At this shocking speech--imagine a village girl crying out that an offer
of employment from the Vicarage is of no good to her!--Mrs. Veale drew
such a breath of horror that the hair of the late Canon rose in its
locket.

"What on earth can you mean, Loveday Strick?"

Thus Mrs. Veale, justly outraged. But Loveday, infatuated, rushed upon
her fate--the fate of expulsion from those precincts.

"Oh, ma'am, 'tis no manner of use to me unless I get work before the
Flora. The Flora, ma'am" (repeating the beloved name as an invocation
in time of trouble).

"'Tis this way, I must get a white satin sash come Flora Day, 'cause
if I do I'm to dance along with Miss Le Pettit in the procession.
She's promised me that I should, and indeed I'll die if I don't. I will
indeed. I've fixed my soul on it. I've got the gown and the stockings
and the shoes, and all I want is the white riband, and I must someways
make enough money to buy it come Flora Day. Oh, Mrs. Veale, ma'am, if
you'll let me scrub and scour for you I'll do it on my knees so as only
I can dance with her in the Flora."

During this speech Mrs. Veale had risen to the full height and width of
the black silk, feeling that thus only could she cope adequately with
such a flood of ill-regulated and unseemly passions. She felt deeply
wounded to think that any girl of her teaching should so betray it as
this one did in every undisciplined word. She had not felt such a bitter
stab of disappointment since a trusted and loved old nurse of the family
had been found drinking the Vicar's port.

"Loveday Strick," she said, "you are forgetting yourself."

This was not exact, for Loveday had forgotten Mrs. Veale, but the rebuke
drenched the impetuous girl like a cold wave. She stood defenceless.

"I have not comprehended half this mad tale of yours," continued Mrs.
Veale, "but I gather you have the presumption to say that Miss Le
Pettit--_Miss Le Pettit_--has said you may dance with her at the
Flora. Perhaps a young lady in her exalted position, and of what I
believe are her modernising tendencies, may have formed such a project,
but you should have known better than to have presumed on such an
unsuitable condescension. As to a white satin sash, I can imagine
nothing more unfitted for a girl in your unfortunate position, of which
I am very sorry to be obliged to remind you. I had always hoped you
would never forget it."

"Ma'am ... you don't understand ..." began Loveday.

"That is quite enough, Loveday. Let me hear no more on the subject. If
you still want work, apart from this desire for unsuitable finery, since
you are my god-daughter I will forget what has passed and still try you
at the spring cleaning."

Then it was that a horrid thing happened to Loveday.

"What do I care for you and your spring-cleaning?" she stormed, "you and
it can go up the chimney together for all I care. I only wanted you to
give me work so as to get my satin sash, and I'll never come near you or
church again as long as I do live. That I won't...." And Loveday turned
and ran out of the front door, beneath the grinning fox, and not only
ran out of the front door, but banged it behind her.

Maids in the kitchen heard that unseemly sound, as they had heard,
awe-struck, the raised voice, and Mrs. Veale felt she must read them a
short but fitting lesson on the dire results of wanting things beyond
one's station. The stout cook and the crisp housemaid soon knew of
Loveday's presumptuous ambition, a knowledge they shared now with the
Lear family and Cherry Cotton, and that soon was to spread to the
accompaniment of many a titter about the twisted ways of the village.



CHAPTER VIII: IN WHICH LOVEDAY CONTINUES
HER QUEST AND ACHIEVES TENPENCE




Chapter VIII

IN WHICH LOVEDAY CONTINUES HER QUEST AND ACHIEVES TENPENCE


Loveday ran down the path to the Vicarage gate so fast that the tears
she had not been able to restrain blew off her cheeks as she went. Thus
it came about that she did not see Miss Letitia until she had all but
knocked her down in the urgency of her flight.

Letitia Veale was no sylph such as Miss Le Pettit, however, and she
caught hold of Loveday like the good-natured, rather romping, young lady
that she was. Mrs. Veale always said of her that she would "fine down,"
but persons less well disposed to her than her own mother, and who were
the mothers of daughters themselves, said that Letitia Veale was a sad
hoyden. She had ever a merry nod or word for Loveday, and dazed with
anger as that ill-balanced maid was, Letitia's smile won her to
comparative calm again, though it was a calm with which cunning
intermingled. For:--

"Oh, miss," cried Loveday, "I do beg your pardon ..." Then, seeing by
the young lady's pleasant face that she had not offended by her
clumsiness--"but I was so sick with misery I didn't rightly see where
I was going."

"Why, whatever is the matter, Loveday?" asked the lively girl.

"Miss, I can't tell you, not now, but oh, miss, you've always been good
to me, will you do something for me? I've never asked you for nothing
before, have I?"

"Why, no, you have not, Loveday. What is it?"

"Have you such a thing as an old white sash you could let me have, miss?
I just can't rightly tell you how I want it. It don't matter how old, so
I can wash and iron it. Oh, miss...?"

Letitia thought for a moment, then shook her brown ringlets.

"I'm so sorry, Loveday, since you want it so much, but the only white
sash I have is my new one for Flora Day. I have an old black one I could
let you have though."

"Black! Oh, Miss Letitia, that's no good. Couldn't you let me have the
white one? I'll work and work to make the money to buy you another, and
your mother'd get you a new one for the Flora."

"Loveday, you know I couldn't. Mamma would insist on knowing what I'd
done with it, you know she would."

"You couldn't--you couldn't say you'd lost it, miss?" asked Loveday,
even her tongue faltering at the suggestion.

But though Letitia might be a romp, she was not a deceitful girl, and
she respected her mother.

"Oh, Loveday, how can you suggest such a thing? It would be telling
mamma a lie. Besides, she would never believe me."

At this moment Mrs. Veale, hearing voices, opened the door and looked
out.

"Letitia! Come in at once, and do not speak again to Loveday Strick."

Letitia made round eyes at Loveday and sped up the path. Loveday pushed
open the gate and went out.

She went along the white dusty road, between the hedgerows of elder
whose crumpled green leaves were unfolding in the sunny April weather,
and her tears were the only rain that smiling country-side had seen for
many a day, and they, to match the month, were already drying, for the
fire burnt too high in Loveday for tears to hold her long. She fled
along the road at first blindly, then more slowly as the exhaustion that
follows on such rage as hers overcame her, and as she paused at last to
sink against a mossy bank and rest, a horseman overtook her.

It was Mr. Constantine on his white cob, looking a very dapper
gentleman, but Loveday heeded him not, only raising her great black eyes
unseeingly at the sound of the hoofs. Yet that so sombre gaze arrested
Mr. Constantine, for it seemed to him an unwonted look in that land of
buxom maids. He drew rein beside her.

"Are you a gipsy, my girl?" he asked her kindly.

Loveday shook her head.

"Come, you have a tongue as well as that handsome pair of eyes, I
suppose? No?"

"My tongue's wisht, it brings ill-luck," said Loveday.

Mr. Constantine studied her more attentively.

"If all women thought that, there'd be more happy marriages," he said,
slipping his hand into his pocket. "You've wisdom on your tongue,
whether it's lucky or no. You say you're not a gipsy?"

By this time it had dawned on Loveday what, in her absorption, she had
not at first noticed, that she was speaking to one of the gentry, and
to no less a one than Mr. Constantine, of Constantine. She stood up and
dropped her curtsey out of habit, but sullenly. Oddly enough, it was the
sullenness and not the curtsey that took Mr. Constantine's fancy.

"No, sir," said Loveday. "I'm not a gipsy. I'm Loveday Strick."

"Loveday ..." said the gentleman. "Loveday ... That's a beautiful name.
No--it's more than a name, it's a phrase. A very beautiful phrase."

Loveday raised her eyes at this strange talk. Mr. Constantine took his
hand out of his pocket and held out a silver sixpence.

"Gipsy or no, take that for your gipsy eyes, my dear," he said. Loveday
stood hesitant. Even she, who had just begged of Miss Letitia, felt
shame at taking a coin in charity. Yet she did so, for before her eyes
she saw, not a silver sixpence, but the beginning of a length of white
satin riband unrolling towards her through futurity. Perhaps, unknown
to herself, her foreign blood prompted her to that sad Jesuitry which
teaches all means are justifiable to the desired end. Perhaps she saw
nothing beyond the beginning of her riband, but she held out her hand.
Mr. Constantine dropped the sixpence into it, touched his cob with his
heel and rode on. Loveday stayed in the hedge, the sixpence in her palm
and hope once more in her soul. That hope was to faint and fall during
the days that followed and saw her quest no nearer its fulfilment.

For who wished to employ the strange, dark girl that had always been
aloof and distrusted? And who could credit this violent conversion to
the ordered ways of domesticity? Who had the money to squander on help
from without, when, within, if there were not enough hands for the work,
then the work itself, like an unanswered letter, slipped into that dead
place of unremembered things where nothing matters any more? Last week's
cleaning left undone adds nothing appreciable to this week's dirt that
next week's exertions may not remedy as easily together as singly--or so
argued the slovenly housewife, while for the industrious no hands save
their own could have scrubbed and polished to their liking.

Here and there Loveday earned a few odd pence, for a few hand's turns
done when necessity or charity called in her vagrant services, but the
Flora Dance of Bugletown was held upon the eighth of May, and when May
Day dawned she had but tenpence for all her store--and the riband would
cost as many shillings. Despair settled in her heart for the first time;
often before it had knocked but been refused more than a glance within,
but now her enfeebled arms could hold the door no longer, and that most
dread of all visitors took possession of his own--for is not the human
heart Despair's only habitation, without which he is but a homeless
wanderer?



CHAPTER IX: IN WHICH LOVEDAY SEES ONE MAGPIE




Chapter IX

IN WHICH LOVEDAY SEES ONE MAGPIE


Upon May Day, when boys blow the May horns and girls carry sprays of
hawthorn and all good folk break their fast on bread and cream, Loveday
had to go, as was her wont (and a mortifying one to her pride since
Primrose's flouting of her), to Upper Farm. Twice before have we seen
her on that errand--when she first was love-stricken for Miss Le Pettit
in the farmhouse parlour, and again when on her search for work she saw
the querulous young Mrs. Lear in the dim kitchen. Since then she had
gone monotonously enough on her errand, avoiding speech even with the
elder Mrs. Lear as much as possible, and seeing Primrose not at all--an
easy matter, since the girl kept her room, or lay on the horsehair sofa,
languidly stitching woollen roses on a handscreen, for all the world
like the spoilt bride of some great gentleman.

There seemed never any violence of thought or emotion at Upper Farm,
even the sulks of Primrose were petty in nature, her jealousies made her
voice shrill but did not take her by the throat with that intolerable
aching stormier women know too well, while her graceless husband was
irritated on the surface of his mind as some shallow pool is fretted
over its bed of soft ooze, retaining no trace when the ripples have
died. The elder Lear, as befits a good countryman content with his
station in life, was too hard-worked for anything save a tired back on
his entry at night, and the old wife too occupied with her Martha-like
toil for searching into the sensibilities either of herself or of her
daughter-in-law.

Loveday, without reasoning on the matter, had yet ever been aware
that this slight tide of feeling was all that ever lapped against the
household at Upper Farm, therefore when she saw one magpie in the last
field before the yard gate she accepted the sign for her own despairing
heart alone. No young woman of education would have paid any attention
to such a vulgar superstition, but Loveday had no learning other than
what her elders had let fall in her hearing, both when she was supposed
to be listening for her betterment, and when it was thought she would
not understand the drift of their speech. And that a single magpie means
sorrow was one of the few solid facts Loveday had gleaned by following
the garnered sheaves of her elders.

Now, as she stepped over the topmost ledge of the granite stile, there
was a fanlike flutter of black and white in her very face, and she stood
a moment watching the ill-omened bird wheel and dip behind the thick
blossom of the hawthorn hedge.

"There goes my white riband," thought the ignorant girl, and yet even
with the quick fear there welled a fresh and fierce determination in her
undisciplined heart.

Her egotism, if not her superstition, was reproved when she reached
the farmhouse, and old Madgy, the midwife, coming to the pump for more
water, met her with news of what had happened not half an hour earlier.
The shallow creek of Upper Farm had been invaded by a violent and dark
tide, on whose ebb two lives had been borne away. Loveday, staring up
at Primrose's room, saw the withered hand of old Mrs. Lear draw the
curtains across the window behind which lay a dead mother and a babe
that had never lived.



CHAPTER X: IN WHICH LOVEDAY DOES NOT
ATTEND A FUNERAL




Chapter X

IN WHICH LOVEDAY DOES NOT ATTEND A FUNERAL


"A couple of months too soon her pains took her," said Madgy; "she has
been fretting and wisht these weeks past, with her husband always after
some young faggot up country and herself sick with envy at the girls
that could still dance with the chaps. She had no woman's heart in her,
poor soul, to carry her woman's burden. Ah! many's the strange things
in women I see at my trade," and Madgy wrung out a cloth and mumbled to
herself--her old mouth folded inwards, as though she perpetually turned
all the secrets that she knew over and over within it.

"Your mother died because she'd set her heart on death," she added, to
Loveday, "but this one died because she dedn' know how to catch hold on
life. She'd a weak hand on everything she touched, because she never
wanted nawthen enough."

"Wanting's not getting, however hard you want," said Loveday.

"Ah! isn't it? It's getting, though you may have sorrow packed along wi'
it. Out of my way, maid; I must be busy overstairs." And old Madgy went
to ply the second part of her trade, for she washed the dead as well as
the newly-born; she laid coins on the eyes of the old and flannels on
the limbs of the young with the same smile between her rheumy lids and
on her folded mouth.

Loveday stayed awhile and helped Mrs. Lear, by milking the puzzled,
lowing cows and pouring the milk into the pans, but all the time they
worked the dead girl's name was never mentioned between them. It was
as though Loveday were making amends for the ill words that had been
between them by refraining her tongue from everything but her first
few accents of pity and amaze.

That pity was shared by all the neighbourhood, gentle and simple.
Time was, just before her marriage, when Primrose was accounted a
foolish and sinful maid enough, but married she had been, and into a
highly-respected family, for the Lears' graves had lain in the next best
position to those of the gentry for many generations, and, for their
sakes more than for hers, tributes flowed in to the funeral.

This poor, pale Primrose, who had died so young, though not unmarried,
was laid to rest, with babe on arm, only a few days before the Flora
dance, and her friend Cherry, who would none the less foot it gaily on
that occasion, attended, with a length of black crape round her buxom
waist and her eyes swollen by the easy tears of an easy nature.

Loveday was not present, for, friendly as she had ever been with Mrs.
Lear, the dead girl's petulance lay between them now; memory of it
become to Loveday a pang of pity, and to Mrs. Lear a sacred duty.
Nevertheless, an odd notion, such as Loveday was apt to take, made her
feel that some tie, slight, but persistent, between Primrose and herself
drew her, at least, to give the last look possible from behind the hedge
screening the road.

There, hidden as a bird, she saw how highly the world had thought of the
girl to whom she had dared feel a flashing sense of superiority; she saw
how true respectability is to be admired. For never at any funeral, save
that of actual gentry, had there been seen so many of those elegant
floral tokens of esteem which reflect, perhaps, even more honour upon
those who bestow them than upon the dead who receive them. Primrose may
have been a poor creature enough, but the Lears had always held their
heads high among their fellows, without ever trying to push above their
station. No unseemly ambitions, no fantastic desires, had ever drawn
just censure upon Upper Farm, and wreaths and crosses decked with
tasteful streamers bore witness to this fact. There was actually an
exquisite white wreath from Miss Le Pettit of Ignores, laid proudly upon
the humbler greener offerings of farmers and fisher folk, overpowering
with its elegance even an artificial wreath under glass which came from
the Bugletown corn-chandler, who was Mr. Lear's chief customer.

Loveday, watching, knew suddenly that, when her time came, she would be
an alien in death, as she was in life; that never for her would these
costly tokens of respect be gathered. Yet, instead of this thought
humbling her, instead of it teaching her the lesson that only by
striving to do her duty in the lowly course set for her could she attain
any measure of regard, it aroused in her once more, this time with an
even fiercer intensity, her ardent desire to be as different from these
good folk as possible. Miss Le Pettit had thought her different, had
admired that difference, and to Miss Le Pettit, as supreme arbiter, her
heart turned now. There was still that doorway to her future whose latch
the fair Flora's hand could lift, and this door, ajar for her, would
open wide if she were but fitly garbed to pass across its threshold.

Watching the funeral procession, which should have suggested such far
other thoughts even to her undisciplined soul, Loveday was taken only
by an idea so rash and impious that it alarmed even herself. It was the
penalty of her dark and ardent blood that fear, like despair, added to
the force of her desires. That idea, which she should have driven from
her as a serpent, she nourished in her bosom as though it were a dove.



CHAPTER XI: IN WHICH LOVEDAY ATTENDS
THE FLORA




Chapter XI

IN WHICH LOVEDAY ATTENDS THE FLORA


The eighth of May dawned fair and clear, and from early morning the
young men and maidservants of Bugletown, who had Spent the past week
cleaning and polishing the houses, streamed out into the country to
pluck green branches for their further adornment. Already the thought of
the dance was in their heads, and its tripping in their feet, and they
sang through the lanes.

They waylaid strangers coming into Bugletown and drew contributions
of silver from them, according to custom, and all they did went to a
gay measure. By the time the gentry, both of the place itself and of
outlying regions, were assembled for the dance every house in the main
streets of the grey little old town was decked with boughs, its front
and back doors opened wide for the dancers, who at the Flora always
danced through every house set hospitably open for their passage.

The band, that all day long plays but the one tune, hour after hour,
was gathered together by noon, sleek and not yet heated, their trumpets
shining in the sun, their fiddles glossy as their well-oiled hair, their
big drum round as the portly figure of the bandmaster himself. Already,
in many a bedchamber, young women had twirled this way and that before
the mirror, studying the set of taffetas and tarletan, or young men
had polished their high beavers anxiously against the sleeves of their
brightest broadcloth frock coats. In speckless kitchens housewives
prepared their cakes and cream, and the masters saw to the drawing of
the cider, and, perhaps, tasted it, to make sure that it had not soured
overnight. And in each heart different words were running to the Flora
Day tune, words that suited with each heart's measure. The children in
the streets sang aloud the doggerel words that long custom has fastened
upon the tune:--

_"John the beau was walking home,_
_When he met with Sally Dover,_
_He kissed her once, he kissed her twice,_
_And he kissed her three times over!"_


Thus the heedless children with their lips, but their little hearts
probably beat to the even simpler words: "_I'm having a holiday!
Having a holiday!_"

More staidly, and almost unheard by their time-muffled ears, a voice,
nevertheless, sang to the housewives, telling each her copper and silver
was the brightest in the town, and adding, perhaps, little gusts of
memory that half hurt, half pleased, of how nimbly she had danced at the
Flora in years gone by, and how fair she had looked....

The staid married men smiled to themselves, and would not have
acknowledged that within them something seemed to chuckle: "_I'm not
so old, after all; I'm not so old, after all_...."

Frankly, the hearts of the young men nudged hopefully against their
ribs, calling out: "_I'm going to dance with Her! I'm going to dance
with Her! And perhaps ... for I always was lucky! I always was
lucky_!"

But who shall say what lilting voice, timid-bold and sly-sincere,
whispered to the maidens, beating out its syllables against the new
stays so tightly laced for the occasion? Perhaps the words of the
children's doggerel, with a name or so altered, met the moment without
need of further change....

And Loveday's heart, as she walked the three miles from the fishing
village to Bugletown, sang to her of joy and hope and triumph.

When she reached the Market House, she found the band ready to strike up
the famous tune, while the mayor, his chain of office about his neck,
stood conversing with the ladies and gentlemen who were to lead the
dance. For, as is but fitting, the couples at the Flora follow each
other according to their social precedence, though all may join who
choose, providing only that the females, be they gentry or tradespeople,
wear white, and the men their best broadcloth and Sunday hats.

Of all who had gathered for the dance there was none more highly placed
than Miss Flora Le Pettit, and none as fair to see. She stood supreme in
the sunshine and her beauty, her white muslin robes swelling round her
like the petals of some full-blown rose, her white sash streaming over
them, the white ribands that decked her hat of fine Dunstable straw
flowing down to her shoulders and mingling with her auburn curls. Even
the countless tiny bows that adorned her dress (as though they were a
cloud of butterflies drawn to alight upon it by its freshness) were of
white satin. Everything about her save her little sandalled feet danced
already--the brim of the wide hat that waved above her dancing eyes, the
flounces and floating ends of her attire which the soft breeze stirred,
the corners of her smiling mouth, the dimple which came and went behind
the curls that nodded by her cheek. What vision can have been fairer
than that presented by Flora Le Pettit upon Flora Day? "None, none,
none," thought eager Loveday, as she edged through the crowd and caught
sight of her divinity. None ... and yet that sight caused Loveday a
strange clutching in her breast.

For she, too, had felt fair when she had gazed in her tiny mirror; the
yellowed linen gown had gleamed pure and white, her young breast had
swelled above the waist that looked so slim, and that was so finely
girt.... Yet, now, something of splendour about Miss Le Pettit that
she could not attain dimmed all herself and, with herself, her joy.
Her face, already flushed by her walk, burned deeper still with shame.
Yet the desire that three weeks of striving had swollen to a passion
urged her forward, and, fingering the lovely thing about her waist to
gain courage, she broke through the last ring of staring people and
stood in front of Miss Le Pettit.

The heiress of Ignores had not yet caught sight of her, being engaged in
laughing conversation with several admiring gentlemen, but something of
an almost painful intensity in the dark gaze of the village girl drew
her face to meet it. The black eyes, so full of an extravagant passion,
met the careless glance of the blue orbs that knew not even the passing
shadow of such a thing.

"Oh," stammered Loveday, the set speech she had been conning all the way
to Bugletown dying upon her lips, "Oh, Miss Flora, I'm come. I've got my
white sash and I'm come...."

Over Flora's face passed a look of bewilderment, while Loveday, her
moment of self-criticism gone, stood trembling with eager happiness.
Then Miss Le Pettit spoke, lightly and kindly.

"Surely I have seen you before, my girl?" she asked. And, turning to the
little group of her friends, added:

"She has such a striking air, 'twould be difficult to forget her."

Yet, till this moment, Miss Le Pettit had forgotten everything save that
air. Forgotten her careless suggestion, her prettily given promise, her
praise. Forgotten even the pleasant glow such evident worship as this
village girl's had stirred in her. She had had so much worship since!
Who can blame her for not remembering some idle words her artistic
perceptions had prompted three weeks earlier? It had been a fantastic
suggestion at best, as a girl of sense would have known, treasuring it
merely for its kindly intention. After all, Miss Le Pettit would be far
more conspicuous dancing with a village maiden at the Flora than with a
gentleman suited to her in rank and estate. Since that day at Upper Farm
she had met just such a gentleman--he with the glossy whiskers and
handsome form who was nearest to her now, smiling at this little
encounter.

"Why, child," said Flora to Loveday, "you look very nice, I am sure.
But your place should be much further down the procession." Then, more
sharply: "Why do you stare so, girl?"

Loveday stood as one stricken, her cheek now as white as the sash she
was still holding in her shaking hands.



CHAPTER XII: IN WHICH LOVEDAY DANCES




Chapter XII

IN WHICH LOVEDAY DANCES


The Mayor had stepped forward, fearing lest this young person might be
annoying the heiress; the bandsmen had turned from the final survey of
their instruments to gaze; here and there various people who recognised
Loveday were pressing through the crowd, eager to see and hear.
Only Miss Le Pettit had drawn back against the protecting arm of the
gentleman who was to be her partner. Loveday still stayed, her riband
in her hands.

There came comments from the crowd.

"Loveday Strick! She'm mad! This month past she'm been like a crazy
thing about the Flora!"

"I thought all the time she must be mad to have imagined Miss Le Pettit
meant to dance along wi' she!"

"What's the maid got on? I can't rightly see."

"Old white, but a brave new sash."

At that Loveday raised her head and looked about her. A shrill voice
from the crowd answered the last speaker.

"A new sash; Ted'n possible. Us have all been laughing because she
couldn' come by one nohow." And Cherry Cotton elbowed her way through
the ring of curious folk to where Loveday stood. Suddenly Cherry gave a
scream, and pointed an accusing finger at Loveday.

"Ah, a new sash, sure enough.... Ask her where she got 'en. Ask her, I
say."

Loveday answered nothing, only turned her head a little to stare at
Cherry.

"You ask her where she took it from, Miss! You should know, seeing you
gave it!"

"I gave it to her? Nonsense."

"Not to her, but to poor Primrose Lear. 'Tes the riband that tied up
your wreath. She's robbed the dead. Loveday Strick's robbed the dead."

Then indeed, after a moment's stupefaction following on the horrid
revelation, a murmur of indignation ran from mouth to mouth.

"She's robbed the dead!"

"My soul! To rob the living's stealing, but to rob the dead's a profane
thing."

"'Tisn't man as can judge her, 'tis only God Almighty!" cried an old
minister, aghast.

"Look at the maid, how she stands.... Her own conscience judges her,
I should say!"

"She's no word to excuse herself, simmingly."

"That's because she do know nothing can excuse what she's done...."

And, indeed, Loveday stood without speech. Perhaps in all that buzz of
murmuring she heard the voice of her own conscience at last, for she
made no effort to defend herself, or, perhaps, even at that hour, she
heard nothing but the dread whisper of defeat. She stood before Flora
Le Pettit like a wilted rose whose petals hang limply, about to fall,
fronting a bloom that spreads its glowing leaves in the full flush of
noon. The one girl was triumphant in her beauty and her unassailable
position, every flounce out-curved in freshness; the other drooped at
brow and hem, her slender neck downbent, her sash-ends pendant as broken
tendrils after rain upon her heavily hanging skirts.

All she was heard to murmur, and that very low, was a halting sentence
about her white sash: "But you said--you said you'd dance with me if
I got my sash ..." or some such words, but only Miss Le Pettit caught
all the muttered syllables, and she never spoke of them, save with a
petulant reluctance to Mr. Constantine when he questioned her
afterwards.

"Girl," said the Mayor sharply, "is it true?'

"Yes," said Loveday.

"True!" cried Cherry, "I know 'tes true. I remember noticing that green
mark on the riband when the wreath was laid on the grave. Ah, she'm a
wicked piece, she is. She tormented my poor Primrose in life and she's
robbed her in death. You aren't safe in your grave from she."