A Spinner in the Sun

"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!"

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!"

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.