Yes, dear."  Miss Evelina's voice was very low and sweet.  "You fell,
+but you're all right now.  You're going to stay here until you get
+well.  Aunt Hitty and I are going to take care of you."
+
+In the cobwebbed parlour, meanwhile, Doctor Ralph was in the hands of
+the attorney for the prosecution, who questioned him ceaselessly.
+
+"What's wrong with Minty?"
+
+"Broken ankle."
+
+"How did it happen to get broke?" demanded Miss Hitty, with harshness.
+"I never knew an ankle to get broke by falling off a ladder."
+
+"Any ankle will break," temporised Dr. Ralph, "if it is hurt at the
+right point."
+
+"I wish I could have had your father."
+
+"Father wasn't there," returned Ralph, secretly amused.  "You had to
+take me."
+
+Miss Hitty's face softened.  There were other reasons why she could not
+have had Ralph's father.
+
+"When can Minty go home?"
+
+"Minty can't go home until she's well.  She's got to stay right here."
+
+"If she'd fell in the yard," asked Miss Hitty, peering keenly at him
+over her spectacles, "would she have had to stay in the yard till she
+got well?"
+
+The merest suspicion of a dimple crept into the corner of Doctor
+Ralph's mouth.  His eyes danced, but otherwise his face was very grave.
+"She would," he said, in his best professional manner.  "A shed would
+have had to be built over her."  He fancied that Miss Hitty's constant
+presence might prove disastrous to a nervous patient.  He liked the
+quiet, veiled woman, who obeyed his orders without question.
+
+"How much," demanded Miss Mehitable, "is it going to cost?"
+
+"I don't know," answered Ralph, honestly.  "I'll have to come every day
+for a long time--perhaps twice a day," he added, remembering the curve
+of Araminta's cheek and her long, dark lashes.
+
+Miss Hitty made an indescribable sound.  Pain, fear, disbelief, and
+contempt were all mingled in it.
+
+"Don't worry," said Ralph, kindly.  "You know doctoring sometimes comes
+by wholesale."
+
+Miss Hitty's relief was instantaneous and evident.  "There's regular
+prices, I suppose," she said.  "Broken toe, broken ankle, broken
+leg--each one so much.  Is that it?"
+
+Doctor Ralph was seized with a violent fit of coughing.
+
+"How much is ankles?" demanded his inquisitor.
+
+"I'll leave that all to you, Miss Hitty," said Ralph, when he recovered
+his composure.  "You can pay me whatever you think is right."
+
+"I shouldn't pay you anything I didn't think was right," she returned,
+sharply, "unless I was made to by law.  As long as you've got to come
+every day for a spell, and mebbe twice, I'll give you five dollars the
+day Minty walks again.  If that won't do, I'll get the doctor over to
+the Ridge."
+
+Doctor Ralph coughed so hard that he was obliged to cover his face with
+his handkerchief.  "I should think," said Miss Mehitable, "that if you
+were as good a doctor as you pretend to be, you'd cure your own
+coughin' spells.  First thing you know, you'll be running into quick
+consumption.  Will five dollars do?"
+
+Ralph bowed, but his face was very red and he appeared to be struggling
+with some secret emotion.  "I couldn't think of taking as much as five
+dollars, Miss Hitty," he said, gallantly.  "I should not have ventured
+to suggest over four and a half."
+
+"He's cheaper than his father," thought Miss Hitty, quickly suspicious.
+"That's because he ain't as good a doctor."
+
+"Four and a half, then," she said aloud.  "Is it a bargain?"
+
+"It is," said Ralph, "and I'll take the best possible care of Araminta.
+Shake hands on it."  He went out, his shoulders shaking with suppressed
+merriment, and Miss Hitty watched him through the grimy front window.
+
+"Seems sort of decent," she thought, "and not too grasping.   He might
+be real nice if he wasn't a man."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+Ralph's First Case
+
+"Father," said Ralph at breakfast, "I got my first case yesterday."
+
+Anthony Dexter smiled at the tall, straight young fellow who sat
+opposite him.  He did not care about the case but he found endless
+satisfaction in Ralph.
+
+"What was it?" he asked, idly.
+
+"Broken ankle.  I only happened to get it because you were out.  I was
+accused of being a 'play doctor,' but, under the circumstances, I had
+to do."
+
+"Miss Mehitable?" queried Doctor Dexter, with lifted brows.  "I
+wouldn't have thought her ankles could be broken by anything short of
+machinery."
+
+"Guess they couldn't," laughed Ralph.  "Anyhow, they were all right at
+last accounts.  It's Araminta--the pretty little thing who lives with
+the dragon."
+
+"Oh!" There was the merest shade of tenderness in the exclamation.
+"How did it happen?"
+
+"Divesting the circumstance of all irrelevant material," returned
+Ralph, reaching for another crisp roll, "it was like this.  With true
+missionary spirit and in the belief that cleanliness is closely related
+to godliness, Miss Mehitable determined to clean the old house on the
+hill.  The shack has been empty a long time; but now has a tenant--of
+whom more anon.
+
+"Miss Mehitable's own mansion, it seems, has been scrubbed inside and
+out, and painted and varnished and generally torn up, even though it is
+early in the year for such unholy doings.  Having finished her own
+premises, and still having strength in her elbow, and the housecleaning
+microbe being yet on an unchecked rampage through her virtuous system,
+and there being some soap left, Miss Mehitable wanders up to the house
+with her pail.
+
+"Shackled to her, also with a pail, is the helpless Araminta.  Among
+the impedimenta are the Reverend Austin Thorpe and the step-ladder, the
+Reverend Thorpe being, dismissed at the door and allowed to run amuck
+for the day.
+
+"The Penates are duly thrown out of the windows, the veiled chatelaine
+sitting by mute and helpless.  One room is scrubbed till it's so clean
+a fly would fall down in it, and the ministering angel goes back to her
+own spotless residence after bedding.  I believe I didn't understand
+exactly why she went after the bedding, but I can doubtless find out
+the next time I see Miss Mehitable.
+
+"In the absence of the superintendent, Araminta seizes the opportunity
+to fall off the top of the ladder, lighting on her ankle, and fainting
+most completely on the way down.  The rest is history.
+
+"Doctor Dexter being out, his son, perforce, has to serve.  The ankle
+being duly set and the excitement allayed, terms are made in private
+with the 'play doctor.'  How much, Father, do you suppose I am to be
+paid the day Araminta walks again?"
+
+Doctor Dexter dismissed the question.  "Couldn't guess," he grunted.
+
+"Four and a half," said Ralph, proudly.
+
+"Hundred?" asked Doctor Dexter, with a gleam of interest.  "You must
+have imbibed high notions at college."
+
+"Hundred!" shouted Ralph, "Heavens, no!  Four dollars and a half!  Four
+dollars and fifty cents, marked down from five for this day only.
+Special remnant sale of repaired ankles!"  The boy literally doubled
+himself in his merriment.
+
+"You bloated bondholder," said his father, fondly.  "Don't be
+extravagant with it."
+
+"I won't," returned Ralph, between gasps.  "I thought I'd put some of
+it into unincumbered real estate and loan the rest on good security at
+five per cent."
+
+Into the lonely house Ralph's laughter came like the embodied spirit of
+Youth.  It searched out the hidden corners, illuminated the shadows,
+stirred the silences to music.  A sunbeam danced on the stair, where,
+according to Doctor Dexter's recollection, no sunbeam had ever dared to
+dance before.  Ah, it, was good to have the boy at home!
+
+"Miss Mehitable," observed Doctor Dexter, after a pause, "is like the
+poor--always with us.  I seldom get to a patient who is really in
+danger before she does.  She seems to have secret wires stretched all
+over the country and she has the clinical history of the neighbourhood
+at her tongue's end.  What's more, she distributes it, continually,
+painstakingly, untiringly.  Every detail of every case I have charge of
+is spread broadcast, by Miss Mehitable.  I'd have a bad reputation,
+professionally, if so much about my patients was generally known
+anywhere else."
+
+"Is she a good nurse?" asked Ralph.
+
+"According to her light, yes; but she isn't willing to work on
+recognised lines.  She'll dose my patients with roots and herbs of her
+own concocting if she gets a chance, and proudly claim credit for the
+cure.  If the patient dies, everybody blames me.  I can't sit by a case
+of measles and keep Miss Mehitable from throwing sassafras tea into it
+more than ten hours at a stretch."
+
+"Why don't you talk to her?" queried Ralph.
+
+"Talk to her!" snorted Doctor Dexter.  "Do you suppose I haven't
+ruptured my vocal cords more than once?  I might just as well put my
+head out of the front window and whisper it as to talk to her."
+
+"She won't monkey with my case," said Ralph.  His mouth was firmly set.
+
+"Won't she?" parried Doctor Dexter, sarcastically.  "You go up there
+and see if the cast isn't off and the fracture being fomented with
+pennyroyal tea or some such mess."
+
+"I always had an impression," said Ralph, thoughtfully, "that people
+were afraid of you."
+
+"They are," grunted Doctor Dexter, "but Miss Mehitable isn't 'people.'
+She goes by herself, and isn't afraid of man or devil.  If I had horns
+and a barbed tail and breathed smoke, I couldn't scare her.  The
+patient's family, being more afraid of her than of me, invariably give
+her free access to the sick-room."
+
+"I don't want her to worry Araminta," said Ralph.
+
+"If you don't want Araminta worried," replied Doctor Dexter,
+conclusively, "you'd better put a few things into your suit case, and
+move up there until she walks."
+
+"All right," said Ralph.  "I'm here to rout your malign influence.
+It's me to sit by Araminta's crib and scare the old girl off.  I'll bet
+I can fix her."
+
+"If you can," returned Doctor Dexter, "you are considerably more
+intelligent than I take you to be."
+
+With the welfare of his young patient very earnestly at heart, Ralph
+went up the hill.  Miss Evelina admitted him, and Ralph drew her into
+the dusty parlour.  "Can you take care of anybody?" he inquired,
+without preliminary.  "Can you follow directions?"
+
+"I--think so."
+
+"Then," Ralph went on, "I turn Araminta over to you.  Miss Mehitable
+has nothing to do with the case from this moment.  Araminta is in your
+care and mine.   You take directions from me and from nobody else.  Do
+you understand?"
+
+"Yes," whispered Miss Evelina, "but Mehitable won't--won't let me."
+
+"Won't let you nothing," said Ralph, scornfully.  "She's to be kept
+out."
+
+"She--she--" stammered Miss Evelina, "she's up there now."
+
+Ralph started upstairs.  Half-way up, he heard the murmur of voices,
+and went up more quietly.  He stepped lightly along the hall and stood
+just outside Araminta's door, shamelessly listening.
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said an indignant feminine
+voice.  "The idea of a big girl like you not bein' able to stand on a
+ladder without fallin' off.  It's your mother's foolishness cropping
+out in you, after all I've done for you.  I've stood on ladders all my
+life and never so much as slipped.  I believe you did it a purpose,
+though what you thought you'd get for doin' it puzzles me some.  P'raps
+you thought you'd get out of the housecleanin' but you won't.  When it
+comes time for the Fall cleanin,' you'll do every stroke yourself, to
+pay for all this trouble and expense.  Do you know what it's costin'?
+Four dollars and a half of good money!  I should think you'd be
+ashamed!"
+
+"But, Aunt Hitty--" began the girl, pleadingly.
+
+"Stop!  Don't you 'Aunt Hitty' me," continued the angry voice.  "You
+needn't tell me you didn't fall off that ladder a purpose.  Four
+dollars and a half and all the trouble besides!  I hope you'll think of
+that while you're laying here like a lady and your poor old aunt is
+slavin' for you, workin' her fingers to the bone."
+
+"If I can ever get the four dollars and a half," cried Araminta, with
+tears in her voice, "I will give it back to you--oh, indeed I will!"
+
+At this point, Doctor Ralph Dexter entered the room, his eyes snapping
+dangerously.
+
+"Miss Mehitable," he said with forced calmness, "will you kindly come
+downstairs a moment?  I wish to speak to you."
+
+Dazed and startled, Miss Mehitable rose from her chair and followed
+him.  There was in Ralph's voice a quality which literally compelled
+obedience.  He drew her into the dusty parlour and closed all the doors
+carefully.  Miss Evelina was nowhere to be seen.
+
+"I was standing in the hall," said Ralph, coolly, "and I heard every
+word you said to that poor, helpless child.  You ought to know, if you
+know anything at all, that nobody ever fell off a step-ladder on
+purpose.  She's hurt, and she's badly hurt, and she's not in any way to
+blame for it, and I positively forbid you ever to enter that room
+again."
+
+"Forbid!" bristled Aunt Hitty.  "Who are you?" she demanded
+sarcastically, "to 'forbid' me from nursing my own niece!"
+
+"I am the attending physician," returned Ralph, calmly.  "It is my
+case, and nobody else is going to manage it.  I have already arranged
+with--the lady who lives here--to take care of Araminta, and----"
+
+"Arrange no such thing," interrupted Miss Hitty, violently.  Her temper
+was getting away from her.
+
+"One moment," interrupted Ralph.  "If I hear of your entering that room
+again before I say Araminta is cured, I will charge you just exactly
+one hundred dollars for my services, and collect it by law."
+
+Miss Hitty's lower jaw dropped, her strong, body shook.  She gazed at
+Ralph as one might look at an intimate friend gone suddenly daft.  She
+had heard of people who lost their reason without warning.  Was it
+possible that she was in the room with a lunatic?
+
+She edged toward the door, keeping her eyes on Ralph.
+
+He anticipated her, and opened it with a polite flourish.  "Remember,"
+he warned her.  "One step into Araminta's room, one word addressed to
+her, and it costs you just exactly one hundred dollars."  He opened the
+other door and pointed suggestively down the hill, She lost no time in
+obeying the gesture, but scudded down the road as though His Satanic
+Majesty himself was in her wake.
+
+Ralph laughed to himself all the way upstairs but in the hall he paused
+and his face grew grave again.  From Araminta's room came the sound of
+sobbing.
+
+She did not see him enter, for her face was hidden in her pillow.
+"Araminta!" said Ralph, tenderly, "You poor child."
+
+Touched by the unexpected sympathy, Araminta raised her head to look at
+him.  "Oh Doctor--" she began,
+
+"Doctor Ralph," said the young man, sitting down on the bed beside her.
+"My father is Doctor Dexter and I am Doctor Ralph."
+
+"I'm ashamed of myself for being such a baby," sobbed Araminta.  "I
+didn't mean to cry."
+
+"You're not a baby at all," said Doctor Ralph, soothingly, taking her
+hot hand in his.  "You're hurt, and you've been bothered, and if you
+want to cry, you can.  Here's my handkerchief."
+
+After a little, her sobs ceased.  Doctor Ralph still sat there,
+regarding her with a sort of questioning tenderness which was entirely
+outside of Araminta's brief experience.
+
+"You're not to be bothered any more," he said.  "I've seen your aunt,
+and she's not to set foot in this room again until you get well.  If
+she even speaks to you from the hall, you're to tell me."
+
+Araminta gazed at him, wide-eyed and troubled.  "I can't take care of
+myself," she said, with a pathetic little smile.
+
+"You're not going to.  The lady who lives here is going to take care of
+you."
+
+"Miss Evelina?  She got burned because she was bad and she has to wear
+a veil all the time."
+
+"How was she bad?" asked Ralph.
+
+"I don't just know," whispered Araminta, cautiously.  "Aunt Hitty
+didn't know, or else she wouldn't tell me, but she was bad.  She went
+to a man's house.  She----"
+
+Then Araminta remembered that it was Doctor Dexter's house to which
+Miss Evelina had gone.  In shame and terror, she hid her face again.
+
+"I don't believe anybody ever got burned just for being bad," Ralph was
+saying, "but your face is hot and I'm going to cool it for you."
+
+He brought a bowl of cold water, and with his handkerchief bathed
+Araminta's flushed face and her hot hands.  "Doesn't that feel good?"
+he asked, when the traces of tears had been practically removed.
+
+"Yes," sighed Araminta, gratefully, "but I've always washed my own face
+before.  I saw a cat once," she continued.  "He was washing his
+children's faces."
+
+"Must have been a lady cat," observed Ralph, with a smile.
+
+"The little cats," pursued Araminta, "looked to be very soft.  I think
+they liked it."
+
+"They are soft," admitted Ralph.  "Don't you think so?"
+
+"I don't know.  I never had a little cat."
+
+"Never had a kitten?" cried Ralph.  "You poor, defrauded child!  What
+kind of a kitten would you like best?"
+
+"A little grey cat," said Araminta, seriously, "a little grey cat with
+blue eyes, but Aunt Hitty would never let me have one."
+
+"See here," said Ralph.  "Aunt Hitty isn't running this show.  I'm
+stage manager and ticket taker and advance man and everything else, all
+rolled into one.  I can't promise positively, because I'm not posted on
+the cat supply around here, but if I can find one, you shall have a
+grey kitten with blue eyes, and you shall have some kind of a kitten,
+anyhow."
+
+"Oh!" cried Araminta, her eyes shining.  "Truly?"
+
+"Truly," nodded Ralph.
+
+"Would--would--" hesitated Araminta--"would it be any more than four
+dollars and a half if you brought me the little cat?  Because if it is,
+I can't----"
+
+"It wouldn't," interrupted Ralph.  "On any bill over a dollar and a
+quarter, I always throw in a kitten.  Didn't you know that?"
+
+"No," answered Araminta, with a happy little laugh.  How kind he was,
+eyen though he was a man!  Perhaps, if he knew how wicked her mother
+had been, he would not be so kind to her.  The stern Puritan conscience
+rose up and demanded explanation.
+
+"I--I--must tell you," she said, "before you bring me the little cat.
+My mother--she--" here Araminta turned her crimson face away.  She
+swallowed a lump in her throat, then said, bravely: "My mother was
+married!"
+
+Doctor Ralph Dexter laughed--a deep, hearty, boyish laugh that rang
+cheerfully through the empty house.  "I'll tell you something," he
+said.  He leaned over and whispered in her ear; "So was mine!"
+
+Araminta's tell-tale face betrayed her relief.  He knew the worst
+now--and he was similarly branded.  His mother, too, had been an
+outcast, beyond Aunt Hitty's pale.  There was comfort in the thought,
+though Araminta had been taught not to rejoice at another's misfortune.
+
+Ralph strolled off down the hill, his hands in his pockets, for the
+moment totally forgetting the promised kitten.  "The little saint," he
+mused, "she's been kept in a cage all her life.  She doesn't know
+anything except what the dragon has taught her.  She looks at life with
+the dragon's sidewise squint.  I'll open the door for her," he
+continued, mentally, "for I think she's worth saving.  Hope to Moses
+and the prophets I don't forget that cat."
+
+No suspicion that he could forget penetrated Araminta's consciousness.
+It had been pleasant to have Doctor Ralph sit there and wash her face,
+talking to her meanwhile, even though he was a man, and men were
+poison.  Like a strong, sure bond between them, Araminta felt their
+common disgrace.
+
+"His mother was married," she thought, drowsily, "and so was mine.
+Neither of them knew any better.  Oh, Lord," prayed Araminta, with
+renewed vigour, "keep me from the contamination of marriage, for Thy
+sake.  Amen."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+The Loose Link
+
+Seated primly on a chair in Miss Evelina's kitchen, Miss Mehitable gave
+a full account of her sentiments toward Doctor Ralph Dexter.  She began
+with his birth and remarked that he was a puny infant, and, for a time,
+it was feared that he was "light headed."
+
+"He got his senses after a while, though," she continued, grudgingly,
+"that is, such as they are."
+
+She proceeded through his school-days, repeated unflattering opinions
+which his teachers had expressed to her, gave an elaborate description
+of the conflict that ensued when she caught him stealing green apples
+from her incipient, though highly promising, orchard, alluded darkly to
+his tendency to fight with his schoolmates, suggested that certain
+thefts of chickens ten years and more ago could, if the truth were
+known, safely be attributed to Ralph Dexter, and speculated upon the
+trials and tribulations a scapegrace son might cause an upright and
+respected father.
+
+All the dead and buried crimes of the small boys of the village were
+excavated from the past and charged to Ralph Dexter.  Miss Mehitable
+brought the record fully up to the time he left Rushton for college,
+having been prepared for entrance by his father.  Then she began with
+Araminta.
+
+First upon the schedule were Miss Mehitable's painful emotions when
+Barbara Smith had married Henry Lee.  She croaked anew all her
+raven-like prophecies of misfortune which had added excitement to the
+wedding, and brought forth the birth of Araminta in full proof.  Full
+details of Barbara's death were given, and the highly magnified events
+which had led to her adoption of the child.  Condescending for a moment
+to speak of the domestic virtues, Miss Mehitable explained, with proper
+pride, how she had "brought up" Araminta.  The child had been kept
+close at the side of her guardian angel, never had been to school, had
+been carefully taught at home, had not been allowed to play with other
+children; in short, save at extremely rare intervals, Araminta had seen
+no one unless in the watchful presence of her counsellor.
+
+"And if you don't think that's work," observed Miss Hitty, piously,
+"you just keep tied to one person for almost nineteen years, day and
+night, never lettin' 'em out of your sight, and layin' the foundation
+of their manners and morals and education, and see how you'll feel when
+a blackmailing sprig of a play-doctor threatens to collect a hundred
+dollars from you if you dast to nurse your own niece!"
+
+Miss Evelina, silent as always, was moving restlessly about the
+kitchen.  Unaccustomed since her girlhood to activity of any
+description, she found her new tasks hard.  Muscles, long unused, ached
+miserably from exertion.  Yet Araminta had to be taken care of and her
+room kept clean.
+
+The daily visits of Doctor Ralph, who was almost painfully neat, had
+made Miss Evelina ashamed of her house, though he had not appeared to
+notice that anything was wrong.  She avoided him when she could, but it
+was not always possible, for directions had to be given and reports
+made.  Miss Evelina never looked at him directly.  One look into his
+eyes, so like his father's, had made her so faint that she would have
+fallen, had not Doctor Ralph steadied her with his strong arm.
+
+To her, he was Anthony Dexter in the days of his youth, though she
+continually wondered to find it so.  She remembered a story she had
+read, a long time ago, of a young woman who lost her husband of a few
+weeks in a singularly pathetic manner.  In exploring a mountain, he
+fell into a crevasse, and his body could not be recovered.  Scientists
+calculated that, at the rate the glacier was moving, his body might be
+expected to appear at the foot of the mountain in about twenty-three
+years; so, grimly, the young bride set herself to wait.
+
+At the appointed time, the glacier gave up its dead, in perfect
+preservation, owing to the intense cold.  But the woman who had waited
+for her husband thus was twenty-three years older; she had aged, and he
+was still young.  In some such way had Anthony Dexter come back to her;
+eager, boyish, knowing none of life except its joy, while she, a
+quarter of a century older, had borne incredible griefs, been wasted by
+long vigils, and now stood, desolate, at the tomb of a love which was
+not dead, but continually tore at its winding sheet and prayed for
+release.
+
+To Evelina, at times, the past twenty-five years seemed like a long
+nightmare.  This was Anthony Dexter--this boy with the quick, light
+step, the ringing laugh, the broad shoulders and clear, true eyes.  No
+terror lay between them, all was straight and right; yet the
+realisation still enshrouded her like a black cloud.
+
+"And," said Miss Hitty, mournfully, "after ail my patience and hard
+work in bringing up Araminta as a lady should be brought up, and having
+taught her to beware of men and even of boys, she's took away from me
+when she's sick, and nobody allowed to see her except a blackmailing
+play-doctor, who is putting Heaven knows what devilment into her head.
+I suppose there's nothing to prevent me from finishing the
+housecleaning, if I don't speak to my own niece as I pass her door?"
+
+She spoke inquiringly, but Miss Evelina did not reply.
+
+"Most folks," continued Miss Hitty, with asperity, "is pleased enough
+to have their houses cleaned for 'em to say 'thank you,' but I'm some
+accustomed to ingratitude.  What I do now in the way of cleanin' will
+be payin' for the nursin' of Araminta."
+
+Still Miss Evelina did not answer, her thoughts being far away.
+
+"Maybe I did speak cross to Minty," admitted Miss Hitty, grudgingly,
+"at a time when I had no business to.  If I did, I'm willin' to tell
+her so, but not that blackmailing play-doctor with a hundred-dollar
+bill for a club.  I was clean out of patience with Minty for falling
+off the ladder, but I guess, as he says, she didn't go for to do it.
+'T ain't in reason for folks to step off ladders or out of windows
+unless they're walkin' in their sleep, and I've never let Minty sleep
+in the daytime."
+
+Unceasingly, Miss Mehitable prattled on.  Reminiscence, anecdote, and
+philosophical observations succeeded one another with startling
+rapidity, ending always in vituperation and epithet directed toward
+Araminta's physician.  Dark allusions to the base ingratitude of
+everybody with whom Miss Hitty had ever been concerned alternately
+cumbered her speech.  At length the persistent sound wore upon Miss
+Evelina, much as the vibration of sound may distress one totally deaf.
+
+The kitchen door was open and Miss Evelina went outdoors.  Miss
+Mehitable continued to converse, then shortly perceived that she was
+alone.  "Well, I never!" she gasped.  "Guess I'll go home!"
+
+Her back was very stiff and straight when she marched downhill, firmly
+determined to abandon Evelina, scorn Doctor Ralph Dexter, and leave
+Araminta to her well-deserved fate.  One thought and one only
+illuminated her gloom.  "He ain't got his four dollars and a half,
+yet," she chuckled, craftily.  "Mebbe he'll get it and mebbe he won't.
+We'll see."
+
+While straying about the garden.  Miss Evelina saw her unwelcome guest
+take her militant departure, and reproached herself for her lack of
+hospitality.  Miss Mehitable had been very kind to her and deserved
+only kindness in return.  She had acted upon impulse and was ashamed.
+
+Miss Evelina meditated calling her back, but the long years of
+self-effacement and inactivity had left her inert, with capacity only
+for suffering.  That very suffering to which she had become accustomed
+had of late assumed fresh phases.  She was hurt continually in new
+ways, yet, after the first shock of returning to her old home, not so
+much as she had expected.  It is a way of life, and one of its inmost
+compensations--this finding of a reality so much easier than our fears.
+
+April had come over the hills, singing, with a tinkle of rain and a
+rush of warm winds, and yet the Piper had not returned.  His tools were
+in the shed, and the mountain of rubbish was still in the road in front
+of the house.  Half of the garden had not been touched.  On one side of
+the house was the bare brown earth, with tiny green shoots springing up
+through it, and on the other was a twenty-five years' growth of weeds.
+Miss Evelina reflected that the place was not unlike her own life; half
+of it full of promise, a forbidding wreck in the midst of it, and,
+beyond it, desolation, ended only by a stone wall.
+
+"Did you think," asked a cheerful voice at her elbow, "that I was never
+coming back to finish my job?"
+
+Miss Evelina started, and gazed into the round, smiling face of Piper
+Tom, who was accompanied, as always, by his faithful dog.
+
+"'T is not our way," he went on, including the yellow mongrel in the
+pronoun, "to leave undone what we've set our hands and paws to do, eh,
+Laddie?"
+
+He waited a moment, but Miss Evelina did not speak.
+
+"I got some seeds for my garden," he continued, taking bulging parcels
+from the pockets of his short, shaggy coat.  "The year's sorrow is at
+an end."
+
+"Sorrow never comes to an end," she cried, bitterly.
+
+"Doesn't it," he asked.  "How old is yours?"
+
+"Twenty-five years," she answered, choking.  The horror of it was
+pressing heavily upon her.
+
+"Then," said the Piper, very gently, "I'm thinking there is something
+wrong.  No sorrow should last more than a year--'t is written all
+around us so."
+
+"Written?  I have never seen it written."
+
+"No," returned the Piper, kindly, "but 't is because you have not
+looked to see.  Have you ever known a tree that failed to put out its
+green leaves in the Spring, unless it had died from lightning or old
+age?  When a rose blossoms, then goes to sleep, does it wait for more
+than a year before it blooms again?  Is it more than a year from bud to
+bud, from flower to flower, from fruit to fruit?  'T is God's way of
+showing that a year of darkness is enough,--at a time."
+
+The Piper's voice was very tender; the little dog lay still at his
+feet.  She leaned against the crumbling wall, and turned her veiled
+face away.
+
+"'T is not for us to be happy without trying," continued the Piper,
+"any more than it is for a tree to bear fruit without effort.  All the
+beauty and joy in the world are the result of work--work for each other
+and in ourselves.  When you see a butterfly over a field of clover, 't
+is because he has worked to get out of his chrysalis.  He was not
+content to abide within his veil."
+
+"Suppose," said Miss Evelina, in a voice that was scarcely audible,
+"that he couldn't get out?"
+
+"Ah, but he could," answered the Piper.  "We can get out of anything,
+if we try.  I'm not meaning by escape, but by growth.  You put an acorn
+into a crevice in a rock.  It has no wings, it cannot fly out, nobody
+will lift it out.  But it grows, and the oak splits the rock; even
+takes from the rock nourishment for its root."
+
+"People are not like acorns and butterflies," she stammered.  "We are
+not subject to the same laws."
+
+"Why not?" asked the Piper.  "God made us all, and I'm thinking we're
+all brothers, having, in a way, the same Father.  'T is not for me to
+hold myself above Laddie here, though he's a dog and I'm a man.  'T is
+not for me to say that men are better than dogs; that they're more
+honest, more true, more kind.  The seed that I have in my hand, here,
+I'm thinking 't is my brother, too.  If I plant it, water it, and keep
+the weeds away from it, 't will give me back a blossom.  'T is service
+binds us all into the brotherhood."
+
+"Did you never," asked Evelina, thickly, "hear of chains?"
+
+"Aye," said the Piper, "chains of our own making.  'T is like the
+ancient people in one of my ragged books.  When one man killed another,
+they chained the dead man to the living one, so that he was forever
+dragging his own sin.  When he struck the blow, he made his own chain."
+
+"I am chained," cried Evelina, piteously, "but not to my own sin."
+
+"'T is wrong," said the Piper; "I'm thinking there's a loose link
+somewhere that can be slipped off."
+
+"I cannot find it," she sobbed; "I've hunted for it in the dark for
+twenty-five years."
+
+"Poor soul," said the Piper, softly.  "'T is because of the darkness,
+I'm thinking.  From the distaff of Eternity, you take the thread of
+your life, but you're sitting in the night, and God meant you to be a
+spinner in the sun.  When the day breaks for you, you'll be finding the
+loose link to set yourself free."
+
+"When the day breaks," repeated Evelina, in a whisper.  "There is no
+day."
+
+"There is day.  I've come to lead you to it.  We'll find the light
+together and set the thread to going right again."
+
+"Who are you?" cried Evelina, suddenly terror stricken.
+
+The Piper laughed, a low, deep friendly laugh.  Then he doffed his grey
+hat and bowed, sweeping the earth with the red feather, in cavalier
+fashion.  "Tom Barnaby, at your service, but most folks call me Piper
+Tom.  'T is the flute, you know," he continued in explanation, "that
+I'm forever playing on in the woods, having no knowledge of the
+instrument, but sort of liking the sound."
+
+Miss Evelina turned and went into the house, shaken to her inmost soul.
+More than ever, she felt the chains that bound her.  Straining against
+her bonds, she felt them cutting deep into her flesh.  Anthony Dexter
+had bound her; he alone could set her free.  From this there seemed no
+possible appeal.
+
+Meanwhile the Piper mowed down the weeds in the garden, whistling
+cheerily.  He burned the rubbish in the road, and the smoke made a blue
+haze on the hill.  He spaded and raked and found new stones for the
+broken wall, and kept up a constant conversation with the dog.
+
+It was twilight long before he got ready to make the flower beds, so he
+carried the tools back into the shed and safely stored away the seeds.
+Miss Evelina watched him from the grimy front window as he started
+downhill, but he did not once look back.
+
+There was something jaunty in the Piper's manner, aside from the
+drooping red feather which bobbed rakishly as he went home, whistling.
+When he was no longer to be seen, Miss Evelina sighed.  Something
+seemed to have gone out of her life, like a sunbeam which has suddenly
+faded.  In a safe shadow of the house, she raised her veil, and wiped
+away a tear.
+
+When out of sight and hearing, the Piper stopped his whistling.  "'T is
+no need to be cheerful, Laddie," he explained to the dog, "when there's
+none to be saddened if you're not.  We don't know about the loose link,
+and perhaps we can never find it, but we're going to try.  We'll take
+off the chain and put the poor soul in the sun again before we go away,
+if we can learn how to do it, but I'm thinking 't is a heavy chain and
+the sun has long since ceased to shine."
+
+After supper, he lighted a candle and absorbed himself in going over
+his stock.  He had made a few purchases in the city and it took some
+time to arrange them properly.
+
+Last of all, he took out a box and opened it.  He held up to the
+flickering light length after length of misty white chiffon--a fabric
+which the Piper had never bought before.
+
+"'T is expensive, Laddie," he said; "so expensive that neither of us
+will taste meat again for more than a week, though we walked both ways,
+but I'm thinking she'll need more sometime and there was none to be had
+here.  We'll not be in the way of charging for it since her gown is
+shabby and her shoes are worn."
+
+Twilight deepened into night and still the Piper sat there, handling
+the chiffon curiously and yet with reverence.  It was silky to his
+touch, filmy, cloud-like.  He folded it into small compass, and crushed
+it in his hands, much surprised to find that it did not crumple.  All
+the meaning of chiffon communicated itself to him--the lightness and
+the laughter, the beauty and the love.  Roses and moonlight seemed to
+belong with it, youth and a singing heart.
+
+"'T is a rare stuff, I'm thinking, Laddie," he said, at length, not
+noting that the dog was asleep.  "'T is a rare, fine stuff, and well
+suited to her wearing, because she is so beautiful that she hides her
+face."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+A Grey Kitten
+
+With her mouth firmly set, and assuming the air of a martyr trying to
+make himself a little more comfortable against the stake, Miss
+Mehitable climbed the hill.  In her capable hands were the implements
+of warfare--pails, yellow soap, and rags.  She carried a mop on her
+shoulder as a regular carries a gun.
+
+"Havin' said I would clean house, I will clean house," she mused, "in
+spite of all the ingratitude and not listenin'.  'T won't take long,
+and it'll do my heart good to see the place clean again.  Evelina's got
+no gumption about a house--never did have.  I s'pose she thinks it's
+clean just because she's swept it and brushed down the cobwebs, but it
+needs more 'n a broom to take out twenty-five years' dirt."
+
+Her militant demeanour was somewhat chastened when she presented
+herself at the house.  When the door was opened, she brushed past Miss
+Evelina with a muttered explanation, and made straight for the kitchen
+stove.  She heated a huge kettle of water, filled her pail, and then,
+for the first time, spoke.
+
+"I've come to finish cleanin' as I promised I would, and I hope it'll
+offset your nursin' of Minty.  And if that blackmailing play-doctor
+comes while I'm at work, you can tell him that I ain't speakin' to
+Minty from the hall, nor settin' foot in her room, and that he needn't
+be in any hurry to make out his bill, 'cause I'm goin' to take my time
+about payin' it."
+
+She went upstairs briskly, and presently the clatter of moving
+furniture fairly shook the house over Miss Evelina's head.  It sounded
+as if Miss Mehitable did not know there was an invalid in the house,
+and found distinct pleasure in making unnecessary noise.  The quick,
+regular strokes of the scrubbing brush swished through the hall.
+Resentment inspired the ministering influence to speed.
+
+But it was not in Miss Hitty's nature to cherish her wrath long, while
+the incense of yellow soap was in her nostrils and the pleasing foam of
+suds was everywhere in sight.
+
+Presently she began to sing, in a high, cracked voice which wavered
+continually off the key.  She went through her repertory of hymns with
+conscientious thoroughness.  Then a bright idea came to her.
+
+"There wa'n't nothin' said about singin'," she said to herself.  "I
+wa'n't to speak to Minty from the hall, nor set foot into her room.
+But I ain't pledged not to sing in the back room, and I can sing any
+tune I please, and any words.  Reckon Minty can hear."
+
+The moving of the ladder drowned the sound made by the opening of the
+lower door.  Secure upon her height, with her head near the open
+transom of the back room.  Miss Mehitable began to sing.
+
+"Araminta Lee is a bad, un-grate-ful girl," she warbled, to a tune the
+like of which no mortal had ever heard before.  "She fell off of a
+step-lad-der, and sprained her an-kle, and the play-doc-tor said it was
+broke in or-der to get more mon-ey, breaks being more val-u-able than
+sprains.  Araminta Lee is lay-ing in bed like a la-dy, while her poor
+old aunt works her fingers to the bone, to pay for doc-tor's bills and
+nursin'.  Four dollars and a half," she chanted, mournfully, "and
+no-body to pay it but a poor old aunt who has to work her fin-gers to
+the bone.  Four dollars and a half, four dollars and a half--almost
+five dollars.  Araminta thinks she will get out of work by pretending
+to be sick, but it is not so, not so.  Araminta will find out she is
+much mis-taken.  She will do the Fall clean-ing all alone, alone, and
+we do not think there will be any sprained an-kles, nor any four
+dollars--"
+
+Doctor Ralph Dexter appeared in the doorway, his face flaming with
+wrath.  Miss Mehitable continued to sing, apparently unconcerned,
+though her heart pounded violently against her ribs.  By a swift change
+of words and music, she was singing "Rock of Ages," as any woman is
+privileged to do, when cleaning house, or at any other time.
+
+But the young man still stood there, his angry eyes fixed upon her.
+The scrutiny made Miss Mehitable uncomfortable, and at length she
+descended from the ladder, still singing, ostensibly to refill her pail.
+
+"Let me hide--" warbled Miss Hitty, tremulously, attempting to leave
+the room.
+
+Doctor Ralph effectually barred the way.  "I should think you'd want to
+hide," he said, scornfully.  "If I hear of anything; like this again,
+I'll send in that bill I told you of.  I know a lawyer who can collect
+it."
+
+"If you do," commented Miss Mehitable, ironically, "you know more 'n I
+do."  She tried to speak with assurance, but her soul was quaking
+within her.  Was it possible that any one knew she had over three
+hundred dollars safely concealed in the attic?
+
+"I mean exactly what I say," continued Ralph.  "If you so much as climb
+these stairs again, you and I will have trouble,"
+
+Sniffing disdainfully, Miss Mehitable went down into the kitchen, no
+longer singing.  "You'll have to finish your own cleanin'," she said to
+Miss Evelina.  "That blackmailing play-doctor thinks it ain't good for
+my health to climb ladders.  He's afraid I'll fall off same as Minty
+did and he hesitates to take more of my money."
+
+"I'd much rather you wouldn't do any more," replied Miss Evelina,
+kindly.  "You have been very good to me, ever since I came here, and I
+appreciate it more than I can tell you.  I'm going to clean my own
+house, for, indeed, I'm ashamed of it."
+
+Miss Hitty grunted unintelligibly, gathered up her paraphernalia, and
+prepared to depart.  "When Minty's well," she said, "I'll come back and
+be neighbourly."
+
+"I hope you'll come before that," responded Miss Evelina.  "I shall
+miss you if you don't."
+
+Miss Hitty affected not to hear, but she was mollified, none the less.
+
+From his patient's window, Doctor Ralph observed the enemy in full
+retreat, and laughed gleefully.  "What is funny?" queried Araminta, She
+had been greatly distressed by the recitative in the back bedroom and
+her cheeks were flushed with fever.
+
+"I was just laughing," said Doctor Ralph, "because your aunt has gone
+home and is never coming back here any more."
+
+"Oh, Doctor Ralph!  Isn't she?" There was alarm in Araminta's voice,
+but her grey eyes were shining.
+
+"Never any more," he assured her, in a satisfied tone.  "How long have
+you lived with Aunt Hitty?"
+
+"Ever since I was a baby."
+
+"H--m!  And how old are you now?"
+
+"Almost nineteen."
+
+"Where did you go to school?"
+
+"I didn't go to school.  Aunt Hitty taught me, at home."
+
+"Didn't you ever have anybody to play with?"
+
+"Only Aunt Hitty.  We used to play a quilt game.  I sewed the little
+blocks together, and she made the big ones."
+
+"Must have been highly exciting.  Didn't you ever have a doll?"
+
+"Oh, no!" Araminta's eyes were wide and reproachful now.  "The Bible
+says 'thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.'"
+
+Doctor Ralph sighed deeply, put his hands in his pockets, and paced
+restlessly across Araminta's bare, nun-like chamber.  As though in a
+magic mirror, he saw her nineteen years of deprivation, her cramped and
+narrow childhood, her dense ignorance of life.  No playmates, no
+dolls--nothing but Aunt Hitty.  She had kept Araminta wrapped in cotton
+wool, mentally; shut her out from the world, and persistently shaped
+her toward a monastic ideal.
+
+A child brought up in a convent could have been no more of a nun in
+mind and spirit than Araminta.  Ralph well knew that the stern
+guardianship had not been relaxed a moment, either by night or by day.
+Miss Mehitable had a well-deserved reputation for thoroughness in
+whatever she undertook.
+
+And Araminta was made for love.  Ralph turned to look at her as she lay
+on her pillow, her brown, wavy hair rioting about her flushed face.
+Araminta's great grey eyes were very grave and sweet; her mouth was
+that of a lovable child.  Her little hands were dimpled at the
+knuckles, in fact, as Ralph now noted; there were many dimples
+appertaining to Araminta.
+
+One of them hovered for an instant about the corner of her mouth.  "Why
+must you walk?" she asked.  "Is it because you're glad your ankle isn't
+broken?"
+
+Doctor Ralph came back and sat down on the bed beside her.  He had that
+rare sympathy which is the inestimable gift of the physician, and long
+years of practice had not yet calloused him so that a suffering
+fellow-mortal was merely a "case".  His heart, was dangerously tender
+toward her.
+
+"Lots of things are worse than broken ankles," he assured her.  "Has it
+been so bad to be shut up here, away from Aunt Hitty?"
+
+"No," said the truthful Araminta.  "I have always been with Aunt Hitty,
+and it seems queer, but very nice.  Someway, I feel as if I had grown
+up."
+
+"Has Miss Evelina been good to you?"
+
+"Oh, so good," returned Araminta, gratefully.  "Why?"
+
+"Because," said Ralph, concisely, "if she hadn't been, I'd break her
+neck."
+
+"You couldn't," whispered Araminta, softly, "you're too kind.  You
+wouldn't hurt anybody."
+
+"Not unless I had to.  Sometimes there has to be a little hurt to keep
+away a greater one."
+
+"You hurt me, I think, but I didn't know just when.  It was the smelly,
+sweet stuff, wasn't it?"
+
+Ralph did not heed the question.  He was wondering what would become of
+Araminta when she went back to Miss Mehitable's, as she soon must.  Her
+ankle was healing nicely and in a very short time she would be able to
+walk again.  He could not keep her there much longer.  By a whimsical
+twist of his thought, he perceived that he was endeavouring to wrap
+Araminta in cotton wool of a different sort, to prevent Aunt Hitty from
+wrapping her in her own particular brand.
+
+"The little cat," said Araminta, fondly.  "I thought perhaps it would
+come to-day.  Is it coming when I am well?"
+
+"Holy Moses!" ejaculated Ralph.  He had never thought of the kitten
+again, and the poor child had been waiting patiently, with never a
+word.  The clear grey eyes were upon him, eloquent with belief.
+
+"The little cat," replied Ralph, shamelessly perjuring himself, "was
+not old enough to leave its mother.  We'll have to wait until to-morrow
+or next day.  I was keeping it for a surprise; that's why I didn't say
+anything about it.  I thought you'd forgotten."
+
+"Oh, no!  When I go back home, you know, I can't have it.  Aunt Hitty
+would never let me."
+
+"Won't she?" queried Ralph.  "We'll see!"
+
+He spoke with confidence he was far from feeling, and was dimly aware
+that Araminta had the faith he lacked.  "She thinks I'm a
+wonder-worker," he said to himself, grimly, "and I've got to live up to
+it."
+
+It was not necessary to count Araminta's pulse again, but Doctor Ralph
+took her hand--a childish, dimpled hand that nestled confidingly in his.
+
+"Listen, child," he said; "I want to talk to you.  Your Aunt Hitty
+hasn't done right by you.  She's kept you in cotton when you ought to
+be outdoors.  You should have gone to school and had other children to
+play with."
+
+"And cats?"
+
+"Cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, snakes, mice, pigeons,
+guinea-pigs--everything."
+
+"I was never in cotton," corrected Araminta, "except once, when I had a
+bad cold."
+
+"That isn't just what I mean, but I'm afraid I can't make you
+understand.  There's a whole world full of big, beautiful things that
+you don't know anything about; great sorrows, great joys, and great
+loves.  Look here, did you ever feel badly about anything?"
+
+"Only--only--" stammered Araminta; "my mother, you know.  She was--was
+married."
+
+"Poor child," said Ralph, beginning to comprehend.  "Have you been
+taught that it's wrong to be married?"
+
+"Why, yes," answered Araminta, confidently.  "It's dreadful.  Aunt
+Hitty isn't married, neither is the minister.  It's very, very wrong.
+Aunt Hitty told my mother so, but she would do it."
+
+There was a long pause.  The little warm hand still rested trustingly
+in Ralph's.  "Listen, dear," he began, clearing his throat; "it isn't
+wrong to be married.  I never before in all my life heard of anybody
+who thought it was.  Something is twisted in Aunt Hitty's mind, or else
+she's taught you that because she's so brutally selfish that she
+doesn't want you ever to be married.  Some people, who are unhappy
+themselves, are so constituted that they can't bear to see anybody else
+happy.  She's afraid of life, and she's taught you to be.
+
+"It's better to be unhappy, Araminta, than never to take any risks.  It
+all lies in yourself at last.  If you're a true, loving woman, and
+never let yourself be afraid, nothing very bad can ever happen to you.
+Aunt Hitty has been unjust to deny you life.  You have the right to
+love and learn and suffer, to make great sacrifices, see great
+sacrifices made for you; to believe, to trust--even to be betrayed.
+It's your right, and it's been kept away from you."
+
+Araminta was very still and her hand was cold.  She moved it uneasily.
+
+"Don't, dear," said Ralph, his voice breaking.  "Don't you like to have
+me hold your hand?  I won't, if you don't want me to."
+
+Araminta drew her hand away.  She was frightened.
+
+"I don't wonder you're afraid," continued Ralph, huskily.  "You little
+wild bird, you've been in a cage all your life.  I'm going to open the
+door and set you free."
+
+Miss Evelina tapped gently on the door, then entered, with a bowl of
+broth for the invalid.  She set it down on the table at the head of the
+bed, and went out, as quietly as she had come.
+
+"I'm going to feed you now," laughed Ralph, with a swift change of
+mood, "and when I come to see you to-morrow, I'm going to bring you a
+book."
+
+"What kind of a hook?" asked Araminta, between spoonfuls.
+
+"A novel--a really, truly novel."
+
+"You mustn't!" she cried, frightened again.  "You get burned if you
+read novels."
+
+"Some of them are pretty hot stuff, I'll admit," returned Ralph,
+missing her meaning, "but, of course, I wouldn't give you that kind.
+What sort of stories do you like best?"
+
+"Daniel in the lions' den and about the ark.  I've read all the Bible
+twice to Aunt Hitty while she sewed, and most of the _Pilgrim's
+Progress_, too.  Don't ask me to read a novel, for I can't.  It would
+be wicked."
+
+"All right--we won't call it a novel.  It'll be just a story book.  It
+isn't wrong to read stories, is it?"
+
+"No-o," said Araminta, doubtfully.  "Aunt Hitty never said it was."
+
+"I wouldn't have you do anything wrong, Araminta--you know that.
+Good-bye, now, until to-morrow."
+
+Beset by strange emotions, Doctor Ralph Dexter went home.  Finding that
+the carriage was not in use, he set forth alone upon his feline quest,
+reflecting that Araminta herself was not much more than a little grey
+kitten.  Everywhere he went, he was regarded with suspicion.  People
+denied the possession of cats, even while cats were mewing in defiance
+of the assertion.  Bribes were offered, and sternly refused.
+
+At last, ten miles from home, he found a maltese kitten its owner was
+willing to part with, in consideration of three dollars and a solemn
+promise that the cat was not to be hurt.
+
+"It's for a little girl who is ill," he said.  "I've promised her a
+kitten."
+
+"So your father's often said," responded the woman, "but someway, I
+believe you."
+
+On the way home, he pondered long before the hideous import of it came
+to him.  All at once, he knew.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+The River Comes into its Own
+
+"Father," asked Ralph, "who is Evelina Grey?"
+
+Anthony Dexter started from his chair as though he had heard a pistol
+shot, then settled back, forcing his features into mask-like calmness.
+He waited a moment before speaking.
+
+"I don't know," he answered, trying to make his voice even, "Why?"
+
+"She lives in the house with my one patient," explained Ralph; "up on
+the hill, you know.  She's a frail, ghostly little woman in black, and
+she always wears a thick white veil."
+
+"That's her privilege, isn't it?" queried Anthony Dexter.  He had
+gained control of himself, now, and spoke almost as usual.
+
+"Of course I didn't ask any questions," continued Ralph, thoughtfully,
+"but, obviously, the only reason for her wearing it is some terrible
+disfigurement.  So much is surgically possible in these days that I
+thought something might be done for her.  Has she never consulted you
+about it, Father?"
+
+The man laughed--a hollow, mirthless laugh.  "No," he said; "she
+hasn't."  Then he laughed once more--in a way that jarred upon his son.
+
+Ralph paced back and forth across the room, his hands in his pockets.
+"Father," he began, at length, "it may be because I'm young, but I hold
+before me, very strongly, the ideals of our profession.  It seems a
+very beautiful and wonderful life that is opening before me--always to
+help, to give, to heal.  I--I feel as though I had been dedicated to
+some sacred calling--some lifelong service.  And service means
+brotherhood."
+
+"You'll get over that," returned Anthony Dexter, shortly, yet not
+without a certain secret admiration.  "When you've had to engage a
+lawyer to collect your modest wages for your uplifting work, the healed
+not being sufficiently grateful to pay the healer, and when you've gone
+ten miles in the dead of Winter, at midnight, to take a pin out of a
+squalling infant's back, why, you may change your mind."
+
+"If the healed aren't grateful," observed Ralph, thoughtfully, "it must
+be in some way my fault, or else they haven't fully understood.  And
+I'd go ten miles to take a pin out of a baby's back--yes, I'm sure I
+would."
+
+Anthony Dexter's face softened, almost imperceptibly.  "It's youth," he
+said, "and youth is a fault we all get over soon enough, Heaven knows.
+When you're forty, you'll see that the whole thing is a matter of
+business and that, in the last analysis, we're working against Nature's
+laws.  We endeavour to prolong the lives of the unfit, when only the
+fittest should survive."
+
+"That makes me think of something else," continued Ralph, in a low
+tone.  "Yesterday, I canvassed the township to get a cat for
+Araminta--the poor child never had a kitten.  Nobody would let me have
+one till I got far away from home, and, even then, it was difficult.
+They thought I wanted it for--for the laboratory," he concluded, almost
+in a whisper.
+
+"Yes?" returned Doctor Dexter, with a rising inflection.  "I could have
+told you that the cat and dog supply was somewhat depleted
+hereabouts--through my own experiments."
+
+"Father!" cried Ralph, his face eloquent with reproach.
+
+Laughing, yet secretly ashamed, Anthony Dexter began to speak.
+"Surely, Ralph," he said, "you're not so womanish as that.  If I'd
+known they taught such stuff as that at my old Alma Mater, I'd have
+sent you somewhere else.  Who's doing it?  What old maid have they
+added to their faculty?"
+
+"Oh, I know, Father," interrupted Ralph, waiving discussion.  "I've
+heard all the arguments, but, unfortunately, I have a heart.  I don't
+know by what right we assume that human life is more precious than
+animal life; by what right we torture and murder the fit in order to
+prolong the lives of the unfit, even if direct evidence were obtainable
+in every case, which it isn't.  Anyhow, I can't do it, I never have
+done it, and I never will.  I recognise your individual right to shape
+your life in accordance with the dictates of your own conscience, but,
+because I'm your son, I can't help being ashamed.  A man capable of
+torturing an animal, no matter for what purpose, is also capable of
+torturing a fellow human being, for purposes of his own."
+
+Anthony Dexter's face suddenly blanched with anger, then grew livid.
+"You--" he began, hotly.
+
+"Don't, Father,"  interrupted Ralph.  "We'll not have any words.  We'll
+not let a difference of opinion on any subject keep us from being
+friends.  Perhaps it's because I'm young, as you say, but, all the time
+I was at college, I felt that I had something to lean on, some standard
+to shape myself to.  Mother died so soon after I was born that it is
+almost as if I had not had a mother.  I haven't even a childish memory
+of her, and, perhaps for that reason, you meant more to me than the
+other fellows' fathers did to them.
+
+"When I was tempted to any wrongdoing, the thought of you always held
+me back.  'Father wouldn't do it,' I said to myself.  'Father always
+does the square thing, and I'm his son.'  I remembered that our name
+means 'right.'  So I never did it."
+
+"And I suppose, now," commented Anthony Dexter, with assumed sarcasm,
+"your idol has fallen?"
+
+"Not fallen, Father.  Don't say that.  You have the same right to your
+opinions that I have, but it isn't square to cut up an animal alive,
+just because you're the stronger and there's no law to prevent you.
+You know it isn't square!"
+
+In the accusing silence, Ralph left the room, and was shortly on his
+way uphill, with Araminta's promised cat mewing in his coat pocket.
+
+The grim, sardonic humour of the situation appealed strongly to Doctor
+Dexter.  "To think," he said to himself, "that only last night, that
+identical cat was observed as a fresh and promising specimen,
+providentially sent to me in the hour of need.  And if I hadn't wanted
+Ralph to help me, Araminta's pet would at this moment have been on the
+laboratory table, having its heart studied--in action."
+
+Repeatedly, he strove to find justification for a pursuit which his
+human instinct told him had no justification.  His reason was fully
+adequate, but something else failed at the crucial point.  He felt
+definitely uncomfortable and wished that Ralph might have avoided the
+subject.  It was none of his business, anyway.  But then, Ralph himself
+had admitted that.
+
+His experiments were nearly completed along the line in which he had
+been working.  In deference to a local sentiment which he felt to be
+extremely narrow and dwarfing, he had done his work secretly.  He had
+kept the door of the laboratory locked and the key in his pocket.  All
+the doors and windows had been closely barred.  When his subjects had
+given out under the heavy physical strain, he had buried the pitiful
+little bodies himself.
+
+He had counted, rather too surely, on the deafness of his old
+housekeeper, and had also heavily discounted her personal interest in
+his pursuits and her tendency to gossip.  Yet, through this single
+channel had been disseminated information and conjecture which made it
+difficult for Ralph to buy a pet for Araminta.
+
+Anthony Dexter shuddered at his narrow escape.  Suppose Araminta's cat
+had been sacrificed, and he had been obliged to tell Ralph?  One more
+experiment was absolutely necessary.  He was nearly satisfied, but not
+quite.  It would be awkward to have Ralph make any unpleasant
+discoveries, and he could not very well keep him out of the laboratory,
+now, without arousing his suspicion.  Very possibly, a man who would
+torture an animal would also torture a human being, but he was
+unwilling to hurt Ralph.  Consequently, there was a flaw in the
+logic--the boy's reasoning was faulty, unless this might be the
+exception which proved the rule.
+
+Who was Evelina Grey?  He wondered how Ralph had come to ask the
+question.  Suppose he had told him that Evelina Grey was the name of a
+woman who haunted him, night and day!  In her black gown and with her
+burned face heavily veiled, she was seldom out of his mental sight.
+
+All through the past twenty-five years, he had continually told himself
+that he had forgotten.  When the accusing thought presented itself, he
+had invariably pushed it aside, and compelled it to give way to
+another.  In this way, he had acquired an emotional control for which
+he, personally, had great admiration, not observing that his admiration
+of himself was an emotion, and, at that, less creditable than some
+others might have been.
+
+Man walls up a river, and commands it to do his bidding.  Outwardly,
+the river assents to the arrangement, yielding to it with a readiness
+which, in itself, is suspicious, but man, rapt in contemplation of his
+own skill, sees little else.  By night and by day the river leans
+heavily against the dam.  Tiny, sharp currents, like fingers, tear
+constantly at the structure, working always underneath.  Hidden and
+undreamed-of eddies burrow beneath the dam; little river animals
+undermine it, ever so slightly, with tooth and claw.
+
+At last an imperceptible opening is made.  Streams rush down from the
+mountain to join the river; even raindrops lend their individually
+insignificant aid.  All the forces of nature are subtly arrayed against
+the obstruction in the river channel.  Suddenly, with the thunder of
+pent-up waters at last unleashed, the dam breaks, and the structures
+placed in the path by complacent and self-satisfied man are swept on to
+the sea like so much kindling-wood.  The river, at last, has come into
+its own,
+
+A feeling, long controlled, must eventually break its bonds.  Forbidden
+expression, and not spent by expression, it accumulates force.  When
+the dam breaks, the flood is more destructive than the steady, normal
+current ever could have been.  Having denied himself remorse, and
+having refused to meet the fact of his own cowardice, Anthony Dexter
+was now face to face with the inevitable catastrophe.
+
+He told himself that Ralph's coming had begun it, but, in his heart, he
+knew that it was that veiled and ghostly figure standing at twilight in
+the wrecked garden.  He had seen it again on the road, where
+hallucination was less likely, if not altogether impossible.  Then the
+cold and sinuous necklace of discoloured pearls had been laid at his
+door--the pearls which had come first from the depths of the sea, and
+then from the depths of his love.  His love had given up its dead as
+the sea does, maimed past all recognition.
+
+The barrier had been so undermined that on the night of Ralph's return
+he had been on the point of telling Thorpe everything--indeed, nothing
+but Ralph's swift entrance had stopped his impassioned speech.  Was he
+so weak that only a slight accident had kept him from utter
+self-betrayal, after twenty-five years of magnificent control?  Anthony
+Dexter liked that word "magnificent" as it came into his thoughts in
+connection with himself.
+
+"Father wouldn't do it.  Father always does the square thing, and I'm
+his son." Ralph's words returned with a pang unbearably keen.  Had
+Father always done the square thing, or had Father been a coward, a
+despicable shirk?  And what if Ralph should some day come to know?
+
+The man shuddered at the thought of the boy's face--if he knew.  Those
+clear, honest eyes would pierce him through and through, because
+"Father always does the square thing."
+
+Remorsely, the need of confession surged upon him.  There was no
+confessional in his church--he even had no church.  Yet Thorpe was his
+friend.  What would Thorpe tell him to do?
+
+Then Anthony Dexter laughed, for Thorpe had unconsciously told him what
+to do--and he was spared the confession.  As though written in letters
+of fire, the words came back:
+
+
+_The honour of the spoken word still holds him.  He asked her to marry
+him, and she consented.  He was never released from his promise--did
+not even ask for it.  He slunk away like a cur.  In the sight of God he
+is hound to her by his own word still.  He should go to her and either
+fulfil his promise, or ask for release.  The tardy fulfilment of his
+promise would be the only atonement he could make_.
+
+
+Had Evelina come back to demand atonement?  Was this why the vision of
+her confronted him everywhere?  She waited for him on the road in
+daylight, mocked him from the shadows, darted to meet him from every
+tree.  She followed him on the long and lonely ways he took to escape
+her, and, as he walked, her step chimed in with his.
+
+In darkness, Anthony Dexter feared to turn suddenly, lest he see that
+black, veiled figure at his heels.  She stood aside on the stairs to
+let him pass her, entered the carriage with him and sat opposite, her
+veiled face averted.  She stood with him beside the sick-bed, listened,
+with him, to the heart-beats when he used the stethoscope, waited while
+he counted the pulse and measured the respiration.
+
+Always disapprovingly, she stood in the background of his
+consciousness.  When he wrote a prescription, his pencil seemed to
+catch on the white chiffon which veiled the paper he was using.  At
+night, she stood beside his bed, waiting.  In his sleep, most often
+secured in these days by drugs, she steadfastly and unfailingly came.
+She spoke no word; she simply followed him, veiled--and the phantom
+presence was driving him mad.  He admitted it now.
+
+And "Father always does the square thing."  Very well, what was the
+square thing?  If Father always does it, he will do it now.  What is it?
+
+Anthony Dexter did not know that he asked the question aloud.  From the
+silence vibrated the answer in Thorpe's low, resonant tones:
+
+_The honour of the spoken word still holds him . . .  he was never
+released . . .  he slunk away like a cur . . . in the sight of God he
+is bound to her by his own word still_.
+
+Bound to her!  In every fibre of his being he felt the bitter truth.
+He was bound to her--had been bound for twenty-five years--was bound
+now.  And "Father always does the square thing."
+
+Once in a man's life, perhaps, he sees himself as he is.  In a blinding
+flash of insight, he saw what he must do.  Confession must be made, but
+not to any pallid priest in a confessional, not to Thorpe, nor to
+Ralph, but to Evelina, herself.
+
+_He should go to her and either fulfil his promise, or ask for release.
+The tardy fulfilment of his promise would be the only atonement he
+could make_.
+
+Then again, still in Thorpe's voice:
+
+_If the woman is here and you can find your friend, we may help him to
+wash the stain of cowardice off his soul_.
+
+"The stain is deep," muttered Anthony Dexter.  "God knows it is deep."
+
+Once again came Thorpe's voice, shrilling at him, now, out of the
+vibrant silence:
+
+_Sometimes I think there is no sin but shirking.  I can excuse a liar,
+I can pardon a thief, I can pity a murderer, but a shirk--no_!
+
+"Father always does the square thing."
+
+Evidently, Ralph would like to have his father bring him a
+stepmother--a woman whose face had been destroyed by fire--and place
+her at the head of his table, veiled or not, as Ralph chose.  Terribly
+burned, hopelessly disfigured, she must live with them always--because
+she had saved him from the same thing, if she had not actually saved
+his life.
+
+The walls of the room swayed, the furniture moved dizzily, the floor
+undulated.  Anthony Dexter reeled and fell--in a dead faint.
+
+
+"Are you all right now, Father?"  It was Ralph's voice, anxious, yet
+cheery.  "Who'd have thought I'd get another patient so soon!"
+
+Doctor Dexter sat up and rubbed his eyes.  Memory returned slowly;
+strength more slowly still.
+
+"Can't have my Father fainting all over the place without a permit,"
+resumed Ralph.  "You've been doing too much.  I take the night work
+from this time on."
+
+The day wore into late afternoon.  Doctor Dexter lay on the couch in
+the library, the phantom Evelina persistently at his side.  His body
+had failed, but his mind still fought, feebly.
+
+"There is no one here," he said aloud.  "I am all alone.  I can see
+nothing because there is nothing here."
+
+Was it fancy, or did the veiled woman convey the impression that her
+burned lips distorted themselves yet further by a smile?
+
+At dusk, there was a call.  Ralph received from his father a full
+history of the case, with suggestions for treatment in either of two
+changes that might possibly have taken place, and drove away.
+
+The loneliness was keen.  The empty house, shorne of Ralph's sunny
+presence, was unbearable.  A thousand memories surged to meet him; a
+thousand voices leaped from the stillness.  Always, the veiled figure
+stood by him, mutely accusing him of shameful cowardice.  Above and
+beyond all was Thorpe's voice, shrilling at him:
+
+_The honour of the spoken word still holds him . . . he was never
+released . . . he slunk away like a cur . . .  he is bound to her still
+. . . there is no sin but shirking_ . . .
+
+Over and over again, the words rang through his consciousness.  Then,
+like an afterclap of thunder:
+
+_Father always does the square thing_!
+
+The dam crashed, the barrier of years was broken, the obstructions were
+swept out to sea.  Remorse and shame, no longer denied, overwhelmingly
+submerged his soul.  He struggled up from the couch blindly, and went
+out--broken in body, crushed in spirit, yet triumphantly a man at last.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+A Little Hour of Triumph
+
+Miss Evelina sat alone in her parlour, which was now spotlessly clean.
+Araminta had had her supper, her bath, and her clean linen--there was
+nothing more to do until morning.  The hard work had proved a blessing
+to Miss Evelina; her thoughts had been constantly forced away from
+herself.  She had even learned to love Araminta with the protecting
+love which grows out of dependence, and, at the same time, she felt
+herself stronger; better fitted, as it were, to cope with her own grief.
+
+Since coming back to her old home, her thought and feeling had been
+endlessly and painfully confused.  She sat in her low rocker with her
+veil thrown back, and endeavoured to analyse herself and her
+surroundings, to see, if she might, whither she was being led.  She was
+most assuredly being led, for she had not come willingly, nor remained
+willingly; she had been hurt here as she had not been hurt since the
+very first, and yet, if a dead heart can be glad of anything, she was
+glad she had come.  Upon the far horizon of her future, she dimly saw
+change.
+
+She had that particular sort of peace which comes from the knowledge
+that the worst is over; that nothing remains.  The last drop of
+humiliation had been poured from her cup the day she met Anthony Dexter
+on the road and had been splashed with mud from his wheels as he drove
+by.  It was inconceivable that there should be more.
+
+Dusk came and the west gleamed faintly.  The afterglow merged into the
+first night and at star-break, Venus blazed superbly on high, sending
+out rays mystically prismatic, as from some enchanted lamp.  "Our
+star," Anthony Dexter had been wont to call it, as they watched for it
+in the scented dusk.  For him, perhaps, it had been indeed the
+love-star, but she had followed it, with breaking heart, into the
+quicksands.
+
+To shut out the sight of it, Miss Evelina closed the blinds and lighted
+a candle, then sat down again, to think.
+
+There was a dull, uncertain rap at the door.  Doctor Ralph,
+possibly--he had sometimes come in the evening,--or else Miss Hitty,
+with some delicacy for Araminta's breakfast.
+
+Drawing down her veil, she went to the door and opened it, thinking, as
+she did so, that lives were often wrecked or altered by the opening or
+closing of a door.
+
+Anthony Dexter brushed past her and strode into the parlour.  Through
+her veil, she would scarcely have recognised him--he was so changed.
+Upon the instant, there was a transformation in herself.  The
+suffering, broken-hearted woman was strangely pushed aside--she could
+come again, but she must step aside now.  In her place arose a veiled
+vengeance, emotionless, keen, watchful; furtively searching for the
+place to strike.
+
+"Evelina," began the man, without preliminary, "I have come back.  I
+have come to tell you that I am a coward--a shirk."
+
+Miss Evelina laughed quietly in a way that stung him.  "Yes?" she said,
+politely.  "I knew that.  You need not have troubled to come and tell
+me."
+
+He winced.  "Don't," he muttered.  "If you knew how I have suffered!"
+
+"I have suffered myself," she returned, coldly, wondering at her own
+composure.  She marvelled that she could speak at all.
+
+"Twenty-five years ago," he continued in a parrot-like tone, "I asked
+you to marry me, and you consented.  I have never been released from my
+promise--I did not even ask to be.  I slunk away like a cur.  The
+honour of the spoken word still holds me.  The tardy fulfilment of my
+promise is the only atonement I can make."
+
+The candle-light shone on his iron-grey hair, thinning at the temples;
+touched into bold relief every line of his face.
+
+"Twenty-five years ago," said Evelina, in a voice curiously low and
+distinct, "you asked me to marry you, and I consented.  You have never
+been released from your promise--you did not even ask to be."  The
+silence was vibrant; literally tense with emotion.  Out of it leaped,
+with passionate pride: "I release you now!"
+
+"No!" he cried.  "I have come to fulfil my promise--to atone, if
+atonement can be made!"
+
+"Do you call your belated charity atonement?  Twenty-five years ago, I
+saved you from death--or worse.  One of us had to be burned, and it was
+I, instead of you.  I chose it, not deliberately, but instinctively,
+because I loved you.  When you came to the hospital, after three
+days----"
+
+"I was ill," he interrupted.  "The gas----"
+
+"You were told," she went on, her voice dominating his, "that I had
+been so badly burned that I would be disfigured for life.  That was
+enough for you.  You never asked to see me, never tried in any way to
+help me, never sent by a messenger a word of thanks for your cowardly
+life, never even waited to be sure it was not a mistake.  You simply
+went away."
+
+"There was no mistake," he muttered, helplessly.  "I made sure."
+
+He turned his eyes away from her miserably.  Through his mind came
+detached fragments of speech.  _The honour of the spoken word still
+holds him . . . Father always does the square thing_ . . .
+
+"I am asking you," said Anthony Dexter, "to be my wife.  I am offering
+you the fulfilment of the promise I made so long ago.  I am asking you
+to marry me, to live with me, to be a mother to my son."
+
+"Yes," repeated Evelina, "you ask me to marry you.  Would you have a
+scarred and disfigured wife?  A man usually chooses a beautiful woman,
+or one he thinks beautiful, to sit at the head of his table, manage his
+house, take the place of a servant when it is necessary, accept gladly
+what money he chooses to give her, and bear and rear his children.
+Poor thing that I am, you offer me this.  In return, I offer you
+release.  I gave you your life once, I give you freedom now.  Take your
+last look at the woman who would not marry you to save you from--hell!"
+
+The man started forward, his face ashen, for she had raised her veil,
+and was standing full in the light.
+
+In the tense silence he gazed at her, fascinated.  Every emotion that
+possessed him was written plainly on his face for her to read.  "The
+night of realisation," she was saying, "turned my hair white.  Since I
+left the hospital, no human being has seen my face till now.  I think
+you understand--why?"
+
+Anthony Dexter breathed hard; his body trembled.  He was suffering as
+the helpless animals had suffered on the table in his laboratory.
+Evelina was merciless, but at last, when he thought she had no pity,
+she lowered her veil.
+
+The length of chiffon fell between them eternally; it was like the
+closing of a door.  "I understand," he breathed, "oh, I understand.  It
+is my punishment--you have scored at last.  Good----"
+
+A sob drowned the last word.  He took her cold hand in his, and,
+bending over it, touched it with his quivering lips.
+
+"Yes," laughed Evelina, "kiss my hand, if you choose.  Why not?  My
+hand was not burned!"
+
+His face working piteously, he floundered out into the night and
+staggered through the gate as he had come--alone.
+
+The night wind came through the open door, dank and cold.  She closed
+it, then bolted it as though to shut out Anthony Dexter for ever.
+
+It was his punishment, he had said.  She had scored at last.  If he had
+suffered, as he told her he had, the sight of her face would be
+torture.  Yes, Evelina knew that she had scored.  From her hand she
+wiped away tears--a man's hot, terrible tears.
+
+Through the night she sat there, wide-eyed and sleepless, fearlessly
+unveiled.  The chiffon trailed its misty length unheeded upon the
+floor.  The man she had loved was as surely dead to her as though he
+had never been.
+
+Anthony Dexter was dead.  True, his body and mind still lived, but he
+was not the man she had loved.  The face that had looked into hers was
+not the face of Anthony Dexter.  It had been cold and calm and cruel,
+until he came to her house.  His eyes were fish-like, and, stirred by
+emotion, he was little less than hideous.
+
+Her suffering had been an obsession--there had been no reason for it,
+not the shadow of an excuse.  A year, as the Piper said, would have
+been long enough for her to grieve.  She saw her long sorrow now as
+something outside of herself, a beast whose prey she had been.  When
+Anthony Dexter had proved himself a coward, she should have thanked God
+that she knew him before it was too late.  And because she was weak in
+body, because her hurt heart still clung to her love for him, she had
+groped in the darkness for more than half of her life.
+
+And now he had come back!  The blood of triumph surged hard.  She loved
+him no longer; then, why was she not free?  Her chains yet lay heavily
+upon her; in the midst of victory, she was still bound.
+
+The night waned.  She was exhausted by stress of feeling and the long
+vigil, but the iron, icy hand that had clasped her .heart so long did
+not for a moment relax its hold.  She went to the window and looked
+out.  Stars were paling, the mysterious East had trembled; soon it
+would be day.
+
+She watched the dawn as though it were for the first time and she was
+privileged to stand upon some lofty peak when "God said: 'Let there be
+light,' and there was light."  The tapestry of morning flamed
+splendidly across the night, reflecting its colour back upon her
+unveiled face.
+
+From far away, in the distant hills, whose summits only as yet were
+touched with dawn, came faint, sweet music--the pipes o' Pan.  She
+guessed that the Piper was abroad with Laddie, in some fantastic spirit
+of sun-worship, and smiled.
+
+Her little hour of triumph was over; her soul was once more back in its
+prison.  The prison house was larger, and different, but it was still a
+prison.  For an instant, freedom had flashed before her and dazed her;
+now it was dark again.
+
+"Why?" breathed Evelina.  "Dear God, why?"
+
+As if in answer, the music came back from the hills in uncertain
+silvery echoes.  "Oh, pipes o' Pan," cried Evelina, choking back a sob,
+"I pray you, find me!  I pray you, teach me joy!"
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+The State of Araminta's Soul
+
+The Reverend Austin Thorpe was in his room at Miss Mehitable's, with a
+pencil held loosely in his wrinkled hand.  On the table before him was
+a pile of rough copy paper, and at the top of the first sheet was
+written, in capitals, the one word: "Hell."  It was underlined, and
+around it he had drawn sundry fantastic flourishes and shadings, but
+the rest of the sheet was blank.
+
+For more than an hour the old man had sat there, his blue, near-sighted
+eyes wandering about the room.  A self-appointed committee from his
+congregation had visited him and requested him to preach a sermon on
+the future abode of the wicked.  The wicked, as the minister gathered
+from the frank talk of the committee, included all who did not belong
+to their own sect.
+
+Try as he might, the minister could find in his heart nothing save
+charity.  Anger and resentment were outside of his nature.  He told
+himself that he knew the world, and had experienced his share of
+injustice, that he had seen sin in all of its hideous phases.  Yet,
+even for the unrepentant sinner, Thorpe had only kindness.
+
+Of one sin only, Thorpe failed in comprehension.  As he had said to
+Anthony Dexter, he could excuse a liar, pardon a thief, and pity a
+murderer, but he had only contempt for a shirk.
+
+Persistently, he analysed and questioned himself, but got no further.
+To him, all sin resolved itself at last into injustice, and he did not
+believe that any one was ever intentionally unjust.  But the
+congregation desired to hear of hell--"as if," thought Thorpe,
+whimsically, "I received daily reports."
+
+With a sigh, he turned to his blank sheet.  "In the earlier stages of
+our belief," he wrote, "we conceived of hell as literally a place of
+fire and brimstone, of eternal suffering and torture.  In the light
+which has come to us later, we perceive that hell is a spiritual state,
+and realise that the consciousness of a sin is its punishment."
+
+Then he tore the sheet into bits, for this was not what his
+congregation wanted; yet it was his sincere belief.  He could not
+stultify himself to please his audience--they must take him as he was,
+or let him go.
+
+Yet the thought of leaving was unpleasant, for he had found work to do
+in a field where, as it seemed to him, he was sorely needed.  His
+parishioners had heard much of punishment, but very little of mercy and
+love.  They were tangled in doctrinal meshes, distraught by quibbles,
+and at swords' points with each other.
+
+He felt that he must in some way temporise, and hold his place until he
+had led his flock to a loftier height.  He had no desire to force his
+opinions upon any one else, but he wished to make clear his own strong,
+simple faith, and spread abroad, if he might, his own perfect trust.
+
+A commanding rap resounded upon his door.  "Come," he called, and Miss
+Mehitable entered.
+
+Thorpe was not subtle, but he felt that this errand was of deeper
+import than usual.  The rustle of her stiffly-starched garments was
+portentous, and there was a set look about her mouth which boded no
+good to anybody.
+
+"Will you sit down?" he asked, offering her his own chair.
+
+"No," snapped Miss Mehitable, "I won't.  What I've got to say, I can
+say standin'.  I come," she announced, solemnly, "from the Ladies' Aid
+Society."
+
+"Yes?" Thorpe's tone was interrogative, but he was evidently not
+particularly interested.
+
+"I'm appointed a committee of one," she resumed, "to say that the
+Ladies' Aid Society have voted unanimously that they want you to preach
+on hell.  The Church is goin' to rack and ruin, and we ain't goin' to
+stand it no longer.  Even the disreputable characters will walk right
+in and stay all through the sermon--Andy Rogers and the rest.  And I
+was particularly requested to ask whether you wished to have us
+understand that you approve of Andy Rogers and his goin's on."
+
+"What," temporised Thorpe, "does Andy Rogers do?"
+
+"For the lands sake!" ejaculated Miss Mehitable.  "Wasn't he drunk four
+months ago and wasn't he caught stealing the Deacon's chickens?  You
+don't mean to tell me you never heard of that?"
+
+"I believe I did hear," returned the minister, in polite recognition of
+the fact that it had been Miss Mehitable's sole conversational topic at
+the time.   "He stole the chickens because he was hungry, and he got
+drunk because he didn't know any better.  I talked with him, and he
+promised me that he would neither steal nor drink any more.  Moreover,
+he earned the money and paid full price for the chickens.  Have you
+heard that he has broken his promise?"
+
+"No I dunno's I have, but he'll do it again if he gets the chance--you
+just see!"
+
+Thorpe drummed idly on the table with his pencil, wishing that Miss
+Mehitable would go.  He had for his fellow-men that deep and abiding
+love which enables one to let other people alone.  He was a
+humanitarian in a broad and admirable sense.
+
+"I was told," said Miss Mehitable, "to get a definite answer."
+
+Thorpe bowed his white head ever so slightly.  "You may tell the
+Ladies' Aid Society, for me, that next Sunday morning I will give my
+congregation a sermon on hell."
+
+"I thought I could make you see the reason in it," remarked Miss
+Mehitable, piously taking credit to herself, "and now that it's
+settled, I want to speak of Araminta."
+
+"She's getting well all right, isn't she?" queried Thorpe, anxiously.
+He had a tender place in his heart for the child.
+
+"That's what I don't know, not bein' allowed to speak to her or touch
+her.  What I do know is that her immortal soul is in peril, now that
+she's taken away from my influence.  I want you to get a permit from
+that black-mailing play-doctor that's curing her, or pretending to, and
+go up and see her.  I guess her pastor has a right to see her, even if
+her poor old aunt ain't.  I want you to find out when she'll be able to
+be moved, and talk to her about her soul, dwellin' particularly on
+hell."
+
+Thorpe bowed again.  "I will be very glad to do anything I can for
+Araminta."
+
+Shortly afterward, he made an errand to Doctor Dexter's and saw Ralph,
+who readily gave him permission to visit his entire clientele.
+
+"I've got another patient," laughed the boy.  "My practice is
+increasing at the rate of one case a month.  If I weren't too
+high-minded to dump a batch of germs into the water supply, I'd have a
+lot more."
+
+"How is Araminta?" asked Thorpe, passing by Ralph's frivolity.
+
+"She's all right," he answered, his sunny face clouding.  "She can go
+home almost any time now.  I hate to send her back into her cage--bless
+her little heart."
+
+It was late afternoon when Thorpe started up the hill, to observe and
+report upon the state of Araminta's soul.  He had struggled vainly with
+his own problem, and had at last decided to read a fiery sermon by one
+of the early evangelists, from a volume which he happened to have.  The
+sermon was lurid with flame, and he thought it would satisfy his
+congregation.  He would preface it with the statement that it was not
+his, but he hoped they would regard it as a privilege to hear the views
+of a man who was, without doubt, wiser and better than he.
+
+Miss Evelina came to the door when he rapped, and at the sight of her
+veiled face, a flood of pity overwhelmed him.  He introduced himself
+and asked whether he might see Araminta.
+
+When he was ushered into the invalid's room, he found her propped up by
+pillows, and her hair was rioting in waves about her flushed face.  A
+small maltese kitten, curled into a fluffy ball, slept on the snowy
+counterpane beside her.  Araminta had been reading the "story book"
+which Doctor Ralph had brought her.
+
+"Little maid," asked the minister, "how is the ankle?"
+
+"It's well, and to-morrow I'm to walk on it for the first time.  Doctor
+Ralph has been so good to me--everybody's been good."
+
+Thorpe picked up the book, which lay face downward, and held it close
+to his near-sighted eyes.  Araminta trembled; she was afraid he would
+take it away from her.
+
+All that day, she had lived in a new land, where men were brave and
+women were fair.  Castle towers loomed darkly purple in the sunset, or
+shone whitely at noon.  Kings and queens, knights and ladies, moved
+sedately across the tapestry, mounted on white chargers with trappings
+of scarlet and gold.  Long lances shimmered in the sun and the armour
+of the knights gave back the light an hundred fold.  Strange music
+sounded in Araminta's ears--love songs and serenades, hymns of battle
+and bugle calls.  She felt the rush of conflict, knew the anguish of
+the wounded, and heard the exultant strains of victory.
+
+And all of it--Araminta had greatly marvelled at this--was done for
+love, the love of man and woman.
+
+A knight in the book had asked the lady of his heart to marry him, and
+she had not seen that she was insulted, nor guessed that he was
+offering her disgrace.  Araminta wondered that the beautiful lady could
+be so stupid, but, of course, she had no Aunt Hitty to set her right.
+Far from feeling shame, the lady's heart had sung for joy, but
+secretly, since she was proud.  Further on, the same beautiful lady had
+humbled her pride for the sake of her love and had asked the gallant
+knight to marry her, since she had once refused to marry him.
+
+"Why, Araminta!" exclaimed Mr. Thorpe, greatly surprised.  "I thought
+Miss Mehitable did not allow you to read novels."
+
+"A novel!  Why, no, Mr. Thorpe, it isn't a novel!  It's just a story
+book.  Doctor Ralph told me so."
+
+Austin Thorpe laughed indulgently.  "A rose by any other name," he
+said, "is--none the less a rose.  Doctor Ralph was right--it is a story
+book, and I am right, too, for it is also a novel."
+
+Araminta turned very pale and her eyes filled with tears.
+
+"Mr. Thorpe," she said, in an anguished whisper, "will I be burned?"
+
+"Why, child, what do you mean?"
+
+"I didn't know it was a novel," sobbed Araminta.  "I thought it was a
+story book.  Aunt Hitty says people who read novels get burned--they
+writhe in hell forever in the lake of fire."
+
+The Reverend Austin Thorpe went to the door and looked out into the
+hall.  No one was in sight.  He closed the door very gently and came
+back to Araminta's bed.  He drew his chair nearer and leaned over her,
+speaking in a low voice, that he might not be heard.
+
+"Araminta, my poor child," he said, "perhaps I am a heretic.  I don't
+know.  But I do not believe that a being divine enough to be a God
+could be human enough to cherish so fiendish a passion as revenge.
+Look up, dear child, look up!"
+
+Araminta turned toward him obediently, but she was still sobbing.
+
+"It is a world of mystery," he went on.  "We do not know why we come
+nor where we go--we only know that we come and that eventually, we go.
+Yet I do not think that any one of us nor any number of us have the
+right to say what the rest of us shall believe.
+
+"I cannot think of Heaven as a place sparsely populated by my own sect,
+with a world of sinners languishing in flames below.  I think of Heaven
+as a sunny field, where clover blooms and birds sing all day.  There
+are trees, with long, cool shadows where the weary may rest; there is a
+crystal stream where they may forget their thirst.  I do not think of
+Heaven as a place of judgment, but rather of pardon and love.
+
+"Punishment there is, undoubtedly, but it has seemed to me that we are
+sufficiently punished here for all we do that is wrong.  We don't
+intend to do wrong, Araminta--we get tired, and things and people worry
+us, and we are unjust.  We are like children afraid in the dark; we
+live in a world of doubting, we are made the slaves of our own fears,
+and so we shirk."
+
+"But the burning," said Araminta, wiping her eyes.  "Is nobody ever to
+be burned?"
+
+"The God I worship," answered Thorpe, passionately, "never could be
+cruel, but there are many gods, it seems, and many strange beliefs.
+Listen, Araminta.  Whom do you love most?"
+
+"Aunt Hitty?" she questioned.
+
+"No, you don't have to say that if it isn't so.  You can be honest with
+me.  Who, of all the world, is nearest to you? Whom would you choose to
+be with you always, if you could have only one?"
+
+"Doctor Ralph!" cried Araminta, her eyes shining.
+
+"I thought so," replied Thorpe.  "I don't know that I blame you.  Now
+suppose Doctor Ralph did things that hurt you; that there was continual
+misunderstanding and distrust.  Suppose he wronged you, cruelly, and
+apparently did everything he could to distress you and make you
+miserable.  Could you condemn him to a lake of fire?"
+
+"Why, no!" she cried.  "I'd know he never meant to do it!"
+
+"Suppose you knew he meant it?" persisted Thorpe, looking at her keenly.
+
+"Then," said Araminta, tenderly, "I'd feel very, very sorry."
+
+"Exactly, and why?  Because, as you say, you love him.  And God is
+love, Araminta.  Do you understand?"
+
+Upon the cramped and imprisoned soul of the child, the light slowly
+dawned.  "God is love," she repeated, "and nobody would burn people
+they loved."
+
+There was an illuminating silence, then Thorpe spoke again.  He told
+Araminta of a love so vast and deep that it could not be measured by
+finite standards; of infinite pity and infinite pardon.  This love was
+everywhere; it was impossible to conceive of a place where it was
+not--it enveloped not only the whole world, but all the shining worlds
+beyond.  And this love, in itself and of itself, was God.
+
+"This," said Araminta, touching the book timidly; "is it bad?"
+
+"Nothing is bad," explained Thorpe, carefully, "which does not harm you
+or some one else.  Of the two, it is better to harm yourself than
+another.  How does the book make you feel?"
+
+"It makes me feel as if the world was a beautiful place, and as if I
+ought to be better, so I could make it still more beautiful by living
+in it."
+
+"Then, Araminta, it is a good book."
+
+Thorpe went down-stairs strangely uplifted.  To him, Truth was not a
+creed, but a light which illumined all creeds.  His soul was aflame
+with eagerness to help and comfort the whole world.  Miss Evelina was
+waiting in the hall, veiled and silent, as always.
+
+She opened the door, but Thorpe lingered, striving vainly for the right
+word.  He could not find it, but he had to speak.
+
+"Miss Evelina," he stammered, the high colour mounting to his temples,
+"if there should ever be anything I can do for you, will you let me
+know?"
+
+She seemed to shrink back into her veil.  "Yes," she said, at length,
+"I will."  Then, fearing she had been ungracious, she added: "Thank
+you."
+
+His mood of exaltation was still upon him, and he wandered long in the
+woods before going home.  His spirit dwelt in the high places, and from
+the height he gained the broad view.
+
+When he entered the house.  Miss Mehitable was waiting for him with a
+torrent of questions.  When he had an opportunity to reply he reported
+that he had seen Doctor Ralph and Araminta could come home almost any
+time, now.  Yes, he had talked with Araminta about her soul, and she
+had cried.  He thought he had done her good by going, and was greatly
+indebted to Miss Mehitable for the suggestion.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+The March of the Days
+
+Out in the garden, the Piper was attending to his belated planting.  He
+had cleared the entire place, repaired the wall, and made flower-beds
+in fantastic shapes that pleased his own fancy.  To-day, he was putting
+in the seeds, while Laddie played about his feet, and Miss Evelina
+stood by, timidly watchful.
+
+"I do not see," she said, "why you take so much trouble to make me a
+garden.  Nobody was ever so good to me before."
+
+The Piper laughed and paused a moment to wipe his ruddy face.  "Did
+nobody ever care before whether or not you had a garden?"
+
+"Never," returned Evelina, sadly.
+
+"Then 't is time some one did, so Laddie and I have come to make it for
+you, but I'm thinking 't is largely for ourselves, too, since the doing
+is the best part of anything."
+
+Miss Evelina made no answer.  Speech did not come easily to her after
+twenty-five years of habitual repression.
+
+"'T will be a brave garden," continued the Piper, cheerily.  "Marigolds
+and larkspur and mignonette; phlox and lad's love, rosemary, lavender,
+and verbena, and many another that you'll not guess till the time comes
+for blossoming."
+
+"Lad's love grew in my garden once," sighed Evelina, after a little.
+"It was sweet while it lasted--oh, but it was sweet!"
+
+She spoke so passionately that the Piper gathered the underlying
+significance of her words.
+
+"You're speaking of another garden, I think," he ventured; "the garden
+in your heart.  "'T is meet that lad's love should grow there.  Are you
+sure 't was not a weed?"
+
+"Yes, it was a weed," she replied, bitterly.  "The mistake was mine."
+
+The Piper leaned on his rake thoughtfully.  "'T is hard, I think," he
+said, "for us to see that the mistakes are all ours.  The Gardener
+plants rightly, but we are never satisfied.  When sweet herbs are meant
+for us, we ask for roses, and 't is not every garden in which a rose
+will bloom.  If we could keep it clean of weeds, and make it free of
+all anger and distrust, there'd be heartsease there instead of thorns."
+
+"Heartsease?" asked Evelina, piteously.  "I thought there was no more!"
+
+"Lady," said the Piper, "there is heartsease for the asking.  I'm
+thinking 't is you who have spoiled your garden."
+
+"No!" cried Evelina.  "Believe me, it was not I!"
+
+"Who else?" queried the Piper, with a look which made her shrink
+farther back into the shelter of her chiffon.  "Ah, I was not asking a
+question that needed an answer; I do not concern myself with names and
+things.  But ask this of yourself--is there sin on your soul?"
+
+"No," she whispered, "unless it be a sin to suffer for twenty-five
+years."
+
+"Another's sin, then? You're grieving because another has done wrong?"
+
+"Because another has done wrong to me." The Piper came to her and laid
+his hand very gently upon hers.  There was reassurance in the friendly,
+human touch.  "'T is there," he said, "that the trouble lies.  'T is
+not for you to suffer because you are wronged, but for the one who has
+wronged you.  He must have been very dear to you, I'm thinking; else
+you would not hide the beauty of your face."
+
+"Beauty?" repeated Evelina, scornfully.  "You do not understand.  I was
+burned--horribly burned."
+
+"Yes," said the Piper, softly, "and what of that? Beauty is of the
+soul."
+
+He went out to the gate and brought in a small, flat box.  "'T is for
+you," he said.  "I got it for you when I went to the city--there was
+none here."
+
+She opened the box, her fingers trembling, and held up length after
+length of misty white chiffon.  "I ask no questions," said the Piper,
+proudly, "but I know that because you are so beautiful, you hide your
+face.  Laddie and I, we got more of the white stuff to help you hide
+it, because you would not let us see how beautiful you are."
+
+The chiffon fluttered in her hand, though there was no wind.  "Why?"
+she asked, in a strange voice; "why did you do this?"
+
+"You gave me a garden," laughed the Piper, "when I had no garden of my
+own, so why should I not get the white stuff for you?  'T was queer,
+the day I got it," he went on, chuckling at the recollection, "for I
+did not know its name.  Every place I went, I asked for white stuff,
+and they showed me many kinds, but nothing like this.  At last I said
+to a young girl: 'What is it that is like a cloud, all white and soft,
+which one can see through, but through which no one can be seen--the
+stuff that ladies wear when they are so beautiful that they do not want
+their faces seen?'  She smiled, and told me it was 'chiffon.'  And
+so--"  A wave of the hand finished his explanation.
+
+After an interval of silence, the Piper spoke again.  "There are chains
+that bind you," he began, "but they are chains of your own forging.  No
+one else can shackle you--you must always do it yourself.  Whatever is
+past is over, and I'm thinking you have no more to do with it than a
+butterfly has with the empty chrysalis from which he came.  The law of
+life is growth, and we cannot linger--we must always be going on.
+
+"You stand alone upon a height," he said, dreamily, "like one in a
+dreary land.  Behind you all is darkness, before you all is darkness;
+there is but one small space of light.  In that one space is a day.
+They come, one at a time, from the night of To-morrow, and vanish into
+the night of Yesterday.
+
+"I have thought of the days as men and women, for a woman's day is not
+at all like a man's.  For you, I think, they first were children, with
+laughing eyes and little, dimpled hands.  One at a time, they came out
+of the darkness, and disappeared into the darkness on the other side.
+Some brought you flowers or new toys and some brought you childish
+griefs, but none came empty-handed.  Each day laid its gift at your
+feet and went on.
+
+"Some brought their gifts wrapped up, that you might have the surprise
+of opening them.  Many a gift in a bright-hued covering turned out to
+be far from what you expected when you were opening it.  Some of the
+happiest gifts were hidden in dull coverings you took off slowly,
+dreading to see the contents.  Some days brought many gifts, others
+only one.
+
+"As the days grew older, some brought you laughter; some gave you light
+and love.  Others came with music and pleasure--and some of them
+brought pain."
+
+"Yes," sighed Evelina, "some brought pain."
+
+"It is of that," went on the Piper, "that I wished to be speaking.  It
+was one day, was it not, that brought you a long sorrow?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Not more than one?  Was it only one day?"
+
+"Yes, only one day,"
+
+"See," said The Piper, gently, "the day came with her gift.   You would
+not let her lay it at your feet and pass on into the darkness of
+Yesterday.  You held her by her grey garments and would not let her go.
+You kept searching her sad eyes to see whether she did not have further
+pain for you.  Why keep her back from her appointed way?  Why not let
+your days go by?"
+
+"The other days," murmured Evelina, "have all been sad."
+
+"Yes, and why?  You were holding fast to one day--the one that brought
+you pain.  So, with downcast eyes they passed you, and carried their
+appointed gifts on into Yesterday, where you can never find them again.
+Even now, the one day you have been holding is struggling to free
+herself from the chains you have put upon her.  You have no right to
+keep a day."
+
+"Should I not keep the gifts?" she asked.  His fancy pleased her.
+
+"The gifts, yes--even the gifts of tears, but never a day.  You cannot
+hold a happy day, for it goes too quickly.  This one sad day that
+marched so slowly by you is the one you chose to hold.  Lady," he
+pleaded, "let her go!"
+
+"The other days," she whispered, brokenly.  "What of them?"
+
+"No man can say.  While you have been holding this one, the others have
+passed you, taking your gifts into Yesterday.  Memory guards Yesterday,
+but there is a veil on the face of To-morrow.  Sometimes I think
+To-morrow is so beautiful that she hides her face."
+
+"God veils her face," cried Evelina, "or else we could not live!"
+
+"Lady," said the Piper, "have you lived so long and never learned this
+simple thing?  Whatever a day may bring you, whatever terrible gifts of
+woe, if you search her closely, you will always find the strength to
+meet her face to face.  Overshadowed by her burden of bitterness, one
+fails to find the balm.  Concealed within her garments or held loosely
+in her hand, she always has her bit of consolation; rosemary in the
+midst of her rue, belief with the doubt, life with the death."
+
+"I found no balm," murmured Evelina, "in the day you say I held."
+
+"Had there been no secret balm, you could never have held her--the
+thorns would have pierced your hands.  Have you not seen that you can
+never have sorrow until you have first had joy?  Happiness is the light
+and sadness the shade.  God sets you right, and you stray from the
+path, into the shadow of the cypress."
+
+"The cypress casts a long shadow," said Evelina, pointing to the tree
+at the gate.
+
+The Piper smiled.  "The shadow of a sorrow is longer than the sorrow,"
+he answered.  "The shadow of one day, with you, has stretched over
+twenty-five years.  'T is approaching night that makes long shadows;
+when life is at noon, they are short.  When life is at its highest,
+there are no shadows at all."
+
+Miss Evelina sighed and leaned uneasily against the wall.
+
+"This, I'm thinking," mused the Piper, "is the inmost truth of
+living--there is always a balance which swings true.  A sorrow is
+precisely equal to a joy, and the shadow can loom no larger unless the
+light slants.  And if you sit always in the sun, the shadow that lies
+behind a joy can be scarcely seen at all."
+
+A faint breath of Spring stirred Miss Evelina's veil.  She caught at it
+and tied the long floating ends about her neck.
+
+"I would not look," said the Piper, softly.  "If your veil should blow
+away, I would close my eyes and feel my way to the gate.  Unless you
+chose to have me see your beauty, I would never ask, nor take advantage
+of an accidental opportunity.  I'm thinking you are very beautiful, but
+you need never be afraid of me."
+
+Miss Evelina did not reply; she only leaned more heavily against the
+wall.
+
+"Lady," he continued, "perhaps you think I do not know.  You may think
+I'm talking blindly, but there are few sorrows in the world that I have
+not seen face to face.  Those I have not had myself, my friends have
+had, and I have been privileged to share with them.  The sorrows of the
+world are not so many--they are few, and, in essence, the same.
+
+"It's very strange, I'm thinking.  The little laughing, creeping days
+go by us, then the awkward ones that bring us the first footsteps, then
+childhood comes, and youth, and then maturity.  But the days have begun
+to grow feeble before one learns how to meet them; how to take the
+gifts humbly, scorning none, and how to make each day give up its
+secret balm.  Memory, the angel who stands at the portal of Yesterday,
+has always an inscrutable smile.  She keeps for us so many things that
+we would be glad to spare, and pushes headlong into Yesterday so much
+that we fain would keep.  I do not yet know all the ways of Memory--I
+only know that she means to be kind."
+
+"Kind!" repeated Evelina.  Her tone was indescribably bitter.
+
+"Yes," returned the Piper, "Memory means to be kind--she is kind.  I
+have said that I do not know her ways, but of that I am sure.  Lady, I
+would that you could let go of the day you are holding back.  Cast her
+from you, and let her go into the Yesterday from which you have kept
+her so long.  Perhaps Memory will be kinder to you then, for, remember,
+she stands at the gate."
+
+"I cannot," breathed Evelina.  "I have tried and I cannot let her go!"
+
+"Yes," said the Piper, very gently, "you can.  'T is that, I'm
+thinking, that has set your life all wrong.  Unclasp your hands from
+her rough garments, cease to question her closed eyes.  Take her gift
+and the balm that infallibly comes with it; meet To-day with kindness
+and To-morrow with a brave heart.  Oh, Spinner in the Shadow," he
+cried, his voice breaking, "I fain would see you a Spinner in the Sun!"
+
+"No," she sighed, "I have been in the dark too long.  There is no light
+for me."
+
+"There is light," he insisted.  "When you admit the shadow, you have at
+the same time acknowledged the light."
+
+Evelina shook her head.  "Too late," she said, despairingly; "it is too
+late."
+
+"Ah," cried the Piper, "if you could only trust me!  I have helped many
+a soul into the sun again."
+
+"I trusted," said Evelina, "and my trust was betrayed."
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I know.  I have trusted, too, and I have been
+betrayed, also, but I know that the one who wronged me must suffer more
+than I."
+
+She laughed; a wild, fantastic laugh.  "The one who wronged me," she
+said, "has not suffered at all.  He married in a year."
+
+"There are different ways of suffering," he explained.  "With a woman,
+it is most often spread out over a long period.  The quick, clean-cut
+stroke is seldom given to a woman--she suffers less and longer than a
+man.  With him, I'm thinking, it has come, or will come, all at once."
+
+"If it does," she cried, her frail body quivering, "what a day for him,
+oh, what a day!"
+
+Her voice was trembling with the hideous passion for revenge, and the
+Piper read her, unerringly.  "Lady," he said, sadly, "'t is a long way
+to the light, but I'm here to help | you find it.  We'll be going now.
+Laddie and I, but we'll come back soon."
+
+He whistled to the dog and the two went off downhill together.  She
+watched him from the gate until the bobbing red feather turned a corner
+at the foot of the hill, and the cheery whistle had ceased.
+
+The stillness was acute, profound.  It was so deep that it seemed
+positive, rather than negative.  She went back into the house, her
+steps dragging painfully.
+
+As in a vision she saw the days passing her while she stood upon a
+height.  All around her were bare rocks and fearful precipices; there
+was nothing but a narrow path in front.  Day by day, they came,
+peacefully, contentedly; till at last dawned that terrible one which
+had blasted her life.  Was it true that she still held that day by the
+garment, and could not unclasp her hands?
+
+One by one they had passed her, leaving no gifts, because she still
+clung to one.  If she could let go, what gifts would the others bring?
+Joy?  Never--there was no joy in the world for her.
+
+Sometime that mystical procession must come to an end.  When the last
+day passed on, she would follow, too, and go into the night of
+Yesterday, where, perhaps, there was peace.  As never before, she
+craved the last gift, praying to see the uplifted head and stately
+figure of the last Day--grave, silent, unfathomable, tender; the Day
+with the veiled face, bearing white poppies in her hands.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+Loved by a Dog
+
+Anthony Dexter sat on the porch in front of his house, alone.  Ralph
+had been out since early morning, attending to his calls.  It was the
+last of April and the trees were brave in their panoply of new leaves.
+Birds were singing and the very air was eloquent with new life.
+
+Between Anthony Dexter and the lilac bush at the gate, there moved
+perpetually the black, veiled figure of Evelina Grey.  He knew she was
+not there and he was fully certain of the fact that it was an
+hallucination, but his assurance had not done away with the phantom.
+
+How mercilessly she followed him!  Since the night he had flung himself
+out of her house, tortured in every nerve, she had not for a moment
+left him.  When he walked through the house, she followed him, her
+stealthy footfall sounding just the merest fraction of a second after
+his.  He avoided the bare polished floors and walked on the rugs
+whenever possible, that he might not hear that soft, slow step so
+plainly.  Ralph had laughed at him, once, for taking a long, awkward
+jump from rug to rug.
+
+Within the line of his vision she moved horizontally, but never back
+and forth.  Sometimes her veiled face was averted, and sometimes,
+through the eternal barrier of chiffon, he could feel her burning eyes
+fixed pitilessly upon his.
+
+He never slept, now, without drugs.  Gradually he had increased the
+dose, but to no purpose.  Evelina haunted his sleep endlessly and he
+had no respite.  Through the dull stupor of the night, she was never
+for a moment absent, and in every horrible dream, she stood in the
+foreground, mute, solitary, accusing.
+
+He was fully aware of the fact that he was in the clutches of a drug
+addiction, but that was nothing to be feared in comparison with his
+veiled phantom.  He had exhausted the harmless soporifics long ago, and
+turned, perforce, to the swift and deadly ministers of forgetfulness.
+
+The veiled figure moved slowly back and forth across the yard, lifting
+its skirts daintily to avoid a tiny pool of water where a thirsty robin
+was drinking.  The robin, evidently, did not fear Evelina.  He could
+hear the soft, slow footfalls on the turf, and the echo of three or
+four steps upon the brick walk, when she crossed.  She kept carefully
+within the line of his vision; he did not have to turn his head to see
+her.  When he did turn his head, she moved with equal swiftness.  Not
+for a single pitying instant was she out of his sight.
+
+Farther on, doubtless, as he thought, she would come closer.  She might
+throw back her veil as she had done on that terrible night, or lay her
+cold hand on his--she might even speak to him.  What hideous
+conversations they might have--he and the woman he had once loved and
+to whom he was still bound!  Anthony Dexter knew now that even his
+marriage had not released him and that Evelina had held him, through
+all the five-and-twenty years.
+
+Such happiness as he had known had been purely negative.  The thrill of
+joyous life had died, for him, the day he took Evelina into the
+laboratory.  He was no longer capable of caring for any one except
+Ralph.  The remnant of his cowardly heart was passionately and wholly
+given to his son.
+
+He meditated laying his case before Ralph.  as one physician to
+another, then the inmost soul of him shuddered at the very thought.
+Rather than have Ralph know, he would die a thousand deaths.  He would
+face the uttermost depths of hell, rather than see those clear, honest
+eyes fixed upon him in judgment.
+
+He might go to the city to see a specialist--it would be an easy matter
+to accomplish, and Ralph would gladly attend to his work.  Yes, he
+might go--he and Evelina.  He could go to a brother physician and say:
+
+"This woman haunts me.  She saved my life and continually follows me.
+I want her kept away.  What, do you not see her, too?"
+
+Anthony Dexter laughed harshly, and fancied that the veiled figure
+paused slightly at the sound.  "No," he said, aloud, "you need not
+prepare for travel, Evelina.  We shall not go to the city--you and I."
+
+That was his mate, walking in his garden before him, veiled.  She was
+his and he was hers.  They were mated as two atoms of hydrogen and one
+of oxygen, forming a molecule of water.  All these years, her suffering
+had reacted upon him, kept him from being happy, and made him fight
+continually to keep her out of his remembrance.  For having kept her
+out, he was paying, now, with compound interest.
+
+Upon a lofty spire of granite stands a wireless telegraph instrument.
+Fogs are thick about it, wild surges crash in the unfathomable depths
+below; the silence is that of chaos, before the first day of creation.
+Out of the emptiness, a world away, comes a message.  At the first
+syllable, the wireless instrument leaps to answer its mate.  With the
+universe between them, those two are bound together, inextricably,
+eternally bound.  One may fancy that a disorder in one might cause
+vague unrest in the other.  In like manner, Evelina's obsession had
+preyed upon Anthony Dexter for twenty-five years.  Now, the line was at
+work again and there was an unceasing flow of communication.
+
+Perhaps, if he had the strength, he might learn to ignore the phantom
+as he had ignored memory.  Eventually, he might be able to put aside
+the eternal presence as he had put aside his own cowardice.  There was
+indefinite comfort in the thought.
+
+Having preached the gospel of work for so long, he began to apply it to
+himself.  Work was undoubtedly what he needed--the one thing which
+could set him right again.  After a little, he could make the rounds
+with Ralph, and dwell constantly in the boy's sunny presence.  In the
+meantime, there was his paper, for the completion of which one more
+experiment was absolutely essential.
+
+He stirred uneasily in his chair.  He wished that Ralph had not been so
+womanish, or else that he had more diplomatically concealed his own
+opinions, to which, indeed, Ralph had admitted his right.  Condemnation
+from Ralph was the one thing he could not bear, but, after all, was it
+needful that Ralph should know?
+
+The experiment would not take long, as he wished to satisfy himself on
+but one minor point.  It could be done, easily, while Ralph was out
+upon his daily round.  Behind the lilac bushes there was yet room for
+one more tiny grave.
+
+One more experiment, and then, in deference to Ralph's foolish,
+effeminate sentiments, he would give it up.  One more heart in action,
+the conclusion of his brilliant paper, and then--why, he would be
+willing to devote the rest of his life, in company with Ralph, to
+curing whooping-cough, measles, and mumps.
+
+The veiled figure still paced restlessly back and forth, now on the
+turf and now on the brick walk.  He closed his eyes, but he still saw
+Evelina and noted the slight difference of sound in her footfalls as
+she crossed the walk.  He heard the swish of her skirts as she lifted
+them when she passed the pool of water--was it possible that his
+hearing was becoming more keen?  He was sure that he had not heard it
+from that distance before.
+
+
+It was certainly an inviting yard and the gate stood temptingly ajar.
+The gravelled highway was rough for a little dog's feet, and Laddie and
+the Piper had travelled far.  For many a mile, there had been no water,
+and in this cool, green yard, there was a small pool.  Laddie whined
+softly and nosed the gate farther open.
+
+A man sat on the porch, but he was asleep--anyhow, his eyes were
+closed.  Perhaps he had a dog of his own.  At any rate, he could not
+object to a tired yellow mongrel quenching his thirst at his pool.  The
+Piper had gone on without observing that his wayworn companion had
+stopped.
+
+Except for a mob of boys who had thrown stones at him and broken his
+leg, humans had been kind to Laddie.  It had been a human, Piper Tom,
+in fact, who had rescued him from the boys and made his leg good again.
+Laddie cherished no resentment against the mob, for he had that eternal
+forgiveness of blows and neglect which lives in the heart of the
+commonest cur.
+
+Opening his eyes, Anthony Dexter noted that a small, rough-coated
+yellow dog was drinking eagerly at the pool of water past which Evelina
+continually moved.  She went by twice while the dog was drinking, but
+he took no notice of her.  Neither robins nor dogs seemed to fear
+Evelina--it was only men, or, to be exact, one man, who had hitherto
+feared nothing save self-analysis.
+
+The turf was cool and soft to a little dog's tired feet.  Laddie walked
+leisurely toward the shrubbery, where there was deep and quiet shade.
+Under the lilac bush, he lay down to rest, but was presently on his
+feet again, curiously exploring the place.
+
+He sniffed carefully at the ground behind the lilac bushes, and the
+wiry hair on his back bristled.  There was something uncanny about it,
+and a guarding instinct warned him away.  But what was this that lay on
+the ground, so soaked with rains that, in the shade, it had not yet
+dried?  Laddie dragged it out into the sunlight to see.
+
+It was small and square and soft on the outside, yet hard within.
+Except for the soft, damp outer covering, it might have been the block
+of pine with which Piper Tom and he would play by the hour.  The Piper
+would throw the block of wood far from him, sometimes even into the
+water, and Laddie would race after it, barking gaily.  When he brought
+it back, he was rewarded with a pat on the head, or, sometimes, a bone.
+Always, there would be friendly talk.  Perhaps the man on the porch had
+thrown this, and was waiting for him to bring it back.
+
+Laddie took the mysterious thing carefully in his strong jaws, and
+trotted exultantly up to the porch, wagging his stub of a tail.
+Strangely enough, just at the steps, the thing opened, and something
+small and cold and snake-like slipped out.  The man could scarcely have
+seen the necklace of discoloured pearls before, with an oath, he rose
+to his feet, and, firmly holding Laddie under his arm, strode into the
+house, entering at the side door.
+
+The Piper had reached home before he missed his dog.  He waited a
+little, then called, but there was no answer.  It was not like Laddie
+to stray, for he was usually close at his master's heels.
+
+"Poor little man," said the Piper to himself, "I'm thinking we went too
+far."
+
+He retraced his steps over the dusty road, searching the ground.  He
+discovered that Laddie's tracks ended in the road near Doctor Dexter's
+house, and turned toward the gate.  Tales of mysterious horrors,
+vaguely hinted at, came back to him now with ominous force.  He
+searched the yard carefully, looking in every nook and corner, then a
+cry of anguish reached his ears.
+
+Great beads of sweat stood out upon Piper Tom's forehead, as he burst
+in at the laboratory door.  On a narrow table, tightly strapped down,
+lay Laddie, fully conscious, his faithful heart laid bare.  The odour
+of anesthetics was so faint as to be scarcely noticeable.  At the dog's
+side stood Doctor Dexter, in a blood-stained linen coat, with a pad of
+paper and a short pencil in his white, firm hands.  He was taking notes.
+
+With infinite appeal in his agonised eyes, Laddie recognised his
+master, who at last had come too late.  Piper Tom seized the knife from
+the table, and, with a quick, clean stroke, ended the torture.  Doctor
+Dexter looked up, his mask-like face wearing an expression of insolent
+inquiry.
+
+"Man," cried the Piper, his voice shaking, "have you never been loved
+by a dog?"
+
+The silence was tense, but Doctor Dexter had taken out his watch, and
+was timing the spasmodic pulsations of the heart he had been so
+carefully studying.
+
+"Aye," said the Piper, passionately, "watch it till the last--you
+cannot hurt him now.  'T is the truest heart in all the world save a
+woman's, and you do well to study it, having no heart of your own.  A
+poor beast you are, if a dog has never loved you.  Take your pencil and
+write down on the bit of paper you have there that you've seen the
+heart of a dog.  Write down that you've seen the heart of one who left
+his own kind to be with you, to fight for you, even against them.
+Write down that 't is a good honest heart with red blood in it, that
+never once failed and never could fail.
+
+"When a man's mother casts him off, when his wife forsakes him, when
+his love betrays him, his dog stays true.  When he's poor and his
+friends pass him by on the other side of the street, looking the other
+way, his dog fares with him, ready to starve with him for very love of
+him.  'T is a man and his dog, I'm thinking, against the whole world.
+
+"This little lad here was only a yellow mongrel, there was no fine
+blood in him; he couldn't bring in the birds nor swim after the ducks
+men kill to amuse themselves.  He was worth no high price to
+anybody--nobody wanted him but me.  When I took him away from the boys
+who were hurting him, and set his poor broken leg as best I could, he
+knew me for his master and claimed me then.
+
+"He's walked with me through four States and never whined.  He's gone
+without food for days at a time, and never complained.  He's been cold
+and hungry, and we've slept together, more than once, on the ground in
+the snow, with only one blanket between us.  He's kept me from freezing
+to death with his warm body, he's suffered from thirst the same as I,
+and never so much as whimpered.  We've been comrades and we've fared
+together, as only man and dog may fare.
+
+"When every man's face was set against you, did you never have a dog to
+trust you?  When there was never a man nor a woman you could call your
+friend, did a dog never come to you and lick your hand?  When you've
+been bent with grief you couldn't stand up under, did a dog never come
+to you and put his cold nose on your face?  Did a dog never reach out a
+friendly paw to tell you that you were not alone--that it was you two
+together?
+
+"When you've come home alone late at night, tired to death with the
+world and its ways, was there never a dog to greet you with his bark of
+welcome?  Did a dog never sit where you told him to sit, and guard your
+property till you came back, though it might be hours?  When you could
+trust no man to guard your treasures, could you never trust a dog?
+Man, man, the world has fair been cruel if you've never known the love
+of a dog!
+
+"I've heard these things of you, but I thought folks were prattling, as
+folks will, but dogs never do.  I thought they were lying about
+you--that such things couldn't be true.  They said you were cutting up
+dogs to learn more of people, and I'm thinking, if we're so much alike
+as that, 't is murder to kill a dog."
+
+"You killed him," said Anthony Dexter, speaking for the first time.  "I
+didn't."
+
+"Yes," answered the Piper, "I killed him, but 't was to keep him from
+being hurt.  I'd do the same for a man or a woman, if there was need.
+If 't was a child you had tied down here with your blood-stained
+straps, cut open to see an innocent heart, your own being black past
+all pardon, I'd do the same for the child and all the more quickly if
+it was my own.  I never had a child--I've never had a woman to love me,
+but I've been loved by a dog.  I've thought that even yet I might know
+the love of a woman, for a man who deserves the love of a dog is worthy
+of a woman, and a man who will torture a dog will torture a woman, too.
+
+"Laddie," said the Piper, laying his hand upon the blood-stained body,
+"no man ever had a truer comrade, and I'll not insult your kind by
+calling this brute a cur.  Laddie, it was you and I, and now it's I
+alone.  Laddie--" here the Piper's voice broke, and, taking up the
+knife again, he cut the straps.  With the tears raining down his face,
+he stumbled out of the laboratory, the mutilated body of his pet in his
+arms.
+
+
+Anthony Dexter looked after him curiously.  The mask-like expression of
+his face was slightly changed.  In a corner of the laboratory, seeming
+to shrink from him, stood the phantom black figure, closely veiled.
+Out of the echoing stillness came the passionate accusation: "A man who
+will torture a dog will torture a woman, too."
+
+He carefully removed the blood stains from the narrow table, and pushed
+it back in its place, behind a screen.  The straps were cut, and
+consequently useless, so he wrapped them up in a newspaper and threw
+them into the waste basket.  He cleaned his knife with unusual care,
+and wiped an ugly stain from his forceps.
+
+Then he took off his linen coat, folded it up, and placed it in the
+covered basket which held soiled linen from the laboratory.  He washed
+his hands and copied the notes he had made, for there was blood upon
+the page.  He tore the original sheet into fine bits, and put the
+pieces into the waste basket.  Then he put on his cuffs and his coat,
+and went out of the laboratory.
+
+He was dazed, and did not see that his own self-torture had filled him
+with primeval lust to torture in return.  He only knew that his
+brilliant paper must remain forever incomplete, since his services to
+science were continually unappreciated and misunderstood.  What was one
+yellow dog, more or less, in the vast economy of Nature?  Was he
+lacking in discernment, because, as Piper Tom said, he had never been
+loved by a dog?
+
+He sat down in the library to collect himself and observed, with a
+curious sense of detachment, that Evelina was walking in the hall
+instead of in the library, as she usually did when he sat there.
+
+An hour--or perhaps two--went by, then, unexpectedly, Ralph came home,
+having paused a moment outside.  He rushed into the library with his
+face aglow.
+
+"Look, Dad," he cried, boyishly, holding it at arm's length; "see what
+I found on the steps!  It's a pearl necklace, with a diamond in the
+clasp!  Some of the stones are discoloured, but they're good and can be
+made right again, I've found it, so it's mine, and I'm going to give it
+to the girl I marry!"
+
+Anthony Dexter's pale face suddenly became livid.  He staggered over to
+Ralph, snatched the necklace out of his hand, and ground the pearls
+under his heel.  "No," he cried, "a thousand times, no!  The pearls are
+cursed!"
+
+Then, for the second time, he fainted.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+Undine
+
+"It's almost as good as new!" cried Araminta, gleefully.  She was clad
+in a sombre calico Mother Hubbard, of Miss Mehitable's painstaking
+manufacture, and hopping back and forth on the bare floor of her room
+at Miss Evelina's.
+
+"Yes," answered Doctor Ralph, "I think it's quite as good as new."  He
+was filled with professional pride at the satisfactory outcome of his
+first case, and yet was not at all pleased with the idea of Araminta's
+returning to Miss Mehitable's, as, perforce, she soon must do.
+
+"Don't walk any more just now," he said "Come here and sit down.  I
+want to talk to you."
+
+Araminta obeyed him unquestioningly.  He settled her comfortably in the
+haircloth easy-chair and drew his own chair closer.  There was a pause,
+then she looked up at him, smiling with childish wistfulness.
+
+"Are you sorry it's well?" he asked.
+
+"I--I think I am," she answered, shyly, the deep crimson dyeing her
+face.
+
+"I can't see you any more, you know," said Ralph, watching her intently.
+
+The sweet face saddened in an instant and Araminta tapped her foot
+restlessly upon the floor.  "Perhaps," she returned, slowly, "Aunt
+Hitty will be taken sick.  Oh, I do hope she will!"
+
+"You miserable little sinner," laughed Ralph, "do you suppose for a
+moment that Aunt Hitty would send for me if she were ill?  Why, I
+believe she'd die first!"
+
+"Maybe Mr. Thorpe might be taken sick," suggested Araminta, hopefully.
+"He's old, and sometimes I think he isn't very strong."
+
+"He'd insist on having my father.  You know they're old friends."
+
+"Mr. Thorpe is old and your father is old," corrected Araminta,
+precisely, "but they haven't been friends long.  Aunt Hitty says you
+must always say what you mean."
+
+"That is what I meant.  Each is old and both are friends.  See?"
+
+"It must be nice to be men," sighed Araminta, "and have friends.  I've
+never had anybody but Aunt Hitty--and you," she added, in a lower tone,
+
+"'No money, no friends, nothing but relatives,'" quoted Ralph,
+cynically.  "It's hard lines, little maid--hard lines."  He walked back
+and forth across the small room, his hands clasped behind his back--a
+favourite attitude, Araminta had noted, during the month of her illness.
+
+He pictured his probable reception should he venture to call upon her.
+Personally, as it was, he stood none too high in the favour of the
+dragon, as he was wont to term Miss Mehitable in his unflattering
+thoughts.  Moreover, he was a man, which counted heavily against him.
+Since he had taken up his father's practice, he had heard a great deal
+about Miss Mehitable's view of marriage, and her determination to
+shield Araminta from such an unhappy fate.
+
+And Araminta had not been intended, by Dame Nature, for such shielding.
+Every line of her body, rounding into womanhood, defied Aunt Hitty's
+well-meant efforts.  The soft curve of her cheek, the dimples that
+lurked unsuspected in the comers of her mouth, the grave, sweet
+eyes--all these marked Araminta for love.  She had, too, a wistful,
+appealing childishness.
+
+"Did you like the story book?" asked Ralph.
+
+"Oh, so much!"
+
+"I thought you would.  What part of it did you like best?"
+
+"It was all lovely," replied Araminta, thoughtfully, "but I think the
+best part of it was when she went back to him after she had made him go
+away.  It made him so glad to know that they were to talk together
+again."
+
+Ralph looked keenly at Araminta, the love of man and woman was so
+evidently outside her ken.  The sleeping princess in the tower had been
+no more set apart.  But, as he remembered; the sleeping princess had
+been wakened by a kiss--when the right man came.
+
+A lump came into his throat and he swallowed hard.  Blindly, he went
+over to her chair.  The girl's flower-like face was lifted
+questioningly to his.  He bent over and kissed her, full upon the lips.
+
+Araminta shrank from him a little, and the colour surged into her face,
+but her eyes, still trustful, still tender, never wavered from his.
+
+"I suppose I'm a brute," Ralph said, huskily, "but God knows I haven't
+meant to be."
+
+Araminta smiled--a sweet, uncomprehending smile.  Ralph possessed
+himself of her hand.  It was warm and steady--his own was cold and
+tremulous.
+
+"Child," he said, "did any one ever kiss you before?"
+
+"No," replied Araminta; "only Aunt Hitty.  It was when I was a baby and
+she thought I was lost.  She kissed me--here."  Araminta pointed to her
+soft cheek.  "Did you kiss me because I was well?"
+
+Ralph shook his head despairingly.  "The man in the book kissed the
+lady," went on Araminta, happily, "because he was so glad they were to
+talk together again, but we--why, I shall never see you any more," she
+concluded, sadly.
+
+His fingers tightened upon hers.  "Yes," he said, in a strange voice,
+"we shall see each other again."
+
+"They both seem very well," sighed Araminta, referring to Aunt Hitty
+and Mr. Thorpe, "and even if I fell off of a ladder again, it might not
+hurt me at all.  I have fallen from lots of places and only got black
+and blue.  I never broke before."
+
+"Listen, child," said Ralph.  "Would you rather live with Aunt Hitty,
+or with me?"
+
+"Why, Doctor Ralph!  Of course I'd rather live with you, but Aunt Hitty
+would never let me!"
+
+"We're not talking about Aunt Hitty now.  Is there anyone in the world
+whom you like better than you do me?"
+
+"No," said Araminta, softly, her eyes shining.  "How could there be?"
+
+"Do you love me, Araminta?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, sweetly, "of course I do!  You've been so good to
+me!"
+
+The tone made the words meaningless.  "Child," said Ralph, "you break
+my heart."
+
+He walked back and forth again, restlessly, and Araminta watched him,
+vaguely troubled.  What in the world had she done?
+
+Meanwhile, he was meditating.  He could not bear to have her go back to
+her prison, even for a little while.  Had he found her only to lose
+her, because she had no soul?
+
+Presently he came back to her and stood by her chair.  "Listen, dear,"
+he said, tenderly.  "You told me there was no one in the world for whom
+you cared more than you care for me.  You said you loved me, and I love
+you--God knows I do.  If you'll trust me, Araminta, you'll never be
+sorry, never for one single minute as long as you live.  Would you like
+to live with me in a little house with roses climbing over it, just us
+two alone?"
+
+"Yes," returned Araminta, dreamily, "and I could keep the little cat."
+
+"You can have a million cats, if you like, but all I want is you.  Just
+you, sweetheart, to love me, with all the love you can give me.  Will
+you come?"
+
+"Oh," cried Araminta, "if Aunt Hitty would only let me, but she never
+would!"
+
+"We won't ask her," returned Ralph.  "We'll go away to-night, and be
+married."
+
+At the word, Araminta started out of her chair.  Her face was white and
+her eyes wide with fear.  "I couldn't," she said, with difficulty.
+"You shouldn't ask me to do what you know is wrong.  Just because my
+mother was married, because she was wicked--you must not think that I
+would be wicked, too."
+
+Hot words were struggling for utterance, but Ralph choked them back.
+The fog was thick before him and he saw Araminta as through a heavy
+veil.  "Undine," he said, moistening his parched lips, "some day you
+will find your soul.  And when you do, come to me.  I shall be waiting."
+
+He went out of the room unsteadily, and closed the door.  He stood at
+the head of the stairs for a long time before he went down.  Apparently
+there was no one in the house.  He went into the parlour and sat down,
+wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, and trying to regain his
+self-control.
+
+He saw, clearly, that Araminta was not in the least to blame; that
+almost ever since her birth, she had been under the thumb of a
+domineering woman who persistently inculcated her own warped ideas.
+Since her earliest childhood, Araminta had been taught that marriage
+was wrong--that her own mother was wicked, because she had been
+married.  And of the love between man and woman, the child knew
+absolutely nothing.
+
+"Good God!" muttered Ralph.  "My little girl, oh, my little girl!"
+Man-like, he loved her more than ever because she had denied him;
+man-like, he wanted her now as he had never wanted her before.  Through
+the weeks that he had seen her every day, he had grown to feel his need
+of her, to hunger for the sweetness of her absolute dependence upon
+him.  Yet, until now, he had not guessed how deeply he cared, nor
+guessed that such caring was possible.
+
+He sat there for the better part of an hour, slowly regaining command
+of himself.  Miss Evelina came through the hall and paused just outside
+the door, feeling intuitively that some one was in the house.  She drew
+down her veil and went in.
+
+"I thought you had gone," she said.  "Did you wish to see me?"
+
+"No," returned Ralph, wearily; "not especially."
+
+She sat down opposite him silently.   All her movements were quiet, for
+she had never been the noisy sort of woman.  There was something
+soothing in the veiled presence.
+
+"I hope I'm not intruding," ventured Ralph, at length.  "I'll go,
+presently.  I've just had a--well, a blow.  That little saint upstairs
+has been taught that marriage is wicked."
+
+"I know," returned Miss Evelina, instantly comprehending.  "Mehitable
+has very strange ideas.  I'm sorry," she added, in a tone she might
+have used in speaking to Anthony Dexter, years before.
+
+Her sympathy touched the right chord.  It was not obtrusive, it had no
+hint of pity; it was simply that one who had been hurt fully understood
+the hurt of another.  Ralph felt a mysterious kinship.
+
+"I've wanted for some time to ask you," he began awkwardly, "if there
+was not something I could do for you.  The--the veil, you know--"  He
+stopped, at a loss for further words.
+
+"Yes?" Miss Evelina's voice was politely inquiring.  She thought it odd
+for Anthony Dexter's son to be concerned about her veil.  She wondered
+whether he meditated giving her a box of chiffon, as Piper Tom had done.
+
+"Believe me," he said, impetuously, "I only want to help.  I want to
+make it possible for you to take that--to take that thing off."
+
+"It is not possible," returned Miss Evelina, after a painful interval.
+"I shall always wear my veil."
+
+"You don't understand," explained Ralph.  It seemed to him that he had
+spent the day telling women they did not understand.  "I know, of
+course, that there was some dreadful accident, and that it happened a
+long time ago.  Since then, wonderful advances have been made in
+surgery--there is a great deal possible now that was not dreamed of
+then.  Of course I should not think of attempting it myself, but I
+would find the man who could do it, take you to him, and stand by you
+until it was over."
+
+The clock ticked loudly and a little bird sang outside, but there was
+no other sound.
+
+"I want to help you," said Ralph, humbly, as he rose to his feet;
+"believe me, I want to help you."
+
+Miss Evelina said nothing, but she followed him to the door.  At the
+threshold, Ralph turned back.  "Won't you let me help you?" he asked.
+"Won't you even let me try?"
+
+"I thank you," said Miss Evelina, coldly, "but nothing can be done."
+
+The door closed behind him with a portentous suggestion of finality.
+As he went down the path, Ralph felt himself shut out from love and
+from all human service.  He did not look back to the upper window,
+where Araminta was watching, her face stained with tears.
+
+As he went out of the gate, she, too, felt shut out from something
+strangely new and sweet, but her conscience rigidly approved, none the
+less.  Against Aunt Hitty's moral precepts, Araminta leaned securely,
+and she was sure that she had done right.
+
+The Maltese kitten was purring upon a cushion, the loved story book lay
+on the table nearby.   Doctor Ralph was going down the road, his head
+bowed.  They would never see each other again--never in all the world.
+
+She would not tell Aunt Hitty that Doctor Ralph had asked her to marry
+him; she would shield him, even though he had insulted her.  She would
+not tell Aunt Hitty that Doctor Ralph had kissed her, as the man in the
+story book had kissed the lady who came back to him.  She would not
+tell anybody.  "Never in all the world," thought Araminta.  "We shall
+never see each other again."
+
+Doctor Ralph was out of sight, now, and she could never watch for him
+any more.  He had gone away forever, and she had broken his heart.  For
+the moment, Araminta straightened herself proudly, for she had been
+taught that it did not matter whether one's heart broke or not--one
+must always do what was right.  And Aunt Hitty knew what was right.
+
+Suddenly, she sank on her knees beside her bed, burying her face in the
+pillow, for her heart was breaking, too.  "Oh, Lord," she prayed,
+sobbing wildly, "keep me from the contamination of marriage, for Thy
+sake.  Amen."
+
+
+The door opened silently, a soft, slow step came near.  The pillow was
+drawn away and a cool hand was laid upon Araminta's burning cheek.
+"Child," said Miss Evelina, "what is wrong?"
+
+Araminta had not meant to tell, but she did.  She sobbed out, in
+disjointed fragments, all the sorry tale.  Wisely, Miss Evelina waited
+until the storm had spent itself, secretly wishing that she, too, might
+know the relief of tears.
+
+"I knew," said Miss Evelina, her cool, quiet hand still upon Araminta's
+face.  "Doctor Ralph told me before he went home."
+
+"Oh," cried Araminta, "does he hate me?"
+
+"Hate you?" repeated Miss Evelina.  "Dear child, no.  He loves you.
+Would you believe me, Araminta, if I told you that it was not wrong to
+be married--that there was no reason in the world why you should not
+marry the man who loves you?"
+
+"Not wrong!" exclaimed Araminta, incredulously.  "Aunt Hitty says it
+is.  My mother was married!"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Evelina, "and so was mine.  Aunt Hitty's mother was
+married, too."
+
+"Are you sure?" demanded Araminta.  "She never told me so.  If her
+mother was married, why didn't she tell me?"
+
+"I don't know, dear," returned Miss Evelina, truthfully.  "Mehitable's
+ways are strange."  Had she been asked to choose, at the moment,
+between Araminta's dense ignorance and all of her own knowledge,
+embracing, as it did, a world of pain, she would have chosen gladly,
+the fuller life.
+
+The door-bell below rang loudly, defiantly.  It was the kind of a ring
+which might impel the dead to answer it.  Miss Evelina fairly ran
+downstairs.
+
+Outside stood Miss Mehitable.  Unwillingly, in her wake, had come the
+Reverend Austin Thorpe.  Under Miss Mehitable's capable and constant
+direction, he had made a stretcher out of the clothes poles and a
+sheet.  He was jaded in spirit beyond all words to express, but he had
+come, as Roman captives came, chained to the chariot wheels of the
+conqueror.
+
+"Me and the minister," announced Miss Mehitable, imperiously, "have
+come to take Minty home!"
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+In the Shadow of the Cypress
+
+The house seemed lonely without Araminta.  Miss Evelina missed the
+child more than she had supposed she could ever miss any one.  She had
+grown to love her, and, too, she missed the work.
+
+Miss Evelina's house was clean, now, and most of the necessary labour
+had been performed by her own frail hands.  The care of Araminta had
+been an added burden, which she had borne because it had been forced
+upon her.  Slowly, but surely, she had been compelled to take thought
+for others.
+
+The promise of Spring had come to beautiful fulfilment, and the world
+was all abloom.  Faint mists of May were rising from the earth, and
+filmy clouds half veiled the moon.  The loneliness of the house was
+unbearable, so Miss Evelina went out into the garden, her veil
+fluttering, moth-like, about her head.
+
+The old pain was still at her heart, yet, in a way, it was changed.
+She had come again into the field of service.  Miss Mehitable had been
+kind to her, indeed, more than kind.  The Piper had made her a garden,
+and she had taken care of Araminta.  Doctor Ralph, meaning to be wholly
+kind, had offered to help her, if he could, and she had been on the
+point of doing a small service for him, when Fate, in the person of
+Miss Mehitable, intervened.  And over and above and beyond all, Anthony
+Dexter had come back, to offer her tardy reparation.
+
+That hour was continually present with her.  She could not forget his
+tortured face when she had thrown back her veil.  What if she had taken
+him at his word, and gone with him, to be, as he said, a mother to his
+son?  Miss Evelina laughed bitterly.
+
+The beauty of the night brought her no peace as she wandered about the
+garden.  Without knowing it, she longed for human companionship.  Piper
+Tom had finished his work.  Doctor Ralph would come no more, Araminta
+had gone, and Miss Mehitable offered little comfort.
+
+She went to the gate and leaned upon it, looking down the road.  Thus
+she had watched for Anthony Dexter in years gone by.  Memories,
+mercilessly keen, returned to her.  As though it were yesterday, she
+remembered the moonlit night of their betrothal, felt his eager arms
+about her and his bearded cheek pressed close to hers.  She heard again
+the music of his voice as he whispered, passionately: "I love you, oh,
+I love you--for life, for death, for all eternity!"
+
+The rose-bush had been carefully pruned and tied up, but it promised
+little, at best.  The cypress had grown steadily, and, at times, its
+long shadow reached through the door and into the house.  Heavily, too,
+upon her heart, the shadow of the cypress lay, for sorrow seems so much
+deeper than joy.
+
+A figure came up the road, and she turned away, intending to go into
+the house.   Then she perceived that it was Piper Tom, and, drawing
+down her veil, turned back to wait for him.  He had never come at night
+before.
+
+Even in the darkness, she noted a change in him; the atmosphere of
+youth was all gone.  He walked slowly, as though he had aged, and the
+red feather no longer bobbed in his hat.
+
+He went past her silently, and sat down on the steps.
+
+"Will you come in?" asked Evelina.
+
+"No," answered the Piper, sadly, "I'll not be coming in.  'T is selfish
+of me, perhaps, but I came to you because I had sorrow of my own."
+
+Miss Evelina sat down on the step beside him, and waited for him to
+speak.
+
+"'T is a small sorrow, perhaps, you'll be thinking," he said, at last.
+"I'm not knowing what great ones you have seen, face to face, but 't is
+so ordered That all sorrows are not the same.  'T is all in the heart
+that bears them.  I told you I had known them all, and at the time, I
+was thinking I spoke the truth.  A woman never loved me, and so I have
+lost the love of no woman, but," he went on with difficulty, "no one
+had ever killed my dog."
+
+"How?" asked Miss Evelina, dully.  It seemed a matter of small moment
+to her.
+
+"I'll not be paining you with that," the Piper answered, "At the last,
+'t was I who killed him to save him from further hurt.  'T was the best
+I could do for the little lad, and I'm thinking he'd take it from me
+rather than from any one else.  I'm missing his cheerful bark and his
+pleasant ways, but I've taken him away for ever from Doctor Dexter and
+his kind."
+
+"Doctor Dexter!"  Evelina sprang to her feet, her body tense and
+quivering.
+
+"Aye, Doctor Dexter--not the young man, but the old one."
+
+A deep-drawn breath was her only answer, but the Piper looked up,
+startled.  Slowly he rose to his feet and leaned toward her intently,
+as though to see her face behind her veil.
+
+"Spinner in the Shadow," he said, with infinite tenderness, "I'm
+thinking 't was he who hurt you, too!"
+
+Evelina's head drooped, she swayed, and would have fallen, had he not
+put his arm around her.  She sat down on the step again, and hid her
+veiled face in her hands.
+
+"'T was that, I'm thinking, that brought me to you," he went on.  "I
+knew you did not care much for the little lad--he was naught to any one
+but me.  'T is this that binds us together--you and I."
+
+The moon climbed higher into the heavens and the clouds were blown
+away.  The shadow of the cypress was thrown toward them, and the dense
+night of it concealed the half-open door.
+
+"See," breathed Evelina, "the shadow of the cypress is long."
+
+"Aye," answered Piper Tom, "the shadow of the cypress is long and the
+rose blooms but once a year.  'T is the way of the world."
+
+He loosened his flute from the cord by which it was slung over his
+shoulder.  "I was going to the woods," he said, "but at the last, I
+could not, for the little lad always fared with me when I went out to
+play.  He would sit quite still when I made the music, so still that he
+never frightened even the birds.  The birds came, too.
+
+"'T is a way I've had for long," he continued.  "I never could be
+learning the printed music, so I made music of my own.  So many laughed
+at it, not hearing any tune, that I've always played by myself.  'T was
+my own soul breathing into it--perhaps I'm not to blame that it never
+made a tune.
+
+"Sometimes I'm thinking that there may be tunes and tunes.  I was once
+in a place where there were many instruments, all playing at once, and
+there was nothing came from it that one could call a tune.  But 't was
+great and beautiful beyond any words of mine to tell you, and the
+master of them all, standing up in front, knew just when each must play.
+
+"Most, of course, I watched the one who played the flute and listened
+to the voice of it.  'T is strange how, if you listen, you can pick out
+one instrument from all the rest.  I saw that sometimes he did not play
+at all, and yet the music went on.  Sometimes, again, he was privileged
+to play just a note or two--not at all like a tune.
+
+"'T was just his part, and, by itself, it would have sounded queer.  I
+might have laughed at it myself if I did not know, and was listening
+for a tune.  But the master of them all was pleased, because the man
+with the flute made his few notes to sing rightly when they should sing
+and because he kept still when there was no need of his instrument.
+
+"So I'm thinking," concluded the Piper, humbly, "that these few notes
+of mine may belong to something I cannot hear, and that the Master
+himself leads me, when 't is time to play."
+
+He put the instrument to his lips and began to play softly.  The low,
+sweet notes were, as he said, no evident part of a tune, yet they were
+not without a deep and tender appeal.
+
+Evelina listened, her head still bowed.  It did not sound like the
+pipes o' Pan, but rather like some fragment of a mysterious,
+heart-breaking melody.  Faint, far echoes rang back from the
+surrounding hills, as though in a distant forest cathedral another
+Piper sat enthroned.
+
+The sound of singing waters murmured through the night as the Piper's
+flute breathed of stream and sea.  There was the rush of a Summer wind
+through swaying branches, the tinkle of raindrops, the deep notes of
+rising storm.  Moonlight shimmered through it, birds sang in green
+silences, and there was scent of birch and pine.
+
+Then swiftly the music changed.  Through the utter sadness of it came
+also a hint of peace, as though one had planted a garden of roses and
+instead there had come up herbs and balm.  In the passionate pain,
+there was also uplifting--a flight on broken wings.  Above and beyond
+all there was a haunting question, to which the answer seemed lost.
+
+At length the Piper laid down his flute.  "You do not laugh," he said,
+"and yet I'm thinking you may not care for music that has no tune."
+
+"I do care," returned Evelina.
+
+"I remember," he answered, slowly.  "It was the day in the woods, when
+I called you and you came."
+
+"I was hurt," she said.  "I had been terribly hurt, only that morning,"
+
+"Yes, many have come to me so.  Often when I have played in the woods
+the music that has no tune, some one who was very sad has come to me.
+I saw you that day from far and I felt you were sad, so I called you.
+I called you," he repeated, lingering on the words, "and you came."
+
+"I do not so much care for the printed music," he went on, after an
+interval, "unless it might be the great, beautiful music which takes so
+many to play.  I have often thought of it and wondered what might
+happen if the players were not willing to follow the master--if one
+should play a tune where no tune was written, and he who has the violin
+should insist on playing the flute.
+
+"I would not want the violin, for I think the flute is best of all.  It
+is made from the trees on the mountains and the silver hidden within,
+and so is best fitted for the message of the mountains--the great, high
+music.
+
+"I'm thinking that the life we live is not unlike the players.  We have
+each our own instrument, but we are not content to follow as the Master
+leads.  We do not like the low, long notes that mean sadness; we will
+not take what is meant for us, but insist on the dancing tunes and the
+light music of pleasure.  It is this that makes the discord and all the
+confusion.  The Master knows his meaning and could we each play our
+part well, at the right time, there would be nothing wrong in all the
+world."
+
+Miss Evelina sighed, deeply, and the Piper put his hand on hers.
+
+"I'm not meaning to reproach you," he said, kindly, "though, truly, I
+do think you have played wrong.  In any music I have heard, there has
+never been any one instrument that has played all the time and sadly.
+When there is sadness, there is always rest, and you have had no rest."
+
+"No," said Evelina, her voice breaking, "I have had no rest--God knows
+that!"
+
+"Then do you not see," asked the Piper very gently, "that you cannot
+help but make the music wrong?  The Master gives you one deep note to
+play, and you hold it, always the same note, till the music is at an
+end.
+
+"'T is something wrong, I'm thinking, that has made you hold it so.
+I'm not asking you to tell me, but I think that one day I shall see.
+Together we shall find what makes the music wrong, and together we
+shall make it right again."
+
+"Together," repeated Evelina, unconsciously.  Once the word had been
+sweet to her, but now it brought only bitterness.
+
+"Aye, together.  'T is for that I stayed.  Laddie and I were going on,
+that very day we saw you in the wood--the day I called you, and you
+came.  I shall see, some day, what has made it wrong--yes.  Spinner in
+the Shadow, I shall see.  I'm grieving now for Laddie and my heart is
+sore, but when I have forgiven him, I shall be at rest."
+
+"Forgiven who?" queried Evelina.
+
+"Why, the man who hurt Laddie--the same, I'm thinking, who hurt you.
+But your hurt was worse than Laddie's, I take it, and so 't is harder
+to forgive."
+
+Evelina's heart beat hard.  Never before had she thought of forgiving
+Anthony Dexter.  She put it aside quickly as altogether impossible.
+Moreover, he had not asked.
+
+"What is it to forgive?" she questioned, curiously.
+
+"The word is not made right," answered the Piper, "I'm thinking 't is
+wrong end to, as many things in this world are until we move and look
+at them from another way.  It's giving for, that's all.  When you have
+put self so wholly aside that you can be sorry for him because he has
+wronged you, why, then, you have forgiven."
+
+"I shall never be able to do that," she returned.  "Why, I should not
+even try."
+
+"Ah," cried the Piper, "I knew that some day I should find what was
+wrong, but I did not think it would be now.  'T is because you have not
+forgiven that you have been sad for so long.  When you have forgiven,
+you will be free."
+
+"He never asked," muttered Evelina.
+
+"No; 't is very strange, I'm thinking, but those who most need to be
+forgiven are those who never ask.  'T is hard, I know, for I cannot yet
+be sorry for him because he hurt Laddie--I can only be sorry for
+Laddie, who was hurt.  But the great truth is there.  When I have grown
+to where I can be sorry for him as well as for Laddie, why, my grieving
+will be done.
+
+"The little chap," mused the Piper, fondly, "he was a faithful comrade.
+'T was a true heart that the brute--ah, what am I saying!  I'll not be
+forgetting how he fared with me in sun and storm, sharing a crust with
+me, often, as man to man, and not complaining, because we were
+together.  A woman never loved me but a dog has, and I'm thinking that
+some day I may have the greater love because I've been worthy of the
+less.
+
+"My mother died when I was born and, because of that, I've tried to
+make the world easier for all women.  I'm not thinking I have wholly
+failed, yet the great love has not come.  I've often thought," went on
+Piper Tom, simply, "that if a woman waited for me at night when I went
+home, with love on her face, and if a woman's hand might be in mine
+when the Master tells me that I am no longer needed for the music, 't
+would make the leaving very easy, and I should not ask for Heaven.
+
+"I've seen, so often, the precious jewel of a woman's love cast aside
+by a man who did not know what he had, having blinded himself with
+tinsel until his true knowledge was lost.  You'll forgive me for my
+rambling talk, I'm thinking, for I'm still grieving for the little
+chap, and I cannot say yet that I have forgiven."
+
+He rose, slung his flute over his shoulder again, and went slowly
+toward the gate.  Evelina followed him, to the cypress tree.
+
+"See," he said, turning, "the shadow of the cypress is long.  'T is
+because you have not forgiven.  I'm thinking it may be easier for us to
+forgive together, since it is the same man."
+
+"Yes," returned Evelina, steadily, "the shadow of the cypress is long,
+and I never shall forgive."
+
+"Aye," said the Piper, "we'll forgive him together--you and I.  I'll
+help you, since your hurt is greater than mine.  You have veiled your
+soul as you have veiled your face, but, through forgiveness, the beauty
+of the one will shine out again, and, I'm thinking, through love, the
+other may shine out, too.  You have hidden your face because you are so
+beautiful; you have hidden your soul because you are so sad.  I called
+you in the woods, and I call you now.  I shall never cease calling,
+until you come."
+
+He went out of the gate, and did not answer her faint "good-night."
+Was it true, as he said, that he should never cease calling her?
+Something in her spirit stirred strangely at his appeal, as a far,
+celestial trumpet blown from on high might summon the valiant soul of a
+warrior who had died in the charge.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+The Secret of the Veil
+
+"Father," said Ralph, pacing back and forth, as was his habit, "I have
+wanted for some time to ask you about Miss Evelina--the woman, you
+know, in the little house on the hill.  She always wears a veil and
+there can be no reason for it except some terrible disfigurement.  Has
+she never consulted you?"
+
+"Never," answered Anthony Dexter, with dry lips.
+
+"I remember, you told me, but it seems strange.  I spoke to her about
+it the other day.  I told her I was sure that something could be done.
+I offered to find the best available specialist for her, go with her,
+and stand by her until it was over."
+
+Anthony Dexter laughed--a harsh, unnatural laugh that jarred upon his
+son.
+
+"I fail to see anything particularly funny about it," remarked Ralph,
+coldly.
+
+"What did she say?" asked his father, not daring to meet Ralph's eyes.
+
+"She thanked me, and said nothing could be done."
+
+"She didn't show you her face, I take it."
+
+"No."
+
+"I should have thought she would, under the circumstances--under all
+the circumstances."
+
+"Have you seen her face?" asked Ralph, quickly, "by chance, or in any
+other way?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How is it?  Is it so bad that nothing can be done?"
+
+"She was perfectly right," returned Anthony Dexter, slowly.  "There is
+nothing to be done."
+
+At the moment, the phantom Evelina was pacing back and forth between
+the man and his son.  Her veiled face was proudly turned away.  "I
+wonder," thought Anthony Dexter, curiously, "if she hears.  If she did,
+though, she'd speak, or throw back her veil, so she doesn't hear."
+
+"I may be wrong," sighed Ralph, "but I've always believed that nothing
+is so bad it can't be made better."
+
+"The unfailing ear-mark of Youth, my son," returned Anthony Dexter,
+patronisingly.  "You'll get over that."
+
+He laughed again, gratingly, and went out, followed by his persistent
+apparition.  "We'll go out for a walk, Evelina," he muttered, when he
+was half-way to the gate.  "We'll see how far you can go without
+getting tired." The fantastic notion of wearying his veiled pursuer
+appealed to him strongly.
+
+Ralph watched his father uneasily.  Even though he had been relieved of
+the greater part of his work, Anthony Dexter did not seem to be
+improving.  He was morose, unreasonable, and given to staring vacantly
+into space for hours at a time.  Ralph often spoke to him when he did
+not hear at all, and at times he turned his head from left to right and
+back again, slowly, but with the maddening regularity of clock-work.
+He ate little, but claimed to sleep well.
+
+Whatever it was seemed to be of the mind rather than the body, and
+Ralph could find nothing in his father's circumstances calculated to
+worry any one in the slightest degree.  He planned, vaguely, to invite
+a friend who was skilled in the diagnosis of obscure mental disorders
+to spend a week-end with him, a little later on, and to ask him to
+observe his father closely.  He did not doubt but that Anthony Dexter
+would see quickly through so flimsy a pretence, but, unless he
+improved, something of the kind would have to be done soon.
+
+Meanwhile, his heart yearned strangely toward Miss Evelina.  It was
+altogether possible that something, might be done.  Ralph was modest,
+but new discoveries were constantly being made, and he knew that his
+own knowledge was more abreast of the times than his father's could be.
+At any rate, he was not so easily satisfied.
+
+He was trying faithfully to forget Araminta, but was not succeeding.
+The sweet, childish face haunted him as constantly as the veiled
+phantom haunted his father, but in a different way.  Through his own
+unhappiness, he came into kinship with all the misery of the world.  He
+longed to uplift, to help, to heal.
+
+He decided to try once more to talk with Miss Evelina, to ask her,
+point blank, if need be, to let him see her face.  He knew that his
+father lacked sympathy, and he was sure that when Miss Evelina once
+thoroughly understood him, she would be willing to let him help her.
+
+On the way uphill, he considered how he should approach the subject.
+He had already planned to make an ostensible errand of the book he had
+loaned Araminta.  Perhaps Miss Evelina had read it, or would like to,
+and he could begin, in that way, to talk to her.
+
+When he reached the gate, the house seemed deserted, though the front
+door was ajar.  It was a warm, sweet afternoon in early Summer, and the
+world was very still, except for the winged folk of wood and field.
+
+He tapped gently at the door, but there was no answer.  He went around
+to the back door, but it was closed, and there was no sign that the
+place was occupied, except quantities of white chiffon hung upon the
+line.  Being a man, Ralph did not perceive that Miss Evelina had washed
+every veil she possessed.
+
+He went back to the front of the house again and found that the door
+was still ajar.  She might have gone away, though it seemed unlikely,
+or it was not impossible that she might have been taken suddenly ill
+and was unable to come to the door.
+
+Ralph went in, softly, as he had often done before.  Miss Evelina had
+frequently left the door open for him at the hour he was expected to
+visit his patient.
+
+He paused a moment in the hall, but heard no sound save slow, deep
+breathing.  He turned into the parlour, but stopped on the threshold as
+if he had been suddenly changed to stone.
+
+Upon the couch lay Miss Evelina, asleep, and unveiled.  Her face was
+turned toward him--a face of such surpassing beauty that he gasped in
+astonishment.  He had never seen such wondrous perfection of line and
+feature, nor such a crown of splendour as her lustreless white hair,
+falling loosely about her shoulders.  Her face was as pure and as cold
+as marble, flawless, and singularly transparent.  Her lips were deep
+scarlet and perfectly shaped; the white slender column of her throat
+held her head proudly.  Long, dark lashes swept her cheek, and the
+years had left no lines.  Feeling the intense scrutiny, Miss Evelina
+opened her eyes, slowly, like one still half asleep.
+
+Her eyes were violet, so deep in colour as to seem almost black.  She
+stared at Ralph, unseeing, then the light of recognition flashed over
+her face and she sat up, reaching back quickly for her missing veil.
+
+"Miss Evelina!" cried Ralph.  "Why, oh why!"
+
+"Why did you come in?" she demanded, resentfully.  "You had no right!"
+
+"Forgive me," he pleaded, coming to her.  "I've often come in when the
+door was open.  Why, you've left it open for me yourself, don't you
+know you have?"
+
+"Perhaps," she answered, a faint colour coming into her cheek.  "I had
+no idea of going to sleep.  I am sorry."
+
+"I thought you might be ill," said Ralph.  excusing himself further.
+"Believe me, Miss Evelina, I had no thought of intruding.  I only came
+to help you."
+
+He stood before her, still staring, and her eyes met his clearly in
+return.  In the violet depths was a world of knowledge and pain
+Suffering had transfigured her face into a noble beauty for which there
+were no words.   Such a face might be the dream of a sculptor, the
+despair of a painter, and the ecstasy of a lover.
+
+"Why?", cried Ralph, again.
+
+"Because," she answered, simply, "my beauty was my curse."
+
+Ralph did not see that the words were melodramatic; he only sat down,
+weakly, in a chair opposite her.  He never once took his eyes away from
+her, but stared at her helplessly, like a man in a dream.
+
+"Why?" he questioned, again.  "Tell me why!"
+
+"It was in a laboratory," explained Miss Evelina.  "I was there with
+the man I loved and to whom I was to be married the next day.  No one
+knew of our engagement, for, in a small town, you know, people will
+talk, and we both felt that it was too sacred to be spoken of lightly.
+
+"He was trying an experiment, and I was watching.  He came to the
+retort to put in another chemical, and leaned over it.  I heard the
+mass seething and pushed him away with all my strength.  Instantly,
+there was a terrible explosion.  When I came to my senses again, I was
+in the hospital, wrapped in bandages.  I had been terribly burned--see?"
+
+She loosened her black gown at the throat and pushed it down over her
+right shoulder.  Ralph shuddered at the deep, flaming scars.
+
+"My arm is worse," she said, quickly covering her shoulder again.  "I
+need not show you that.  My face was burned, too, but scarcely at all.
+To this day, I do not know how I escaped.  I must have thrown up my arm
+instinctively to shield my face.  See, there are no scars."
+
+"I see," murmured Ralph; "and what of him?"
+
+The dark eyes gleamed indescribably.  "What of him?" she asked, with
+assumed lightness.  "Why, he was not hurt at all.  I saved him from
+disfigurement, if not from death.  I bear the scars; he goes free."
+
+"I know," said Ralph, "but why were you not married?  All his life and
+love would be little enough to give in return for that."
+
+Miss Evelina fixed her deep eyes upon Anthony Dexter's son.  In her
+voice there was no hint of faltering.
+
+"I never saw him again," she said, "until twenty-five years afterward,
+and then I was veiled.  He went away."
+
+"Went away!" repeated Ralph, incredulously.  "Miss Evelina, what do you
+mean?"
+
+"What I said," she replied.  "He went away.  He came once to the
+hospital.  As it happened, there was another girl there, named Evelyn
+Grey, burned by acid, and infinitely worse than I.  The two names
+became confused.  He was told that I would be disfigured for life--that
+every feature was destroyed except my sight.  That was enough for him.
+He asked no more questions, but simply went away."
+
+"Coward!" cried Ralph, his face white.  "Cur!"
+
+Miss Evelina's eyes gleamed with subtle triumph.  "What would you?" she
+asked unemotionally.  "He told me that day of the accident that it was
+my soul he loved, and not my body, but at the test, he failed.  Men
+usually fail women, do they not, in anything that puts their love to
+the test?  He went away.  In a year, he was married, and he has a son."
+
+"A son!" repeated Ralph.  "What a heritage of disgrace for a son!  Does
+the boy know?"
+
+There was a significant silence.  "I do not think his father has told
+him," said Evelina, with forced calmness.
+
+"If he had," muttered Ralph, his hands clenched and his teeth set, "his
+son must have struck him dead where he stood.  To accept that from a
+woman, and then to go away!"
+
+"What would you?" asked Evelina again.  A curious, tigerish impulse was
+taking definite shape in her.  "Would you have him marry her?"
+
+"Marry her?  A thousand times, yes, if she would stoop so low!  What
+man is worthy of a woman who saves his life at the risk of her own?"
+
+"Disfigured?  asked Evelina, in an odd voice.
+
+"Yes," cried Ralph, "with the scars she bore for him!"
+
+There was a tense, painful interval.  Miss Evelina was grappling with a
+hideous temptation.  One word from her, and she was revenged upon
+Anthony Dexter for all the years of suffering.  One word from her, and
+sure payment would be made in the most subtle, terrible way.  She
+guessed that he could not bear the condemnation of this idolised son.
+
+The old pain gnawed at her heart.  Anthony Dexter had come back, she
+had had her little hour of triumph, and still she had not been freed.
+The Piper had told her that only forgiveness could loosen her chains.
+And how could Anthony Dexter be forgiven, when even his son said that
+he was a coward and a cur?
+
+"I--"  Miss Evelina's lips moved, then became still.
+
+"And so," said Ralph, "you have gone veiled ever since, for the sake of
+that beast?"
+
+"No, it was for my own sake.  Do you wonder that I have done it?  When
+I first realised what had happened, in an awful night that turned my
+brown hair white, I knew that Love and I were strangers forevermore.
+
+"When I left the hospital, I was obliged, for a time, to wear it.  The
+new skin was tender and bright red; it broke very easily."
+
+"I know," nodded Ralph.
+
+"There were oils to be kept upon it, too, and so I wore the veil.  I
+became accustomed to the shelter of it.  I could walk the streets and
+see, dimly, without being seen.  In those days, I thought that,
+perhaps, I might meet--him."
+
+"I don't wonder you shrank from it," returned Ralph.  His voice was
+almost inaudible.
+
+"It became harder still to put it by.  My heart was broken, and it
+shielded me as a long, black veil shields a widow.  It protected me
+from curious questions.  Never but once or twice in all the twenty-five
+years have I been asked about it, and then, I simply did not answer.
+People, after all, are very kind."
+
+"Were you never ill?"
+
+"Never, though every night of my life I have prayed for death.  At
+first, I clung to it without reason, except what I have told you, then,
+later on, I began to see a further protection.  Veiled as I was, no man
+would ever love me again.  I should never be tempted to trust, only to
+be betrayed.  Not that I ever could trust, you understand, but still,
+sometimes," concluded Miss Evelina, piteously, "I think the heart of a
+woman is strangely hungry for love."
+
+"I understand," said Ralph, "and, believe me, I do not blame you.
+Perhaps it was the best thing you could do.  Let me ask you of the man.
+You said, I think, that he still lives?"
+
+"Yes." Miss Evelina's voice was very low.
+
+"He is well and happy--prosperous?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you know where he lives?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Has he ever suffered at all from his cowardice, his shirking?"
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+"Then, Miss Evelina," said Ralph, his voice thick with passion and his
+hands tightly clenched, "will you let me go to him?  For the honour of
+men, I should like to punish this one brute.  I think I could present
+an argument that even he might understand!"
+
+The temptation became insistent.   The sheathed dagger was in Evelina's
+hands; she had only to draw forth the glittering steel.  A vengeance
+more subtle than she had ever dared to dream of was hers to command.
+
+"Tell me his name," breathed Ralph.  "Only tell me his name!"
+
+Miss Evelina threw back her beautiful head proudly.  "No," she said,
+firmly, "I will not.  Go," she cried, pointing uncertainly to the door.
+"For the love of God, go!"
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+The Poppies Claim Their Own
+
+It was dusk, and Anthony Dexter sat in the library.  Through the day,
+he had wearied himself to the point of exhaustion, but his phantom
+pursuer had not tired.  The veiled figure of Evelina had kept pace
+easily with his quick, nervous stride.  At the point on the river
+road, where he had met her for the first time, she had, indeed,
+seemed to go ahead of him and wait for him there.
+
+Night brought no relief.  By a singular fatality, he could see her in
+darkness as plainly as in sunshine, and even when his eyes were
+closed, she hovered persistently before him.  Throughout his drugged
+sleep she moved continuously; he never dreamed save of her.
+
+In days gone by, he had been certain that he was the victim of an
+hallucination, but now, he was not so sure.  He would not have sworn
+that the living Evelina was not eternally in his sight.  Time and
+time again he had darted forward quickly to catch her, but she
+swiftly eluded him.  "If," he thought, gritting his teeth, "I could
+once get my hands upon her----"
+
+His fists dosed tightly, then, by a supreme effort of will, he put
+the maddening thought away.  "I will not add murder to my sins," he
+muttered; "no, by Heaven, I will not!"
+
+By a whimsical change of his thought, he conceived himself dead and
+in his coffin.  Would Evelina pace ceaselessly before him then?  When
+he was in his grave, would she wait eternally at the foot of it, and
+would those burning eyes pierce the shielding sod that parted them?
+Life had not served to separate them--could he hope that Death would
+prove potent where Life had failed?
+
+Ralph came in, tired, having done his father's work for the day.  The
+room was wholly dark, but he paused upon the threshold, conscious
+that some one was there.
+
+"Alone, father?" he called, cheerily.
+
+"No," returned Anthony Dexter, grimly.
+
+"Who's here?" asked Ralph, stumbling into the room.  "It's so dark, I
+can't see."
+
+Fumbling for a match, he lighted a wax candle which stood in an
+antique candlestick on the library table.  The face of his father
+materialised suddenly out of the darkness, wearing an expression
+which made Ralph uneasy.
+
+"I thought," he said, troubled, "that some one was with you."
+
+"Aren't you here?" asked Anthony Dexter, trying to make his voice
+even.
+
+"Oh," returned Ralph.  "I see."
+
+With the candle flickering uncertainly between them, the two men
+faced each other.  Sharp shadows lay on the floor and Anthony
+Dexter's profile was silhouetted upon the opposite wall.  He noted
+that the figure of Evelina, pacing to and fro, cast no shadow.  It
+seemed strange.
+
+In the endeavour to find some interesting subject upon which to talk,
+Ralph chanced upon the fatal one.  "Father," he began, "you know that
+this morning we were speaking of Miss Evelina?"
+
+The tone was inquiring, but there was no audible answer.
+
+"Well," continued Ralph, "I saw her again to-day.  And I saw her
+face."  He had forgotten that his father had seen it, also, and had
+told him only yesterday.
+
+Anthony Dexter almost leaped from his chair--toward the veiled figure
+now approaching him.  "Did--did she show you her face?" he asked with
+difficulty.
+
+"No.  It was an accident.  She often left the front door open for me
+when I was attending--Araminta--and so, to-day, when I found it open,
+I went in.  She was asleep, on the couch in the parlour, and she wore
+no veil."
+
+At once, the phantom Evelina changed her tactics.  Hitherto, she had
+walked back and forth from side to side of his vision.  Now she
+advanced slowly toward him and as slowly retreated.  Her face was no
+longer averted; she walked backward cautiously, then advanced.  From
+behind her veil, he could feel her burning, accusing eyes.
+
+"Father," said Ralph, "she is beautiful.  She is the most beautiful
+woman I have ever seen in all my life.  Her face is as exquisite as
+if chiselled in marble, and you never saw such eyes.  And she wears
+that veil all the time."
+
+Anthony Dexter's cold fingers were forced to drum on the table with
+apparent carelessness.  Yes, he knew she was beautiful.  He had not
+forgotten it for an instant since she had thrown back her veil and
+faced him.  "Did--did she tell you why?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," answered Ralph.  "She told me why."
+
+A sword, suspended by a single hair, seemed swaying uncertainly over
+Anthony Dexter's head--a two-edged sword, sure to strike mercilessly
+if it fell.  Ralph's eyes were upon him, but not in contempt.  God,
+in His infinite pity, had made them kind.
+
+"Father," said Ralph, again, "she would not tell the name of the man,
+though I begged her to."  Anthony Dexter's heart began to beat again,
+slowly at first, then with a sudden and unbearable swiftness.  The
+blood thundered in his ears like the roar of a cataract.  He could
+hardly hear what Ralph was saying.
+
+"It was in a laboratory," the boy continued, though the words were
+almost lost.  "She was there with the man she loved and whom she was
+pledged to marry.  He was trying a new experiment, and she was
+watching.  While he was leaning over the retort to put in another
+chemical, she heard the mass seethe, and pushed him away, just in
+time to save him.
+
+"There was an explosion, and she was terribly burned.  He was not
+touched, mind you--she had saved him.  They took her to the hospital,
+and wrapped her in bandages.  He went there only once.  There was
+another girl there, named Evelyn Grey, who was so badly burned that
+every feature was destroyed.  The two names became confused, and a
+mistake was made.  They told him she would be disfigured for life,
+and so he went away."
+
+The walls of the room swayed as though they were of fabric.  The
+floor undulated; his chair rocked dizzily.  Out of the accusing
+silence, Thorpe's words leaped to mock him:
+
+_The honour of the spoken word still holds him.  He asked her to
+marry him and she consented . . . he was never released from his
+promise . . . did not even ask for it.  He slunk away like a
+cur . . . sometimes I think there is no sin but shirking. . . I can
+excuse a liar . . . I can pardon a thief . . . I can pity a
+murderer . . . but a shirk, no_.
+
+"Father," Ralph was saying, "you do not seem to understand.  I
+suppose it is difficult for you to comprehend such cowardice--you
+have always done the square thing."  The man winced, but the boy did
+not see it.
+
+"Try to think of a brute like that, Father, and be glad that our name
+means 'right.' She saved him from terrible disfigurement if not from
+death.  Having instinctively thrown up her right arm, she got the
+worst of it there, and on her shoulder.  Her face was badly burned,
+but not so deeply as to be scarred.  She showed me her shoulder--it
+is awful.  I never had seen anything like it.  She said her arm was
+worse, but she did not show me that."
+
+"He never knew?" asked Anthony Dexter, huskily.  Ralph seemed to be
+demanding something of him, and the veiled figure, steadily advancing
+and retreating, demanded more still.
+
+"No," answered Ralph, "he never knew.  He went to the hospital only
+once.  He had told her that very day that he loved her for the
+beautiful soul she had, and at the test, his love failed.  He never
+saw her again.  He went away, and married, and he has a son.  Think
+of the son, Father, only think of the son!  Suppose he knew it!  How
+could he ever bear a disgrace like that!"
+
+"I do not know," muttered Anthony Dexter.  His lips were cold and
+stiff and he did not recognise his own voice.
+
+"When she understood what had happened," Ralph continued, "and how he
+had deserted her for ever, after taking his cowardly life from her as
+a gift, her hair turned white.  She has wonderful hair.  Father--it's
+heavy and white and dull--it does not shine.  She wore the veil at
+first because she had to, because her face was healing, and before it
+had wholly healed she had become accustomed to the shelter of it.
+Then, too, as she said, it kept people away from her--she could not
+be tempted to love or trust again."
+
+There was an interval of silence, though the very walls seemed to be
+crying out: "Tell him!  Tell him!  Confess, and purge your guilty
+soul!"  The clock ticked loudly, the blood roared in his ears.  His
+hands were cold and almost lifeless; his body seemed paralysed, but
+he heard, so acutely that it was agony.
+
+"Miss Evelina said," resumed Ralph, "that she did not think he had
+told his son.  Do you know what I was thinking, Father, while she was
+talking?  I was thinking of you, and how you had always done the
+square thing."
+
+It seemed to Anthony Dexter that all the tortures of his laboratory
+had been chemically concentrated and were being poured out upon his
+head.  "Our name means 'right,'" said the boy, proudly, and the man
+writhed in his chair.
+
+For a moment, the ghostly Evelina went to Ralph, her hands
+outstretched in disapproval.  Immediately she returned to her former
+position, advancing, retreating, advancing, retreating, with the
+regularity of the tide.
+
+"I begged her," continued Ralph, "to tell me the man's name, but she
+would not.  He still lives, she said, he is happy and prosperous and
+he has not suffered at all.  For the honour of men, I want to punish
+that brute.  Father, do you know that when I think of a cur like
+that, I believe I could rend him with my own hands?"
+
+Anthony Dexter got to his feet unsteadily.  The mists about him
+cleared and the veiled figure whisked suddenly out of his sight.  He
+went up to Ralph as he might walk to the scaffold, but his head was
+held high.  All the anguish of his soul crystallised itself into one
+passionate word:
+
+"Strike!"
+
+For an instant the boy faced him, unbelieving.  Then he remembered
+that his father had seen Miss Evelina's face, that he must have known
+she was beautiful--and why she wore the veil.  "Father!" he cried,
+shrilly.  "Oh, never you!"
+
+Anthony Dexter looked into the eyes of his son until he could bear to
+look no more.  The veiled figure no longer stood between them, but
+something else was there, infinitely more terrible.  As he had
+watched the beating of the dog's bared heart, the man watched the
+boy's face.  Incredulity, amazement, wonder, and fear resolved
+themselves gradually into conviction.  Then came contempt, so deep
+and profound and permanent that from it there could never be appeal.
+With all the strength of his young and knightly soul, Ralph despised
+his father--and Anthony Dexter knew it.
+
+"Father," whispered the boy, hoarsely, "it was never you!  Tell me it
+isn't true!  Just a word, and I'll believe you!  For the sake of our
+manhood, Father, tell me it isn't true!"
+
+Anthony Dexter's head drooped, his eyes lowered before his son's.
+The cold sweat dripped from his face; his hands groped pitifully,
+like those of a blind man, feeling his way in a strange place.
+
+His hands fumbled helplessly toward Ralph's and the boy shrank back
+as though from the touch of a snake.  With a deep-drawn breath of
+agony, the man flung himself, unseeing, out of the room.  Ralph
+reeled like a drunken man against his chair.  He sank into it
+helplessly and his head fell forward on the table, his shoulders
+shaking with that awful grief which knows no tears.
+
+"Father!" he breathed.  "Father!  Father!"
+
+Upstairs, Anthony Dexter walked through the hall, followed, or
+occasionally preceded, by the ghostly figure of Evelina.  Her veil
+was thrown back now, and seemed a part of the mist which surrounded
+her.  Sometimes he had told a patient that there was never a point
+beyond which human endurance could not be made to go.  He knew now
+that he had lied.
+
+Ralph's unspoken condemnation had hurt him cruelly.  He could have
+borne words, he thought, better than that look on his son's face.
+For the first time, he realised how much he had cared for Ralph; how
+much--God help him!--he cared for him still.
+
+Yet above it all, dominant, compelling, was man's supreme
+passion--that for his mate.  As Evelina moved before him in her
+unveiled beauty, his hungry soul leaped to meet hers.  Now,
+strangely, he loved her as he had loved her in the long ago, yet with
+an added grace.  There was an element in his love that had never been
+there before--the mysterious bond which welds more firmly into one,
+two who have suffered together.
+
+He hungered for Ralph--for the strong young arm thrown about his
+shoulders in friendly fashion, for the eager, boyish laugh, the
+hearty word.  He hungered for Evelina, radiant with a beauty no woman
+had ever worn before.  Far past the promise of her girlhood, the
+noble, transfigured face, with its glory of lustreless white hair,
+set his pulses to throbbing wildly.  And subtly, unconsciously, but
+not the less surely, he hungered for death.
+
+Anthony Dexter had cherished no sentiment about the end of life; to
+him it had seemed much the same as the stopping of a clock, and of as
+little moment.  He had failed to see why such a fuss was made about
+the inevitable, though he had at times been scientifically interested
+in the hysterical effect he had produced in a household by announcing
+that within an hour or so a particular human clock might be expected
+to stop.  It had never occurred to him, either, that a man had not a
+well-defined right to stop the clock of his own being whenever it
+seemed desirable or expedient.
+
+Now he thought of death as the final, beautiful solution of all
+mundane problems.  If he were dead, Ralph could not look at him with
+contempt; the veiled--or unveiled--Evelina could not haunt him as she
+had, remorselessly, for months.  Yes, death was beautiful, and he
+well knew how to make it sure.
+
+By an incredibly swift transition, his pain passed into an exquisite
+pleasure.  The woman he loved was walking in the hall before him; the
+son he loved was downstairs.  What man could have more?
+
+  "For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
+    The black minute's at end,
+  And the elements' rage, the fiend voices that rave,
+    Shall dwindle, shall blend,
+  Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
+    Then a light, then thy breast--
+  Oh thou soul of my soul, I shall clasp thee again,
+    And with God be the rest!"
+
+The wonderful words sang themselves over in his consciousness.  He
+smiled and the unveiled Evelina smiled back at him, with infinite
+tenderness, infinite love.  To-night he would sleep as he had not
+slept before--in the sleep that knows no waking.
+
+He had the tiny white tablets, plenty of them, but the fancy seized
+him to taste this last bitterness to the full.  He took a wine glass
+from his chiffonier--those white, blunt fingers had never been more
+steady than now.  He lifted the vial on high and poured out the
+laudanum, faltering no more than when he had guided the knife in an
+operation that made him famous throughout the State.
+
+"Evelina," he said, his voice curiously soft, "I pledge you now, in a
+bond that cannot break!"  Was it fancy, or did the violet eyes soften
+with tears, even though the scarlet lips smiled?
+
+He drank.  The silken petals of the poppies, crushed into the peace
+that passeth all understanding, began their gentle ministry.   He
+made his way to his bed, put out his candle, and lay down.  The
+Spirit of the Poppies stood before him--a woman with a face like
+Evelina's, but her garments were scarlet, and Evelina always wore
+black.
+
+In the darkness, he could not distinguish clearly.  "Evelina," he
+called, aloud, "come!  Come to me, and put your hand in mine!"
+
+At once she seemed to answer him, wholly tender, wholly kind.  Was he
+dreaming, or did Evelina come and kneel beside him?  He groped for
+her hand, but it eluded him.
+
+"Evelina," he said, again, "dear heart!  Come!  Forgive," he
+breathed, drowsily.  "Ah, only forgive!"
+
+Then, as if by a miracle, her hand slipped into his and he felt his
+head drawn tenderly to man's first and last resting place--a woman's
+breast.
+
+And so, after a little, Anthony Dexter slept.  The Spirit of the
+Poppies had claimed her own at last.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+Forgiveness
+
+Haggard and worn, after a sleepless night, Ralph went down-stairs.
+Heavily upon his young shoulders, he bore the burden of his father's
+disgrace.  Through their kinship, the cowardice and the shirking became
+a part of his heritage.
+
+There was nothing to be done, for he could not raise his hand in anger
+against his own father.  They must continue to live together, and keep
+an unbroken front to the world, even though the bond between them had
+come to be the merest pretence.  He despised his father, but no one
+must ever know it--not even the father whom he despised.  Ralph did not
+guess that his father had read his face.
+
+He saw, now, why Miss Evelina had refused to tell him the man's name,
+and he honoured her for her reticence.  He perceived, too, the hideous
+temptation with which she was grappling when she begged him to leave
+her.  She had feared that she would tell him, and he must never let her
+suspect that he knew.
+
+The mighty, unseen forces that lie beneath our daily living were
+surging through Ralph's troubled soul.  Love, hatred, shame, remorse,
+anger, despair--the words are but symbols of things that work
+devastation within.
+
+Behold a man, in all outward seeming a gentleman.  Observe his
+courtesy, refinement, and consideration, his perfect self-control.
+Note his mastery of the lower nature, and see the mind in complete
+triumph over the beast.  Remark his education, the luxury of his
+surroundings, and the fine quality of his thought.  Wonder at the high
+levels whereon his life is laid, and marvel at the perfect adjustment
+between him and his circumstances.  Subject this man to the onslaught
+of some vast, cyclonic passion, and see the barriers crumble, then
+fall.  See all the artifice of civilisation swept away at one fell
+stroke, and behold your gentleman, transformed in an instant into a
+beast, with all a beast's primeval qualities.
+
+Under stress like this Ralph was fighting to regain his self mastery.
+He knew that he must force himself to sit opposite his father at the
+table, and exchange the daily, commonplace talk.  No one must ever
+suspect that anything was amiss--it is this demand of Society which
+keeps the structure in place and draws the line between civilisation
+and barbarism.  He knew that he never again could look his father
+straight in the face, that he must always avoid his eyes.  It would be
+hard at first, but Ralph had never given up anything simply because it
+was difficult.
+
+It was a relief to find that he was downstairs first.  Hearing his
+father's step upon the stair, he thought, would enable him to steel
+himself more surely to the inevitable meeting.  After they had once
+spoken together, it would be easier.  At length they might even become
+accustomed to the ghastly thing that lay between them and veil it, as
+it were, with commonplaces.
+
+Ralph took up the morning paper and pretended to read, though the words
+danced all over the page.  The old housekeeper brought in his
+breakfast, and, likewise, he affected to eat.  An hour went by, and
+still the dreaded step did not sound upon the stair.  At length the old
+housekeeper said, with a certain timid deference:
+
+"Your father's very late this morning, Doctor Ralph.  He has never been
+so late before."
+
+"He'll be down, presently.  He's probably overslept."
+
+"It's not your father's way to oversleep.  Hadn't you better go up and
+see?"
+
+Thus forced, Ralph went leisurely up-stairs, intending only to rap upon
+the door, which was always closed.  Perhaps, with the closed door
+between them, the first speech might be easier.
+
+He rapped once, with hesitation, then again, more definitely.  There
+was no answer.  Wholly without suspicion, Ralph opened the door, and
+went in.
+
+Anthony Dexter lay upon his bed, fully dressed.  On his face was a
+smile of ineffable peace.  Ralph went to him quickly, shook him, and
+felt his pulse, but vainly.  The heart of the man made no answer to the
+questioning fingers of his son.  The eyes were closed and, his hands
+trembling now, Ralph forced them open.  The contracted pupils gave him
+all the information he needed.   He found the wineglass, which still
+smelled of laudanum.  He washed it carefully, put it away, then went
+down-stairs.
+
+His first sensation was entirely relief.  Anthony Dexter had chosen the
+one sure way out.  Ralph had a distinct sense of gratitude until he
+remembered that death did not end disgrace.  Never again need he look
+in his father's eyes; there was no imperative demand that he should
+conceal his contempt.  With the hiding of Anthony Dexter's body beneath
+the shriving sod, all would be over save memory.  Could he put by this
+memory as his father had his?  Ralph did not know.
+
+The sorrowful preliminaries were all over before Ralph's feeling was in
+any way changed.  Then the pity of it all overwhelmed him in a blinding
+flood.
+
+Searching for something or some one to lean upon, his thought turned to
+Miss Evelina.  Surely, now, he might go to her.  If comfort was to be
+had, of any sort, he could find it there.  At any rate, they were
+bound, much as his father had been bound to her before, by the logic of
+events.
+
+He went uphill, scarcely knowing how he made his way.  Miss Evelina,
+veiled, as usual, opened the door for him.  Ralph stumbled across the
+threshold, crying out:
+
+"My father is dead!  He died by his own hand!"
+
+"Yes," returned Miss Evelina, quietly.   "I have heard.  I am
+sorry--for you."
+
+"You need not be," flashed Ralph, quickly.  "It is for us, my father
+and I, to be sorry for you--to make amends, if any amends can be made
+by the living or the dead."
+
+Miss Evelina started.  He knew, then?  And it had not been necessary
+for her to draw out the sheathed dagger which only yesterday she had
+held in her hand.  The glittering vengeance had gone home, through no
+direct agency of hers.
+
+"Miss Evelina!" cried the boy.  "I have come to ask you to forgive my
+father!"
+
+A silence fell between them, as cold and forbidding as Death itself.
+After an interval which seemed an hour, Miss Evelina spoke.
+
+"He never asked," she said.  Her tone was icy, repellent.
+
+"I know," answered Ralph, despairingly, "but I, his son, ask it.
+Anthony Dexter's son asks you to forgive Anthony Dexter--not to let him
+go to his grave unforgiven."
+
+"He never asked," said Miss Evelina again, stubbornly.
+
+"His need is all the greater for that," pleaded the boy, "and mine.
+Have you thought of my need of it?  My name meant 'right' until my
+father changed its meaning.  Don't you see that unless you forgive my
+father, I can never hold up my head again?"
+
+What the Piper had said to Evelina came back to her now, eloquent with
+appeal;
+
+_The word is not made right.  I'm thinking 't is wrong end to, as many
+things in this world are until we move and look at them from another
+way.  It's giving for, that's all.  When you have put self so wholly
+aside that you can he sorry for him because he has wronged you, why,
+then you have forgiven_.
+
+She moved about restlessly.  It seemed to her that she could never be
+sorry for Anthony Dexter because he had wronged her; that she could
+never grow out of the hurt of her own wrong.
+
+"Come with me," said Ralph, choking.  "I know it's a hard thing I ask
+of you.  God knows I haven't forgiven him myself, but I know I've got
+to, and you'll have to, too.  Miss Evelina, you've got to forgive him,
+or I never can bear my disgrace."
+
+She let him lead her out of the house.  On the long way to Anthony
+Dexter's, no word passed between them.  Only the sound of their
+footfalls, and Ralph's long, choking breaths, half sobs, broke the
+silence.
+
+At the gate, the usual knot of curious people had gathered.  They were
+wondering, in undertones, how one so skilful as Doctor Dexter had
+happened to take an overdose of laudanum, but they stood by,
+respectfully, to make way for Ralph and the mysterious, veiled woman in
+black.  The audible whispers followed them up to the very door: "Who is
+she?  What had she to do with him?"
+
+As yet, Anthony Dexter's body lay in his own room.  Ralph led Miss
+Evelina in, and closed the door.  "Here he is," sobbed the boy.  "He
+has gone and left the shame for me.  Forgive him, Miss Evelina!  For
+the love of God, forgive him!"
+
+Evelina sighed.  She was standing close to Anthony Dexter now without
+fear.  She had no wish to torture him, as she once had, with the sight
+of her unveiled face.  It was the man she had loved, now--the emotion
+which had made him hideous to her was past and gone.  To her, as to him
+the night before, death seemed the solution of all problems, the
+supreme answer to all perplexing questions.
+
+Ralph crept out of the room and closed the door so softly that she did
+not hear.  She was alone, as every woman some day is; alone with her
+dead.
+
+She threw back her veil.  The morning sun lay strong upon Anthony
+Dexter's face, revealing every line.  Death had been kind to him at
+last, had closed the tortured eyes, blotted out the lines of cruelty
+around his mouth, and changed the mask-like expression to a tender calm.
+
+A hint of the old, loving smile was there; once again he was the man
+she had loved, but the love itself had burned out of her heart long
+ago.  He was naught to her, nor she to him.
+
+The door knob turned, and, quickly, she lowered her veil.  Piper Tom
+came in, with a soft, slow step.  He did not seem to see Miss Evelina;
+one would have said he did not know she was in the room.  He went
+straight to Anthony Dexter, and laid his warm hand upon the cold one.
+
+"Man," he said, "I've come to say I forgive you for hurting Laddie.
+I'm not thinking, now, that you would have done it if you had known.
+I'm sorry for you because you could do it.  I've forgiven you as I hope
+God will forgive you for that and for everything else."
+
+Then he turned to Evelina, and whispered, as though to keep the dead
+from hearing: "'T was hard, but I've done it.  'T is easier, I'm
+thinking, to forgive the dead than the living."  He went out again, as
+silently as he had come, and closed the door.
+
+Was it, in truth, easier to forgive the dead?  In her inmost soul,
+Evelina knew that she could not have cherished lifelong resentment
+against any other person in the world.  To those we love most, we are
+invariably most cruel, but she did not love him now.  The man she had
+loved was no more than a stranger--and from a stranger can come no
+intentional wrong.
+
+"O God," prayed Evelina, for the first time, "help me to forgive!"
+
+She threw back her veil once more.  They were face to face at last,
+with only a prayer between.  His mute helplessness pleaded with her and
+Ralph's despairing cry rang in her ears.  The estranging mists cleared,
+and, in truth, she put self aside.
+
+Intuitively, she saw how he had suffered since the night he came to her
+to make it right, if he could.  He must have suffered, unless he were
+more than human.  "Dear God," she prayed, again, "oh, help me forgive!"
+
+All at once there was a change.  The light seemed thrown into the
+uttermost places of her darkened soul.  She illumined, and a wave of
+infinite pity swept her from head to foot.  She leaned forward, her
+hands seeking his, and upon Anthony Dexter's dead face there fell the
+forgiving baptism of her tears.
+
+
+In the hall, as she went out, she encountered Miss Mehitable.  That
+face, too, was changed.  She had not come, as comes that ghoulish
+procession of merest acquaintances, to gloat, living, over the helpless
+dead.
+
+At the sight of Evelina, she retreated.  "I'll go back," murmured Miss
+Mehitable, enigmatically.  "You had the best right."
+
+Evelina went down-stairs and home again, but Miss Mehitable did not
+enter that silent room.
+
+The third day came, and there was no resurrection.  Since the miracle
+of Easter, the world has waited its three days for the dead to rise
+again.  Ralph sat in the upper hall, just beyond the turn of the stair,
+and beside him, unveiled, was Miss Evelina.
+
+"It's you and I," he had pleaded, "don't you see that?  Have you never
+thought that you should have been my mother?"
+
+From below, in Thorpe's deep voice, came the words of the burial
+service: "I am the resurrection and the life.  He that believeth on me,
+though he were dead, yet shall he live."
+
+For a few moments, Thorpe spoke of death as the inevitable end of life,
+and our ignorance of what lies beyond.  He spoke of that mystic veil
+which never parts save for a passage, and from behind which no word
+ever comes.  He said that life was a rainbow spanning brilliantly the
+two silences, that man's ceasing was no more strange than his
+beginning, and that the God who ordained the beginning had also
+ordained the end.  He said, too, that the love which gave life might
+safely be trusted with that same life, at its mysterious conclusion.
+At length, he struck the personal note.
+
+"It is hard for me," Thorpe went on, "to perform this last service for
+my friend.  All of you are my friends, but the one who lies here was
+especially dear.  He was a man of few friendships, and I was privileged
+to come close, to know him as he was.
+
+"His life was clean, and upon his record there rests no shadow of
+disgrace."  At this Ralph, in the upper hall, buried his face in his
+hands.  Miss Evelina sat quietly, to all intents and purposes unmoved.
+
+"He was a brave man," Thorpe was saying; "a valiant soldier on the
+great battlefield of the world.  He met his temptations face to face,
+and conquered them.  For him, there was no such thing as cowardice--he
+never shirked.  He met every responsibility like a man, and never
+swerved aside.  He took his share, and more, of the world's work, and
+did it nobly, as a man should do.
+
+"His brusque manner concealed a great heart.  I fear that, at times,
+some of you may have misunderstood him.  There was no man in our
+community more deeply and lovingly the friend of us all, and there is
+no man among us more noble in thought and act than he.
+
+"We who have known him cannot but be the better for the knowing.  It
+would be a beautiful world, indeed, if we were all as good as he.  We
+cannot fail to be inspired by his example.  Through knowing him, each
+of us is better fitted for life.  We can conquer cowardice more easily,
+meet our temptations more valiantly, and more surely keep from the sin
+of shirking, because Anthony Dexter has lived.
+
+"To me," said Thorpe, his voice breaking, "it is the greatest loss,
+save one, that I have ever known.  But it is only through our own
+sorrow that we come to understand the sorrow of others, only through
+our own weaknesses that we learn to pity the weakness of others, and
+only through our own love and forgiveness that we can ever comprehend
+the infinite love and forgiveness of God.  If any of you have ever
+thought he wronged you, in some small, insignificant way, I give you my
+word that it was entirely unintentional, and I bespeak for him your
+pardon.
+
+"He goes to his grave to-day, to wait, in the great silence, for the
+final solution of God's infinite mysteries, and, as you and I believe,
+for God's sure reward.  He goes with the love of us all, with the
+forgiveness of us all, and with the hope of us all that when we come to
+die, we may be as certain of Heaven as he."
+
+Perceiving that his grief was overmastering him, Thorpe proceeded
+quickly to the benediction.  In the pause that followed, Ralph leaned
+toward the woman who sat beside him.
+
+"Have you," he breathed, "forgiven him--and me?"
+
+Miss Evelina nodded, her beautiful eyes shining with tears.
+
+"Mother!" said Ralph, thickly.  Like a hurt child, he went to her, and
+sobbed his heart out, in the shelter of her arms.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+Undine Finds Her Soul
+
+The year was at its noon.  Every rose-bush was glorious with bloom, and
+even the old climbing rose which clung, in its decay, to Miss
+Mehitable's porch railing had put forth a few fragrant blossoms.
+
+Soon after Araminta had been carried back home, she discovered that she
+had changed since she went away.  Aunt Hitty no longer seemed
+infallible.  Indeed, Araminta had admitted to herself, though with the
+pangs of a guilty conscience, that it was possible for Aunt Hitty to be
+mistaken.  It was probable that the entire knowledge of the world was
+not concentrated in Aunt Hitty.
+
+Outwardly, things went on as usual.  Miss Mehitable issued orders to
+Araminta as the commander in chief of an army issues instructions to
+his subordinates, and Araminta obeyed as faithfully as before, yet with
+a distinct difference.  She did what she was told to do out of
+gratitude for lifelong care, and not because she felt that she had to.
+
+She went, frequently, to see Miss Evelina, having disposed of
+objections by the evident fact that she could not neglect any one who
+had been so kind to her as Miss Evelina had.  Usually, however, the
+faithful guardian went along, and the three sat in the garden, Evelina
+with her frail hands listlessly folded, and the others stitching away
+at the endless and monotonous patchwork.
+
+Miss Mehitable had a secret fear that the bloom had been brushed from
+her rose.  Until the accident, Araminta had scarcely been out of her
+sight since she brought her home, a toddling infant.  Miss Mehitable's
+mind had unerringly controlled two bodies until Araminta fell off the
+ladder.  Now, the other mind began to show distressing signs of
+activity.
+
+By dint of extra work, Araminta's eighth patchwork quilt was made for
+quilting, and the Ladies' Aid Society was invited to Miss Mehitable's
+for the usual Summer revelry of quilting and gossip.  Miss Evelina was
+invited, but refused to go.
+
+After the festivity was over, Miss Mehitable made a fruitful excavation
+into a huge chest in the attic, and emerged, flushed but happy, with
+enough scraps for three quilts.
+
+"This here next quilt, Minty," she said, with the air of one announcing
+a pleasant surprise, "will be the Risin' Sun and Star pattern.  It's
+harder 'n the others, and that's why I've kep' it until now.  You've
+done all them other quilts real good," she added, grudgingly.
+
+Araminta had her own surprise ready, but it was not of a pleasant
+nature.  "Thank you, Aunt Hitty," she replied, "but I'm not going to
+make any more quilts, for a while, at any rate."
+
+Miss Mehitable's lower jaw dropped in amazement.  Never before had
+Araminta failed to obey her suggestions.  "Minty," she said, anxiously,
+"don't you feel right?  It was hot yesterday, and the excitement, and
+all--I dunno but you may have had a stroke."
+
+Araminta smiled--a lovable, winning smile.  "No, I haven't had any
+'stroke,' but I've made all the quilts I'm going to until I get to be
+an old woman, and have nothing else to do."
+
+"What are you layin' out to do, Minty?" demanded Miss Mehitable.
+
+"I'm going to be outdoors all I want to, and I'm going up to Miss
+Evelina's and play with my kitten, and help you with the housework, or
+do anything else you want me to do, but--no more quilts," concluded the
+girl, firmly.
+
+"Araminta Lee!" cried Miss Mehitable, speech having returned.  "If I
+ain't ashamed of you!  Here's your poor old aunt that's worked her
+fingers to the bone, slaving for you almost ever since the day you was
+born, and payin' a doctor's outrageous bill of four dollars and a
+half--or goin' to pay," she corrected, her conscience reproaching her,
+"and you refusin' to mind!
+
+"Haven't I took good care of you all these eighteen years?  Haven't I
+set up with you when you was sick and never let you out of my sight for
+a minute, and taught you to be as good a housekeeper as any in Rushton,
+and made you into a first-class seamstress, and educated you myself,
+and looked after your religious training, and made your clothes?  Ain't
+I been father and mother and sister and brother and teacher and
+grandparents all rolled into one?  And now you're refusin' to make
+quilts!"
+
+Araminta's heart reproached her, but the blood of some fighting
+ancestor was in her pulses now.  "I know, Aunt Hitty," she said,
+kindly, "you've done all that and more, and I'm not in the least
+ungrateful, though you may think so.  But I'm not going to make any
+more quilts!"
+
+"Araminta Lee," said Miss Mehitable, warningly, "look careful where
+you're steppin'.  Hell is yawning in front of you this very minute!"
+
+Araminta smiled sweetly.  Since the day the minister had gone to see
+her, she had had no fear of hell.  "I don't see it, Aunt Hitty," she
+said, "but if everybody who hasn't pieced more than eight quilts by
+hand is in there, it must be pretty crowded."
+
+"Araminta Lee," cried Miss Mehitable, "you're your mother all over
+again.  She got just as high-steppin' as you before her downfall, and
+see where she ended at.  She was married," concluded the accuser,
+scornfully, "yes, actually married!"
+
+"Aunt Hitty," said Araminta, her sweet mouth quivering ever so little,
+"your mother was married, too, wasn't she?"  With this parting shaft,
+the girl went out of the room, her head held high.
+
+Miss Mehitable stared after her, uncomprehending.  Slowly it dawned
+upon her that some one had been telling tales and undoing her careful
+work.  "Minty!  Minty!" she cried, "how can you talk to me so!"
+
+But 'Minty' was outdoors and on her way to Miss Evelina's, bareheaded,
+this being strictly forbidden, so she did not hear.  She was hoping
+against hope that some day, at Miss Evelina's, she might meet Doctor
+Ralph again and tell him she was sorry she had broken his heart.
+
+Since the day he went away from her, Araminta had not had even a
+glimpse of him.  She had gone to his father's funeral, as everyone else
+in the village did, and had wondered that he was not in the front seat,
+where, in her brief experience of funerals, mourners usually sat.
+
+She admitted, to herself, that she had gone to the funeral solely for
+the sake of seeing Doctor Ralph.  Araminta was wholly destitute of
+curiosity regarding the dead, and she had not joined the interested
+procession which wound itself around Anthony Dexter's coffin before
+passing out, regretfully, at the front door.  Neither had Miss
+Mehitable.  At the time, Araminta had thought it strange, for at all
+previous occasions of the kind, within her remembrance.  Aunt Hitty had
+been well up among the mourners and had usually gone around the casket
+twice.
+
+At Miss Evelina's, she knocked in vain.  There was white chiffon upon
+the line, but all the doors were locked.  Doctor Ralph was not there,
+either, and even the kitten was not in sight, so, regretfully, Araminta
+went home again.
+
+Throughout the day, Miss Mehitable did not speak to her erring niece,
+but Araminta felt it to be a relief, rather than a punishment.  In the
+afternoon, the emancipated young woman put on her best gown--a white,
+cross-barred muslin which she had made herself.  It was not Sunday, and
+Araminta was forbidden to wear the glorified raiment save on occasions
+of high state.
+
+She added further to her sins by picking a pink rose--Miss Mehitable
+did not think flowers were made to pick--and fastening it coquettishly
+in her brown hair.  Moreover, Araminta had put her hair up loosely,
+instead of in the neat, tight wad which Miss Mehitable had forced upon
+her the day she donned long skirts.  When Miss Mehitable beheld her
+transformed charge she would have broken her vow of silence had not the
+words mercifully failed.  Aunt Hitty's vocabulary was limited, and she
+had no language in which to express her full opinion of the wayward
+one, so she assumed, instead, the pose of a suffering martyr.
+
+The atmosphere at the table, during supper, was icy, even though it was
+the middle of June.  Thorpe noticed it and endeavoured to talk, but was
+not successful.  Miss Mehitable's few words, which were invariably
+addressed to him, were so acrid in quality that they made him nervous.
+The Reverend Austin Thorpe, innocent as he was of all intentional
+wrong, was made to feel like a criminal haled to the bar of justice.
+
+But Araminta glowed and dimpled and smiled.  Her eyes danced with
+mischief, and the colour came and went upon her velvety cheeks.  She
+took pains to ask Aunt Hitty for the salt or the bread, and kept up a
+continuous flow of high-spirited talk.  Had it not been for Araminta,
+the situation would have become openly strained.
+
+Afterward, she began to clear up the dishes as usual, but Miss
+Mehitable pushed her out of the room with a violence indicative of
+suppressed passion.  So, humming a hymn at an irreverent tempo,
+Araminta went out and sat down on the front porch, spreading down the
+best rug in the house that she might not soil her gown.  This, also,
+was forbidden.
+
+When the dishes were washed and put away, Miss Mehitable came out, clad
+in her rustling black silk and her best bonnet.  "Miss Lee," she said
+very coldly, "I am going out."
+
+"All right, Aunt Hitty" returned Araminta, cheerfully.  "As it happens,
+I'm not."
+
+Miss Mehitable repressed an exclamation of horror.  Seemingly, then, it
+had occurred to Araminta to go out in the evening--alone!
+
+Miss Mehitable's feet moved swiftly away from the house.  She was going
+to the residence of the oldest and most orthodox deacon in Thorpe's
+church, to ask for guidance in dealing with her wayward charge, but
+Araminta never dreamed of this.
+
+Dusk came, the sweet, June dusk, starred with fireflies and clouded
+with great white moths.  The roses and mignonette and honeysuckle made
+the air delicately fragrant.  To the emancipated one, it was, indeed, a
+beautiful world.
+
+Austin Thorpe came out, having found his room unbearably close.  As the
+near-sighted sometimes do, he saw more clearly at twilight than at
+other times.
+
+"You here, child?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, I'm here," replied Araminta, happily.  "Sit down, won't you?"
+Having taken the first step, she found the others comparatively easy,
+and was rejoicing in her new freedom.  She felt sure, too, that some
+day she should see Doctor Ralph once more and all would be made right
+between them.
+
+The minister sat down gladly, his old heart yearning toward Araminta as
+toward a loved and only child.  "Where is your aunt?" he asked, timidly.
+
+"Goodness knows," laughed Araminta, irreverently.  "She's gone out, in
+all her best clothes.  She didn't say whether she was coming back or
+not."
+
+Thorpe was startled, for he had never heard speech like this from
+Araminta.  He knew her only as a docile, timid child.  Now, she seemed
+suddenly to have grown up.
+
+For her part, Araminta remembered how the minister had once helped her
+out of a difficulty, and taken away from her forever the terrible,
+haunting fear of hell.  Here was a dazzling opportunity to acquire new
+knowledge.
+
+"Mr. Thorpe," she demanded, eagerly, "what is it to be married?"
+
+"To be married," repeated Austin Thorpe, dreamily, his eyes fixed upon
+a firefly that flitted, star-tike, near the rose, "is, I think, the
+nearest this world can come to Heaven."
+
+"Oh!" cried Araminta, in astonishment.  "What does it mean?"
+
+"It means," answered Thorpe, softly, "that a man and a woman whom God
+meant to be mated have found each other at last.  It means there is
+nothing in the world that you have to face alone, that all your joys
+are doubled and all your sorrows shared.  It means that there is no
+depth into which you can go alone, that one other hand is always in
+yours; trusting, clinging, tender, to help you bear whatever comes.
+
+"It means that the infinite love has been given, in part, to you, for
+daily strength and comfort.  It is a balm for every wound, a spur for
+every lagging, a sure dependence in every weakness, a belief in every
+doubt.  The perfect being is neither man nor woman, but a merging of
+dual natures into a united whole.  To be married gives a man a woman's
+tenderness; a woman, a man's courage.  The long years stretch before
+them, and what lies beyond no one can say, but they face it, smiling
+and serene, because they are together."
+
+"My mother was married," said Araminta, softly.  All at once, the stain
+of disgrace was wiped out.
+
+"Yes, dear child, and, I hope, to the man she loved, as I hope that
+some day you will be married to the man who loves you."
+
+Araminta's whole heart yearned toward Ralph--yearned unspeakably.  In
+something else, surely, Aunt Hitty was wrong.
+
+"Araminta," said Thorpe, his voice shaking; "dear child, come here."
+
+She followed him into the house.  His trembling old hands lighted a
+candle and she saw that his eyes were full of tears.  From an inner
+pocket, he drew out a small case, wrapped in many thicknesses of worn
+paper.  He unwound it reverently, his face alight with a look she had
+never seen there before.
+
+"See!" he said.  He opened the ornate case and showed her an old
+daguerreotype.  A sweet, girlish face looked out at her, a woman with
+trusting, loving eyes, a sweet mouth, and dark, softly parted hair.
+
+"Oh," whispered Araminta.  "Were you married--to her?"
+
+"No," answered Thorpe, hoarsely, shutting the case with a snap and
+beginning to wrap it again in the many folds of paper.  "I was to have
+been married to her."  His voice lingered with inexpressible fondness
+upon the words.  "She died," he said, his lips quivering.
+
+"Oh," cried the girl, "I'm sorry!"  A sharp pang pierced her through
+and through.
+
+"Child," said Thorpe, his wrinkled hand closing on hers, "to those who
+love, there is no such thing as Death.  Do you think that just because
+she is dead, I have ceased to care?  Death has made her mine as Life
+could never do.  She walks beside me daily, as though we were hand in
+hand.  Her tenderness makes me tender, her courage gives me strength,
+her great charity makes me kind.  Her belief has made my own faith more
+sure, her steadfastness keeps me from faltering, and her patience
+enables me to wait until the end, when I go, into the Unknown, to meet
+her.  Child, I do not know if there be a Heaven, but if God gives me
+her, and her love, as I knew it once, I shall not ask for more."
+
+Unable to say more, for the tears, Thorpe stumbled out of the room.
+Araminta's own eyes were wet and her heart was strangely tender to all
+the world.  Miss Evelina, the kitten, Mr. Thorpe, Doctor Ralph--even
+Aunt Hitty--were all included in a wave of unspeakable tenderness.
+
+Never stopping to question, Araminta sped out of the house, her feet
+following where her heart led.  Past the crossroads, to the right, down
+into the village, across the tracks, then sharply to the left, up to
+Doctor Dexter's, where, only a few weeks before, she had gone in the
+hope of seeing Doctor Ralph, Araminta ran like some young Atalanta,
+across whose path no golden apples were thrown.
+
+The door was open, and she rushed in, unthinking, turning by instinct
+into the library, where Ralph sat alone, leaning his head upon his hand.
+
+"Doctor Ralph!" she cried, "I've come!"
+
+He looked up, then started forward.  One look into her glorified face
+told him all that he needed to know.  "Undine," he said, huskily, "have
+you found your soul?"
+
+"I don't know what I've found," sobbed Araminta, from the shelter of
+his arms, "but I've come, to stay with you always, if you'll let me!"
+
+"If I'll let you," murmured Ralph, kissing away her happy tears.  "You
+little saint, it's what I want as I want nothing else in the world."
+
+"I know what it is to be married," said Araminta, after a little, her
+grave, sweet eyes on his.  "I asked Mr. Thorpe to-night and he told me.
+It's to be always with the one you love, and never to mind what anybody
+else says or does.  It's to help each other bear everything and be
+twice as happy because you're together.  It means that somebody will
+always help you when things go wrong, and there'll always be something
+you can lean on.  You'll never be afraid of anything, because you're
+together.  My mother was married, your mother was married, and I've
+found out that Aunt Hitty's mother was married, too.
+
+"And Mr. Thorpe--he would have been married, but she died.  He told me
+and he showed me her picture, and he says that it doesn't make any
+difference to be dead, when you love anybody, and that Heaven, for him,
+will be where she waits for him and puts her hand in his again.  He was
+crying, and so was I, but it's because he has her and I have you!"
+
+"Sweetheart!  Darling!" cried Ralph, crushing her into his close
+embrace.  "It's God Himself who brought you to me now!"
+
+"No," returned Araminta, missing the point, "I came all by myself.  And
+I ran all the way.  Nobody brought me.  But I've come, for always, and
+I'll never leave you again.  I'm sorry I broke your heart!"
+
+"You've made it well again," he said, fondly, "and so we'll be
+married--you and I."
+
+"Yes," repeated Araminta, her beautiful face alight with love, "we'll
+be married, you and I!"
+
+"Sweet," he said, "do you think I deserve so much?"
+
+"Being married is giving everything," she explained, "but I haven't
+anything at all.  Only eight quilts and me!  Do you care for quilts?"
+
+"Quilts be everlastingly condemned.  I'm going to tell Aunt Hitty."
+
+"No," said Araminta, "I'm going to tell her my own self, so now!  And
+I'll tell her to-morrow!"
+
+It was after ten when Ralph took Araminta home.  From the parlour
+window Miss Mehitable was watching anxiously.  She had divested herself
+of the rustling black silk and was safely screened by the shutters.
+She had been at home an hour or more, and though she had received
+plenty of good advice, of a stern nature, from her orthodox counsellor,
+her mind was far from at rest.  Having conjured up all sorts of dire
+happenings, she was relieved when she heard voices outside.
+
+Miss Mehitable peered out eagerly from behind the shutters.  Up the
+road came Araminta--may the saints preserve us!--with a man!  Miss
+Mehitable quickly placed him as that blackmailing play-doctor who now
+should never have his four dollars and a half unless he collected it by
+law.  Only in the last ditch would she surrender.
+
+They were talking and laughing, and Ralph's black-coated arm was around
+Araminta's white-robed waist.  They came slowly to the gate, where they
+stopped.  Araminta laid her head confidingly upon Ralph's shoulder and
+he held her tightly in his arms, kissing her repeatedly, as Miss
+Mehitable guessed, though she could not see very well.
+
+At last they parted and Araminta ran lightly into the house, saying, in
+a low, tender voice: "To-morrow, dear, to-morrow!"
+
+She went up-stairs, singing.  Even then Miss Mehitable observed that it
+was not a hymn, but some light and ungodly tune she had picked up,
+Heaven knew where!
+
+She went to her room, still humming, and presently her light was out,
+but her guardian angel was too stiff with horror to move.
+
+"O Lord," prayed Araminta, as she sank to sleep, "keep me from the
+contamination of--not being married to him, for Thy sake, Amen."
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+Telling Aunt Hitty
+
+Araminta woke with the birds.  As yet, it was dark, but from afar came
+the cheery voice of a robin, piping gaily of coming dawn.  When the
+first ray of light crept into her room, and every bird for miles around
+was swelling his tiny throat in song, it seemed to her that, until now,
+she had never truly lived.
+
+The bird that rocked on the maple branch, outside her window, carolling
+with all his might, was no more free than she.  Love had rolled away
+the stone Aunt Hitty had set before the door of Araminta's heart, and
+the imprisoned thing was trying its wings, as joyously as the birds
+themselves.
+
+Every sense was exquisitely alive and thrilling.  Had she been older
+and known more of the world, Love would not have come to her so, but
+rather with a great peace, an unending trust.  But having waked as
+surely as the sleeping princess in the tower, she knew the uttermost
+ecstasy of it--heard the sound of singing trumpets and saw the white
+light.
+
+Her fear of Aunt Hitty had died, mysteriously and suddenly.  She
+appreciated now, as never before, all that had been done for her.  She
+saw, too, that many things had been done that were better left undone,
+but in her happy heart was no condemnation for anybody or anything.
+
+Araminta dressed leisurely.  Usually, she hurried into her clothes and
+ran down-stairs to help Aunt Hitty, who was always ready for the day's
+work before anybody else was awake but this morning she took her time.
+
+She loved the coolness of the water on her face, she loved her white
+plump arms, her softly rounded throat, the velvety roses that blossomed
+on her cheeks, and the wavy brown masses of her hair, touched by the
+sun into tints of copper and gold.  For the first time in all her life,
+Araminta realised that she was beautiful.  She did not know that Love
+brings beauty with it, nor that the light in her eyes, like a new star,
+had not risen until last night.
+
+She was seriously tempted to slide down the banister--this also having
+been interdicted since her earliest remembrance--but, being a grown
+woman, now, she compromised with herself by taking two stairs at a time
+in a light, skipping, perilous movement that landed her, safe but
+breathless, in the lower hall.
+
+In the kitchen, wearing an aspect distinctly funereal, was Miss
+Mehitable.  Her brisk, active manner was gone and she moved slowly.
+She did not once look up as Araminta came in.
+
+"Good-morning, Aunt Hitty!" cried the girl, pirouetting around the bare
+floor.  "Isn't this the beautifullest morning that ever was, and aren't
+you glad you're alive?"
+
+"No," returned Miss Mehitable, acidly; "I am not."
+
+"Aren't you?" asked Araminta, casually, too happy to be deeply
+concerned about anybody else; "why, what's wrong?"
+
+"I should think, Araminta Lee, that you 'd be the last one on earth to
+ask what's wrong!" The flood gates were open now.  "Wasn't it only
+yesterday that you broke away from all restraint and refused to make
+any more quilts?  Didn't you put on your best dress in the afternoon
+when 't want Sunday and I hadn't told you that you could?  Didn't you
+pick a rose and stick it into your hair, and have I ever allowed you to
+pick a flower on the place, to say nothing of doing anything so foolish
+as to put it in your hair?  Flowers and hair don't go together."
+
+"There's hair in the parlour," objected Araminta, frivolously, "made up
+into a wreath of flowers, so I thought as long as you had them made out
+of dead people's hair, I'd put some roses in mine, now, while I'm
+alive."
+
+Miss Mehitable compressed her lips sternly and went on.
+
+"Didn't you take a rug out of the parlour last night and spread it on
+the porch, and have I ever had rugs outdoor except when they was being
+beat?  And didn't you sit down on the front porch, where I've never
+allowed you to sit, it not being modest for a young female to sit
+outside of her house?"
+
+"Yes," admitted Araminta, cheerfully, "I did all those things, and I
+put my hair up loosely instead of tightly, as you've always taught me.
+You forgot that."
+
+"No, I didn't," denied Miss Mehitable, vigorously; "I was coming to
+that.  Didn't you go up to Miss Evelina's without asking me if you
+could, and didn't you go bareheaded, as I've never allowed you to do?"
+
+"Yes," laughed Araminta, "I did."
+
+"After I went away," pursued Miss Mehitable, swiftly approaching her
+climax, "didn't you go up to Doctor Dexter's like a shameless hussy?"
+
+"If it makes a shameless hussy of me to go to Doctor Dexter's, that's
+what I am."
+
+"You went there to see Doctor Ralph Dexter, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, I did," sang Araminta, "and oh, Aunt Hitty, he was there!  He was
+there!"
+
+"Ain't I told you," demanded Miss Mehitable, "how one woman went up
+there when she had no business to go and got burnt so awful that she
+has to wear a veil all the rest of her life?"
+
+"Yes, you told me, Aunt Hitty, but, you see, I didn't get burned."
+
+"Araminta Lee, you're going right straight to hell, just as fast as you
+can get there.  Perdition is yawning at your feet.  Didn't that
+blackmailing play-doctor come home with you?"
+
+"Ralph," Said Araminta--and the way she spoke his name made it a
+caress--"Ralph came home with me."
+
+"I saw you comin' home," continued Miss Mehitable, with her sharp eyes
+keenly fixed upon the culprit.  "I saw his arm around your waist and
+you leanin' your head on his shoulder."
+
+"Yes," laughed Araminta, "I haven't forgotten.  I can feel his arms
+around me now."
+
+"And at the gate--you needn't deny it, for I saw it all--he KISSED you!"
+
+"That's right, Aunt Hitty.  At his house, he kissed me, too, lots and
+lots of times.  And," she added, her eyes meeting her accuser's
+clearly, "I kissed him."
+
+"How do you suppose I feel to see such goin's on, after all I've done
+for you?"
+
+"You needn't have looked, Aunty, if you didn't like to see it."
+
+"Do you know where I went when I went out?  I went up to Deacon
+Robinson's to lay your case before him."  Miss Mehitable paused, for
+the worthy deacon was the fearsome spectre of young sinners.
+
+Araminta executed an intricate dance step of her own devising, but did
+not seem interested in the advice he had given.
+
+"He told me," went on Miss Mehitable, in the manner of a judge
+pronouncing sentence upon a criminal, "that at any cost I must trample
+down this godless uprising, and assert my rightful authority.  'Honour
+thy father and thy mother,' the Bible says, and I'm your father and
+mother, rolled into one.  He said that if I couldn't make you listen in
+any other way, it would be right and proper for me to shut you up in
+your room and keep you on bread and water until you came to your
+senses."
+
+Araminta giggled.  "I wouldn't be there long," she said.  "How funny it
+would be for Ralph to come with a ladder and take me out!"
+
+"Araminta Lee, what do you mean?"
+
+"Why," explained the girl, "we're going to be married--Ralph and I."
+
+A nihilist bomb thrown into the immaculate kitchen could not have
+surprised Miss Mehitable more.  She had no idea that it had gone so
+far.  "Married!" she gasped.  "You!"
+
+"Not just me alone, Aunty, but Ralph and I.  There has to be two, and
+I'm of age, so I can if I want to."  This last heresy had been learned
+from Ralph, only the night before.
+
+"Married!" gasped Miss Mehitable, again.
+
+"Yes," returned Araminta, firmly, "married.  My mother was married, and
+Ralph's mother was married, and your mother was married.  Everybody's
+mother is married, and Mr. Thorpe says it's the nearest there is to
+Heaven.  He was going to be married himself, but she died.
+
+"Dear Aunt Hitty," cooed Araminta, with winning sweetness, "don't look
+so frightened.  It's nothing dreadful, it's only natural and right, and
+I'm the happiest girl the sun shines on to-day.  Don't be selfish,
+Aunty--you've had me all my life, and it's his turn now.  I'll come to
+see you every day and you can come and see me.  Kiss me, and tell me
+you're glad I'm going to be married!"
+
+At this juncture, Thorpe entered the kitchen, not aware that he was
+upon forbidden ground.  Attracted by the sound of voices, he had come
+in, just in time to hear Araminta's last words.
+
+"Dear child!" he said, his fine old face illumined.  "And so you're
+going to be married to the man you love!  I'm so glad!  God bless you!"
+He stooped, and kissed Araminta gently upon the forehead.
+
+Having thus seen, as it were, the sanction of the Church placed upon
+Araminta's startling announcement, Miss Mehitable could say no more.
+During breakfast she did not speak at all, even to Thorpe.  Araminta
+chattered gleefully of everything under the blue heaven, and even the
+minister noted the liquid melody of her voice.
+
+Afterward, she went out, as naturally as a flower turns toward the sun.
+It was a part of the magic beauty of the world that she should meet
+Ralph, just outside the gate, with a face as radiant as her own.
+
+"I was coming," he said, after the first rapture had somewhat subsided,
+"to tell Aunt Hitty."
+
+"I told her," returned the girl, proudly, "all by my own self!"
+
+"You don't mean it!  What did she say?"
+
+"She said everything.  She told me hell was yawning at my feet, but I'm
+sure it's Heaven.  She said that she was my father and mother rolled
+into one, and I was obliged to remind her that I was of age.  You
+thought of that," she said, admiringly.  "I didn't even know that I'd
+ever get old enough not to mind anybody but myself--or you."
+
+"You won't have to 'mind' me," laughed Ralph.  "I'll give you a long
+rope."
+
+"What would I do with a rope?" queried Araminta, seriously.
+
+"You funny, funny girl!  Didn't you ever see a cow staked out in a
+pasture?"
+
+"Yes.  Am I a cow?"
+
+"For the purposes of illustration, yes, and Aunt Hitty represents the
+stake.  For eighteen or nineteen years, your rope has been so short
+that you could hardly move at all.  Now things are changed, and I
+represent the stake.  You've got the longest rope, now, that was ever
+made in one piece.  See?"
+
+"I'll come back," answered Araminta, seriously.  "I don't think I need
+any rope at all."
+
+"No, dear, I know that.  I was only joking.  You poor child, you've
+lived so long with that old dragon that you scarcely recognise a joke
+when you see one.  A sense of humour, Araminta, is a saving grace for
+anybody.  Next to Love, it's the finest gift of the gods."
+
+"Have I got it?"
+
+"I guess so.  I think it's asleep, but we'll wake it up.  Look here,
+dear--see what I brought you."
+
+From his pocket, Ralph took a small purple velvet case, lined with
+white satin.  Within was a ring, set with a diamond, small in
+circumference, but deep, and of unusual brilliancy.  By a singular
+coincidence, it fitted Araminta's third finger exactly.
+
+"Oh-h!" she cried, her cheeks glowing.  "For me?"
+
+"Yes, for you--till I get you another one.  This was my mother's ring,
+sweetheart.  I found it among my father's things.  Will you wear it,
+for her sake and for mine?"
+
+"I'll wear it always," answered Araminta, her great grey eyes on his,
+"and I don't want any other ring.  Why, if it hadn't been for her, I
+never could have had you."
+
+Ralph took her into his arms.  His heart was filled with that supreme
+love which has no need of words.
+
+
+Meanwhile Miss Mehitable was having her bad quarter of an hour.
+Man-like, Thorpe had taken himself away from a spot where he felt there
+was about to be a display of emotion.  She was in the house alone, and
+the acute stillness of it seemed an accurate foreshadowing of the
+future.
+
+Miss Mehitable was not among those rare souls who are seldom lonely.
+Her nature demanded continuous conversation, the subject alone being
+unimportant.  Every thought that came into her mind was destined for a
+normal outlet in speech.  She had no mental reservoir.
+
+Araminta was going away--to be married.  In spite of her trouble, Miss
+Mehitable noted the taint of heredity.  "It's in her blood," she
+murmured, "and maybe Minty ain't so much to blame."
+
+In this crisis, however, Miss Mehitable had the valiant support of her
+conscience.  She had never allowed the child to play with boys--in
+fact, she had not had any playmates at all.  As soon as Araminta was
+old enough to understand, she was taught that boys and men--indeed all
+human things that wore trousers, long or short--were rank poison, and
+were to be steadfastly avoided if a woman desired peace of mind.  Miss
+Mehitable frequently said that she had everything a husband could have
+given her except a lot of trouble.
+
+Daily, almost hourly, the wisdom of single blessedness had been
+impressed upon Araminta.  Miss Mehitable neglected no illustration
+calculated to bring the lesson home.  She had even taught her that her
+own mother was an outcast and had brought disgrace upon her family by
+marrying; she had held aloft her maiden standard and literally
+compelled Araminta to enlist.
+
+Now, all her work had gone for naught.  Nature had triumphantly
+reasserted itself, and Araminta had fallen in love.  The years
+stretched before Miss Mehitable in a vast and gloomy vista illumined by
+no light.  No soft step upon the stair, no sunny face at her table, no
+sweet, girlish laugh, no long companionable afternoons with patchwork,
+while she talked and Araminta listened.  At the thought, her stern
+mouth quivered, ever so slightly, and, all at once, she found the
+relief of tears.
+
+An hour or so afterward, she went up to the attic, walking with a
+stealthy, cat-like tread, though there was no one in the house to hear.
+In a corner, far back under the eaves, three trunks were piled, one on
+top of the other.  Miss Hitty lifted off the two top trunks without
+apparent effort, for her arms were strong, and drew the lowest one out
+into the path of sunlight that lay upon the floor, maple branches
+swaying across it in silhouette.
+
+In another corner of the attic, up among the rafters, was a box
+apparently filled with old newspapers.  Miss Hitty reached down among
+the newspapers with accustomed fingers and drew out a crumpled wad,
+tightly wedged into one corner of the box.
+
+She listened carefully at the door, but there was no step in the house.
+She was absolutely alone.  None the less, she bolted the door of the
+attic before she picked the crumpled paper apart, and took out the key
+of the trunk.
+
+The old lock opened readily, and from the trunk came the musty odour of
+long-dead lavender and rosemary, lemon verbena and rose geranium.  On
+top was Barbara Lee's wedding gown.  Miss Hitty always handled it with
+reverence not unmixed with awe, never having had a wedding gown herself.
+
+Underneath were the baby clothes which the girl-wife had begun to make
+when she first knew of her child's coming.  The cloth was none too fine
+and the little garments were awkwardly cut and badly sewn, but every
+stitch had been guided by a great love.
+
+Araminta's first shoes were there, too--soft, formless things of
+discoloured white kid.  Folded in a yellowed paper was a tiny, golden
+curl, snipped secretly, and marked on the outside: "Minty's hair."
+Farther down in the trunk were the few relics of Miss Mehitable's
+far-away girlhood.
+
+A dog-eared primer, a string of bright buttons, a broken slate, a
+ragged, disreputable doll, and a few blown birds' eggs carefully packed
+away in a small box of cotton--these were her treasures.  There was an
+old autograph album with a gay blue cover which the years in the trunk
+had not served to fade.  Far down in the trunk was a package which Miss
+Mehitable took out reverently.  It was large and flat and tied with
+heavy string in hard knots.  She untied the knots patiently--her mother
+had taught her never to cut a string.
+
+Underneath was more paper, and more string.  It took her half an hour
+to bring to light the inmost contents of the package, bound in layer
+after layer of fine muslin, but not tied.  She unrolled the yellowed
+cloth carefully, for it was very frail.  At last she took out a
+photograph--Anthony Dexter at three-and-twenty--and gazed at it long.
+
+On one page of her autograph album was written an old rhyme.  The ink
+had faded so that it was scarcely legible, but Miss Hitty knew it by
+heart:
+
+  "'If you love me as I love you
+  No knife can cut our love in two.'
+    Your sincere friend,
+      ANTHONY DEXTER."
+
+Like a tiny sprig of lavender taken from a bush which has never
+bloomed, this bit of romance lay far back in the secret places of her
+life.  She had a knot of blue ribbon which Anthony Dexter had once
+given her, a lead pencil which he had gallantly sharpened, and which
+she had never used.
+
+Her life had been barren--Miss Mehitable knew that, and in her hours of
+self-analysis, admitted it.  She would gladly have taken Evelina's full
+measure of suffering in exchange for one tithe of Araminta's joy.
+After Anthony Dexter had turned from her to Evelina, Miss Mehitable had
+openly scorned him.  She had spent the rest of her life, since, in
+showing him and the rest that men were nothing to her and that he was
+least of all.
+
+She had hovered near his patients simply for the sake of seeing
+him--she did not care for them at all.  She sat in the front window
+that she might see him drive by, and counted that day lost which
+brought her no sight of him.  This was her one tenderness, her one
+vulnerable point.
+
+The afternoon shadows grew long and the maple branches ceased to sway.
+Outside a bird crooned a lullaby to his nesting mate.  An oriole
+perched on the topmost twig of an evergreen in a corner of the yard,
+and opened his golden throat in a rapture of song.
+
+Love was abroad in the world that day.  Bees hummed it, birds sang it,
+roses breathed it.  The black and gold messengers of the fields bore
+velvety pollen from flower to flower, moving lazily on shimmering,
+gossamer wings.  A meadow-lark rose from a distant clover field,
+dropping exquisite, silvery notes as he flew.  The scent of green
+fields and honeysuckles came in at the open window, mingled
+inextricably with the croon of the bees, but Miss Mehitable knew only
+that it was Summer, that the world was young, but she was old and alone
+and would be alone for the rest of her life.
+
+She leaned forward to look at the picture, and Anthony Dexter smiled
+back at her, boyish, frank, eager, lovable.  A tear dropped on the
+pictured face--not the first one, for the photograph was blistered
+oddly here and there.
+
+"I've done all I could," said Miss Mehitable to herself, as she wrapped
+it up again in its many yellowed folds of muslin.  "I thought Minty
+would be happier so, but maybe, after all, God knows best."
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+Redeemed
+
+Miss Evelina sat alone, in her house, at peace with Anthony Dexter and
+with all the world.  The surging flood of forgiveness and compassion
+which had swept over her as she gazed at his dead face, had broken down
+all barriers, abrogated all reserves.  She saw that Piper Tom was
+right; had she forgiven him, she would have been free long ago.
+
+She shrank no longer from her kind, but yearned, instead, for friendly
+companionship.  Once she had taken off her veil and started down the
+road to Miss Mehitable's, but the habit of the years was strong upon
+her, and she turned back, affrighted, when she came within sight of the
+house.
+
+Since she left the hospital, no human being had seen her face, save
+Anthony Dexter and his son.  She had crept, nun-like, into the shelter
+of her chiffon, dimly taking note of a world which could not, in turn,
+look upon her.  She clung to it still, yet perceived that it was a lie.
+
+She studied herself in the mirror, no longer hating the sight of her
+own face.  She was not now blind to her own beauty, nor did she fail to
+see that transfiguring touch of sorrow and peace.  These two are
+sculptors, one working both from within and without, and the other only
+from within.
+
+Why should she not put her veil forever away from her now?  Why should
+she not meet the world face to face, as frankly as the world met her?
+Why should she delay?
+
+She had questioned herself continually, but found no answer.  Since she
+came back to her old home, she had been mysteriously led.  Perhaps she
+was to be led further through the deep mazes of life--it was not only
+possible, but probable.
+
+"I'll wait," she said to herself, "for a sign."
+
+She had not seen the Piper since the day they met so strangely, with
+Anthony Dexter lying dead between them.  Quite often, however, she had
+heard the flute, usually at sunrise or sunset, afar off in the hills.
+Once, at the hour of the turning night, the melody had come to her on
+the first grey winds of dawn.
+
+A robin had waked to answer it, for the Piper's fluting was wondrously
+like his own voice.
+
+Contrasting her present peace with her days of torment.  Miss Evelina
+thrilled with gratitude to Piper Tom, who had taken the weeds out of
+her garden in more senses than one.  His hand had guided her, slowly,
+yet surely, to the heights of calm.  She saw her life now as a desolate
+valley lying between two peaks.  One was sunlit, yet opaline with the
+mists of morning; the other was scarcely a peak, but merely a high and
+grassy plain upon which the afternoon shadows lay long.
+
+Ah, but there were terrors in the dark valley which lay between!  Sharp
+crags and treeless wastes, tortuous paths and abysmal depths, with
+never a rest for the wayfarer who struggled blindly on.  She was not
+yet so secure upon the height that she could contemplate the valley
+unmoved.
+
+Her house was immaculate, now, and was kept so by her own hands.  At
+first, she had not cared, and the dust and the cobwebs had not mattered
+at all.  Miss Mehitable, in the beginning, had inspired her to
+housewifely effort, and Doctor Ralph's personal neatness had made her
+ashamed.  She worked in the garden, too, keeping the brick-bordered
+paths free from weeds, and faithfully attending to every plant.
+
+Yet life seemed strangely empty, lifted above its all-embracing pain.
+The house and garden did not occupy her fully, and she had few books.
+These were all old ones, and she knew them by heart, though she had
+found some pleasure in reading again the well-thumbed fairy books of
+her childhood.
+
+She had read the book which Ralph had brought Araminta, and thought of
+asking him to lend her more--if she ever saw him again.  She knew that
+he was very busy, but she felt that, surely, he would come again before
+long.
+
+Araminta danced up the path, singing, and rapped at Miss Evelina's
+door.  When she came in, it was like a ray of sunlight in a gloomy
+place.
+
+"Miss Evelina!" she cried; "Oh, Miss Evelina!  I'm going to be married!"
+
+"I'm glad," said Evelina, tenderly, yet with a certain wistfulness.
+Once the joy of it had been in her feet, too, and the dread valley of
+desolation had opened before her.
+
+"See!" cried Araminta, extending a dimpled hand.  "See my ring!  It's
+my engagement ring," she added, proudly.
+
+Miss Evelina winced a little behind her veil, for the ring was the one
+Anthony Dexter had given her soon after their betrothal.  Fearing
+gossip, she had refused to wear it until after they were married.  So
+he had taken it, to have it engraved, but, evidently, the engraving had
+never been done.  Otherwise Ralph would not have given it to
+Araminta--she was sure of that.
+
+"It was his mother's ring, Miss Evelina, and now it's mine.  His father
+loved his mother just as Ralph loves me.  It's so funny not to have to
+say 'Doctor Ralph.'  Oh, I'm so glad I broke my ankle!  He's coming,
+but I wanted to come first by myself.  I made him wait for five minutes
+down under the elm because I wanted to tell you first.  I told Aunt
+Hitty, all alone, and I wasn't a bit afraid.  Oh, Miss Evelina, I wish
+you had somebody to love you as he loves me!"
+
+"So do I," murmured Evelina, grateful for the chiffon that hid her
+tears.
+
+"Wasn't there ever anybody?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I knew it--you're so sweet nobody could help loving you.  Did he die?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It was that way with Mr. Thorpe," mused Araminta, reminiscently.
+"They loved each other and were going to be married, but she died.  He
+said, though, that death didn't make any difference with loving.
+There's Ralph, now."
+
+"Little witch," said the boy, fondly, as she met him at the door; "did
+you think I could wait a whole five minutes?"
+
+They sat in the parlour for half an hour or more, and during this time
+it was not necessary for their hostess to say a single word.  They were
+quite unaware that they were not properly conducting a three-sided
+conversation, and Miss Evelina made no effort to enlighten them.  Youth
+and laughter and love had not been in her house before for a quarter of
+a century.
+
+"Come again," she begged, when they started home.  Joy incarnate was a
+welcome guest--it did not mock her now.
+
+Half-way down the path, Ralph turned back to the veiled woman who stood
+wistfully in the doorway.  Araminta was swinging, in childish fashion,
+upon the gate.  Ralph took Miss Evelina's hand in his.
+
+"I wish I could say all I feel," he began, awkwardly, "but I can't.
+With all my heart, I wish I could give some of my happiness to you!"
+
+"I am content--since I have forgiven."
+
+"If you had not, I could never have been happy again, and even now, I
+still feel the shame of it.  Are you going to wear that--veil--always?"
+
+"No," she whispered, shrinking back into the shelter of it, "but I am
+waiting for a sign."
+
+"May it soon come," said Ralph, earnestly.
+
+"I am used to waiting.  My life has been made up of waiting.  God bless
+you," she concluded, impulsively.
+
+"And you," he answered, touching his lips to her hand.  He started
+away, but she held him back.  "Ralph," she said, passionately, "be true
+to her, be good to her, and never let her doubt you.  Teach her to
+trust you, and make yourself worthy of her trust.  Never break a
+promise made to her, though it cost you everything else you have in the
+world.  I am old, and I know that, at the end, nothing counts for an
+instant beside the love of two.  Remember that keeping faith with her
+is keeping faith with God!"
+
+"I will," returned Ralph, his voice low and uneven.  "It is what my own
+mother would have said to me had she been alive to-day.  I thank you."
+
+
+The house was very lonely after they had gone, though the echoes of
+love and laughter seemed to have come back to a place where they once
+held full sway.  The afternoon wore to its longest shadows and the
+dense shade of the cypress was thrown upon the garden.  Evelina smiled
+to herself, for it was only a shadow.
+
+The mignonette breathed fragrance into the dusk.  Scent of lavender and
+rosemary filled the stillness with balm.  Drowsy birds chirped sleepily
+in their swaying nests, and the fairy folk of field and meadow set up a
+whirr of melodious wings.  White, ghostly moths fluttered, cloud-like,
+over the quiet garden, and here and there a tiny lamp-bearer starred
+the night.  A flaming meteor sped across the uncharted dark of the
+heavens, where only the love-star shone.  The moon had not yet risen.
+
+From within, Evelina recognised the sturdy figure of Piper Tom, and
+went out to meet him as he approached.  She had drawn down her veil,
+but her heart was strangely glad.
+
+"Shall we sit in the garden?" she asked.
+
+"Aye, in the garden," answered the Piper, "since 't is for the last
+time."
+
+His voice was sad, and Evelina yearned to help him, even as he had
+helped her.  "What is it?" she asked.  "Is it anything you can tell me?"
+
+"Only that I'll be trudging on to-morrow.  My work here is done.  I can
+do no more."
+
+"Then let me tell you how grateful I am for all you have done for me.
+You made me see things in their true relation and taught me how to
+forgive.  I was in bondage, and you made me free."
+
+The Piper sprang to his feet.  "Spinner in the Sun," he cried, "is it
+true?  Just as I thought your night was endless, has the light come?
+Tell me again," he pleaded, "ah, tell me 't is true!"
+
+"It is true," said Evelina, with solemn joy.  "In all my heart there is
+nothing but forgiveness.  The anger and resentment are gone--all gone."
+
+"Spinner in the Sun!" breathed the Piper, scarcely conscious that he
+spoke the words aloud.  "My Spinner in the Sun!"
+
+Slowly the moon climbed toward the zenith, and still, because there was
+no need, they spoke no word.  Dew rose whitely from the clover fields
+beyond, veiling them as with white chiffon.  It was the Piper, at last,
+who broke the silence.
+
+"When I trudge on to-morrow," he said, "'t will be with a glad heart,
+even though the little chap is no longer with me.  'T is a fair, brave
+world, I'm thinking, since I've set your threads to going right again.
+I called you," he added, softly, "and you came."
+
+"Yes," said Evelina, happily, "you called me, and I came."
+
+"Spinner in the Sun," said the Piper, tenderly, "have you guessed my
+work?"
+
+"Why, keeping the shop, isn't it?" asked Evelina, wonderingly; "the
+needles and thread and pins and buttons and all the little trifles that
+women need?  A pedler's pack, set up in a house?"
+
+The Piper laughed.  "No," he replied, "I'm thinking that is not my
+work, nor yet the music that has no tune, which I'm for ever playing on
+my flute.   Lady, I have travelled far, and seen much, and always there
+has been one thing that is strangest of all.  In every place that I
+have been in yet, there has been a church and a minister, whose
+business was to watch over human souls.
+
+"He's told them what was right according to his own thinking, which I'm
+far from saying isn't true for him, and never minded anything more.  In
+spite of blood and tears and agony, he's always held up the one
+standard, and, I'm thinking, has always pointed to the hardest way to
+reach it.  The way has been so hard that many have never reached it at
+all, and those who have--I've not seen that they are the happiest or
+the kindest, nor that they are loved the most.
+
+"In the same place, too, there is always a doctor, whose business it is
+to watch over the body.  If you have a broken leg or a broken arm, or a
+fever, he can set you right again.  Blind eyes can be made to see, and
+deaf ears made to hear, but, Lady, who is there to care about a broken
+heart?
+
+"I have taken in my pedler's pack the things that women need, because
+'t is women, mostly, who bear the heartaches of the world, and I come
+closer to them so.  What you say I have done for you, I have done for
+many more.  I'm trying to make the world a bit easier for all women
+because a woman gave me life.  And because I love another woman in
+another way," he added, his voice breaking, "I'll be trudging on
+to-morrow alone, though 't would be easier, I'm thinking, to linger
+here."
+
+Evelina's heart leaped with a throb of the old pain.  "Tell me about
+her," she said, because it seemed the only thing to say.
+
+"The woman I love," answered the Piper, "is not for me.  She'd never be
+thinking of stooping to such as I, and I'd not be insulting her by
+asking.  She's very proud, but she could be tender if she chose, and
+she's the bravest soul I ever knew--so brave that she fears neither
+death nor life, though life itself has not been kind.
+
+"Her little feet have been set upon the rough pathways, almost since
+the beginning, and her hands catch at my heart-strings, they are so
+frail.  They're fluttering always like frightened birds, and the
+fluttering is in her voice, too."
+
+"And her face?"
+
+"Ah, but I've dreamed of her face!  I've thought it was noble beyond
+all words, with eyes like the first deep violets of Spring, but filled
+with compassion for all the world.  So brave, so true, so tender it
+might be that I'm thinking if I could see it once, with love on it for
+me, that I'd never be asking more."
+
+"Why haven't you seen her face?" asked Evelina, idly, to relieve an
+awkward pause.  "Is she only a dream-woman?"
+
+"Nay, she's not a dream-woman.  She lives and breathes as dreams never
+do, but she hides her face because she is so beautiful.  She veils her
+face from me as once she veiled her soul."
+
+Then, at last, Evelina understood.  She felt the hot blood mantling her
+face, and was thankful, once more, for the shelter of her chiffon.
+
+"Spinner in the Sun," said the Piper, with suppressed tenderness, "were
+you thinking I could see you more than once or twice and not be caring?
+Were you thinking I could have the inmost soul of me torn because you'd
+been hurt, and never be knowing what lay beyond it, for me?  Were you
+thinking I could be talking to you day after day, without having the
+longing to talk with you always?  And now that I've done my best for
+you, and given you all that rests with me for giving, do you see why
+I'll be trudging on to-morrow, alone?
+
+"'T is not for me to be asking it, for God knows I could never be
+worthy, but I've thought of Heaven as a place where you and I might
+fare together always, with me to heal your wounds, help you over the
+rough places, and guide you through the dark.  That part of it, I'm to
+have, I'm thinking, for God has been very good to me.  I'm to know that
+wherever you are, you re happy at last, because it's been given me to
+lead you into the light.  I called you, and you came."
+
+"Yes," said Evelina, her voice lingering upon the words, "you called me
+and I came, and was redeemed.  Tell me, in your thought of Heaven, have
+you ever asked to see my face?"
+
+"Nay," cried the Piper, "do you think I'd be asking for what you hide
+from me?  I know that 't is because you are so beautiful, and such
+beauty is not for my eyes to see."
+
+"Piper Tom," she answered; "dear Piper Tom!  I told you once that I had
+been terribly burned.  I was hurt so badly that when the man I was
+pledged to marry, and whose life I had saved, was told that every
+feature of mine was destroyed except my sight, he went away, and never
+came back any more."
+
+"The brute who hurt Laddie," he said, in a low tone.  "I told him then
+that a man who would torture a dog would torture a woman, too.  I'd not
+be minding the scars," he added, "since they're brave scars, and not
+the marks of sin or shame.  I'm thinking that 't is the brave scars
+that have made you so beautiful--so beautiful," he repeated, "that you
+hide your face."
+
+Into Evelina's heart came something new and sweet--that perfect,
+absolute, unwavering trust which a woman has but once in her life and
+of which Anthony Dexter had never given her the faintest hint.  All at
+once, she knew that she could not let him go; that he must either stay,
+or take her, too.
+
+She leaned forward.  "Piper Tom," she said, unashamed, "when you go,
+will you take me with you?  I think we belong together--you and I."
+
+"Belong together?" he repeated, incredulously.  "Ah, 't is your
+pleasure to mock me.  Oh, my Spinner in the Sun, why would you wish to
+hurt me so?"
+
+Tears blinded Evelina so that, through her veil, and in the night, she
+could not see at all.  When the mists cleared, he was gone.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+The Lifting of the Veil
+
+From afar, at the turn of night, came the pipes o' Pan--the wild,
+mysterious strain which had first summoned Evelina from pain to peace.
+At the sound, she sat up in bed, her heavy, lustreless white hair
+falling about her shoulders.  She guessed that Piper Tom was out upon
+the highway, with his pedler's pack strapped to his sturdy back.  As in
+a vision, she saw him marching onward from place to place, to make the
+world easier for all women because a woman had given him life, and
+because he loved another woman in another way.
+
+Was it always to be so, she wondered; should she for ever thirst while
+others drank?  While others loved, must she eternally stand aside
+heart-hungry?  Unyielding Fate confronted her, veiled inscrutably, but
+she guessed that the veil concealed a mocking smile.
+
+Out of her Nessus-robe of agony, Evelina had emerged with one truth.
+Whatever is may not be right, but it is the outcome of deep and
+far-reaching forces with which our finite hands may not meddle.  The
+problem has but one solution--adjustment.  Hedged in by the iron bars
+of circumstance as surely as a bird within his cage, it remains for the
+individual to choose whether he will beat his wings against the bars
+until he dies, or take his place serenely on the perch ordained for
+him--and sing.
+
+Within his cage, the bird may do as he likes.  He may sleep or eat or
+bathe, or whet his beak uselessly against the cuttlebone thrust between
+the bars.  He may hop about endlessly and chirp salutations to other
+birds, likewise caged, or he may try his eager wings in a flight which
+is little better than no flight at all.  His cage may be a large one,
+yet, if he explores far enough, he will most surely bruise his body
+against the bars of circumstance.  With beak and claws and constant
+toil he may, perhaps, force an opening in the bars wide enough to get
+through, slowly, and with great discomfort.  He has gained, however,
+only a larger cage.
+
+If he is a wise bird, he settles down and tries to become satisfied
+with his surroundings; even to gather pleasure from the gilt wires and
+the cuttlebone thrust picturesquely between them.  When the sea gull
+wings his majestic way past his habitation, free as the wind itself,
+the wise bird will close his eyes, and affect not to see.  So, also,
+will the gull, for there is no loneliness comparable with unlimited
+freedom.
+
+Upon the heights, the great ones stand--alone.  To the dweller in the
+valley, those distant peaks are clad in more than mortal splendour.
+Time and distance veil the jagged cliffs and hide the precipices.  Day
+comes first to the peaks and lingers there longest; while it is night
+in the valley, there is still afterglow upon the hills.
+
+Perhaps, some dweller in the valley longs for the height, and sets
+forth, heeding not the eager hands that, selfishly, as it seems, would
+keep him within their loving reach.  Having once turned his face
+upward, he does not falter, even for the space of a backward look.  He
+finds that the way is steep, that there is no place to rest, and that
+the comfort and shelter of the valley are unknown.  The sun burns him,
+and the cold freezes his very blood, for there are only extremes on the
+way to the peak.  Glittering wastes of ice dazzle him and snow blinds
+him, with terror and not with beauty as from below.  The opaline mists
+are gone, and he sees with dreadful clearness the path which lies
+immediately ahead.
+
+Beyond, there is emptiness, vast as the desert.  At the timber line, he
+pauses, and, for the first time, looks back.  Ah, how fair the valley
+lies below him!  The silvery ribbon of the river winds through a
+pageantry of green and gold.  Upon the banks are woodland nooks,
+fragrant with growing things and filled with a tender quiet broken only
+by the murmer of the stream.  The turf is soft and cool to the
+wayfarer's tired feet, and there is crystal water in abundance to
+quench his thirst.
+
+But, from the peak, no traveller returns, for the way is hopelessly cut
+off.  Above the timber line there is only a waste of rock, worn by vast
+centuries in which every day is an ordinary lifetime, into small,
+jagged stones that cut the feet.  The crags are thunder-swept and blown
+by cataclysmic storms of which the dwellers in the valley have never
+dreamed.  In the unspeakable loneliness, the pilgrim abides for ever
+with his mocking wreath of laurel, cheered only by a rumbling,
+reverberant "All Hail!" which comes, at age-long intervals, from some
+peak before whose infinite distance his finite sight fails.
+
+At intervals throughout the day, Miss Evelina heard the Piper's flute,
+always from the hills.  Each time it brought her comfort, for she knew
+that, as yet, he had not gone.  Once she fancied that he had gone long
+ago, and some woodland deity, magically transported from ancient
+Greece, had taken his place.  Late in the afternoon, she heard it once,
+but so far and faintly that she guessed it was for the last time.
+
+In her garden there were flowers, blooming luxuriantly.  From their
+swaying censers, fragrant incense filled the air.  The weeds had been
+taken out and no trace was left.  From the garden of her heart the
+weeds were gone, too, but there were no flowers.  Rue and asphodel had
+been replaced by lavender and rosemary; the deadly black poppy had been
+uprooted, and where it had grown there were spikenard and balm.  Yet,
+as the Piper had said, she asked for roses, and it is not every garden
+in which roses will bloom.
+
+At dusk she went out into her transformed garden.  Where once the
+thorns had held her back, the paths were straight and smooth.  Dense
+undergrowth and clinging vines no longer made her steps difficult.
+Piper Tom had made her garden right, and opened before her, clearly,
+the way of her soul.
+
+In spite of the beauty there was desolation, because the cheery
+presence had gone to return no more.  Her loneliness was so acute that
+it was almost pain, and yet the pain was bearable, because he had
+taught her how to endure and to look beyond.
+
+Fairy-like, the white moths fluttered through the garden, and the
+crickets piped cheerily.  Miss Evelina stopped her ears that she might
+not hear their piping, rude reminder, as it was, of music that should
+come no more, but, even so, she could not shut out remembrance.
+
+With a flash of her old resentment, she recalled how everything upon
+which she had ever depended had been taken away from her, almost
+immediately.  No sooner had she learned the sweetness of clinging than
+she had been forced to stand alone.  One by one the supports had been
+removed, until she stood alone, desolate and wretched, indeed, but
+alone.  Of such things as these self-reliance is made.
+
+Suddenly, the still air seemed to stir.  A sound that was neither
+breath nor music, so softly was it blown, echoed in from the hills.
+Then came another and another--merest hints of melody, till at last she
+started up, trembling.  Surely these distant flutings were the pipes o'
+Pan!
+
+She set herself to listen, her tiny hands working convulsively.  Nearer
+and nearer the music came, singing of wind and stream and mountain--the
+"music that had no tune." No sooner had it become clear than it ceased
+altogether.
+
+But, an hour or so afterward, when the moon had risen, there was a
+familiar step upon the road outside.  Veiled, Evelina went to the gate
+and met Piper Tom, whose red feather was aloft in his hat again and
+whose flute was slung over his shoulder by its accustomed cord.  His
+pedler's pack was not to be seen.
+
+"I thought you had gone," she said.
+
+"I had," he answered, "but 't is not written, I'm thinking, that a man
+may not change his mind as well as a woman.  My heart would not let my
+feet go away from you until I knew for sure whether or not you were
+mocking me last night."
+
+"Mocking you?  No!  Surely you know I would never do that?"
+
+"No, I did not know.  The ways of women are strange, I'm thinking, past
+all finding out.  In truth, 't would be stranger if you were not
+mocking me than it ever could be if you were.  Tell me," he pleaded,
+"ah, tell me what you were meaning, in words so plain that I can
+understand!"
+
+"Come," said Evelina; "come to where we were sitting last night and I
+will tell you." He followed her back to the maple beside the broken
+wall, where the two chairs still faced each other.  He leaned forward,
+resting his elbows on his knees, and looked at her so keenly that she
+felt, in spite of the darkness and her veil, that he must see her face.
+
+"Piper Tom," she said, "when you came to me, I was the most miserable
+woman on earth.  I had been most cruelly betrayed, and sorrow seized
+upon me when I was not strong enough to stand it.  It preyed upon me
+until it became an obsession--it possessed me absolutely, and from it
+there was no escape but death."
+
+"I know," answered the Piper.  "I found the bottle that had held the
+dreamless sleep.  I'm thinking you had thrown it away."
+
+"Yes, I had thrown it away, but only because I was too proud to die at
+his door--do you understand?"
+
+"Yes, I'm thinking I understand, but go on.  You've not told me whether
+or no you mocked me.  What did you mean?"
+
+"I meant," said Evelina, steadfastly, "that if you cared for the woman
+you had led out of the shadow of the cypress, and for all that was in
+her heart to give you, she was yours.  Not only out of gratitude, but
+because you have put trust into a heart that has known no trust since
+its betrayal, and because, where trust is, there may some day
+come--more."
+
+Her voice sank almost to a whisper, but Piper Tom heard it.  He took
+her hand in his own, and she felt him tremble--she was the strong one,
+now.
+
+"Spinner in the Sun," he began, huskily, "were you meaning that you'd
+go with me when I took the highway again, and help me make the world
+easier for everybody with a hurt heart?"
+
+"Yes," she answered.  "You called me and I came--for always."
+
+"Were you meaning that you'd face the storms and the cold with me, and
+take no heed of the rain--that you'd live on the coarse fare I could
+pick up from day to day, and never mind it?"
+
+"Yes, I meant all that."
+
+"Were you meaning, perhaps, that you'd make a home for me?  Ah, Spinner
+in the Sun, it takes a woman to make a home!"
+
+"Yes, I'd make a home, or go gypsying with you, just as you chose."
+
+The Piper laughed, with inexpressible tenderness.  "You know, I'm
+thinking, that 't would be a home, and not gypsying--that I'd not let
+you face anything I could shield you from."
+
+Evelina laughed, too--a low, sweet laugh.  "Yes, I know," she said.
+
+The Piper turned away, struggling with temptation.  At length he came
+back to her.  "'T is wrong of me, I'm thinking, but I take you as a man
+takes Heaven, and we'll do the work together.  'T is as though I had
+risen from the dead and the gates of pearl were open, with all the
+angels of God beckoning me in."
+
+In the exaltation that was upon him, he had no thought of profaning her
+by a touch.  She stood apart from him as something high and holy,
+enthroned in a sacred place.
+
+"Beloved," he pleaded, "will you be coming; with me now to the place
+where I saw you first?  'T is night now, and then 'twas day, but I'm
+thinking the words are wrong.  'T is day now, with the sun and moon and
+stars all shining at once and suns that I never saw before.  Will you
+come?"
+
+"I'll go wherever you lead me," she answered.  "While you hold my hand
+in yours, I can never be afraid."
+
+They went through the night together, taking the shorter way over the
+hills.  She stumbled and he took her hand, his own still trembling.
+"Close your beautiful eyes," he whispered, "and trust me to lead you."
+
+Though she did not close her eyes, she gave herself wholly to his
+guidance, noting how he chose for himself the rougher places to give
+her the easier path.  He pushed aside the undergrowth before her,
+lifted her gently over damp hollows, and led her around the stones.
+
+At last they came to the woods that opened out upon the upper river
+road, where she had stood the day she had been splashed with mud from
+Anthony Dexter's wheels, and, at the same instant, had heard the
+mysterious flutings from afar.  They entered near the hill to which her
+long wandering had led her, and at the foot of it, the Piper paused.
+
+"You'll have no fear, I'm thinking, since the moon makes the clearing
+as bright as day, and I'll not be letting you out of my sight.  I have
+a fancy to stand upon yonder level place and call you as I called you
+once before.  Only, this time, the heart of me will dance to my own
+music, for I know you'll be coming all the while I play."
+
+He left her and clambered up the hill to the narrow ledge which sloped
+back, and was surrounded with pines.  He kept in the open spaces, so
+that the moonlight was always upon him, and she did not lose sight of
+him more than once or twice, and then only for a moment.  The hill was
+not a high one and the ascent was very gradual.  Within a few minutes,
+he had gained his place.
+
+Clear and sweet through the moonlit forest rang out the pipes o' Pan,
+singing of love and joy.  Never before had the Piper's flute given
+forth such music as this.  The melody was as instinctive as the
+mating-call of a thrush, as crystalline as a mountain stream, and as
+pure as the snow from whence the stream had come.
+
+Evelina climbed to meet him, her face and heart uplifted.  The silvery
+notes dropped about her like rain as she ascended, strangely glad and
+strangely at peace.  When she reached the level place where he was
+standing, his face illumined with unspeakable joy.  He dropped his
+flute and opened his arms.
+
+"My Spinner in the Sun," he whispered, "I called you, and you came."
+
+"Yes," she answered, from his close embrace, "you called me, and I have
+come--for always."
+
+At last, he released her and they stood facing each other.  The Piper
+was stirred to the depths of his soul.  "Last night I dreamed," he
+said, "and 't was the dream that brought me back.  It was a little
+place, with a brook close by, and almost too small to be called a
+house, but 'twas a home, I'm thinking, because you were there.  It was
+night, and I had come back from making the world a bit easier for some
+poor woman-soul, and you were standing in the door, waiting.
+
+"The veil was gone, and there was love on your face--ah, I've often
+dreamed a woman was waiting for me so, but because you hide your beauty
+from me, 't is not for me to be asking more.  God knows I have enough
+given me, now.
+
+"Since the first, I've known you were very beautiful, and very brave.
+I knew, too, that you were sad--that you had been through sorrows no
+man would dare to face.  I've dreamed your eyes were like the first
+violets of Spring, your lips deep scarlet like the Winter berries, and
+I know the wonder of your hair, for The veil does not hide it all.
+I've dreamed your face was cold and pure, as if made from marble, yet
+tender, too, and I well know that it's noble past all words of mine,
+because it bears brave scars.
+
+"I've told you I would never ask, and I'll keep my word, for I know
+well 't is not for the likes of me to see it, but only to dream.  Don't
+think I'm asking, for I never will, but, Spinner in the Sun, because
+you said you would fare with me on the highway and face the cold and
+storm, it gives me courage to ask for this.
+
+"If I close my eyes, will you lift your veil, and let me kiss the brave
+scars, that were never from sin or shame?  The brave scars,
+Beloved--ah, if you would let me, only once, kiss the brave scars!"
+
+Evelina laughed--a laugh that was half a sob--and leaning forward, full
+into the moonlight, she lifted her veil--for ever.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPINNER IN THE SUN***
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