his own standards, but now he felt
he had none. Her husband's scornful and warning look, the day they
encountered each other in the street, was then prophetic. The man
estimated him unerringly, and knew what he had to fear.

Reflection had come at last, and would not down. Surely, Emmet was the
more honourable of the two, and had been more sinned against than
sinning. He had slipped, had recovered himself, and was honestly
striving to make amends. How shamefully cruel his treatment had been
from every hand, from his wife's, his friend's, his political
opponents'! Where was now his own guilty triumph of a few moments
since? He sank into his chair once more, and faced the fact that Emmet
had given him an example to follow, that he must keep his promise not
to see Felicity again.

His eye fell upon his pipe and he seized it avidly. At the table, he
had not smoked with Cardington and Parr; he had scarcely eaten. Now,
the tobacco brought peculiar relief to his over-wrought mind, and
dulled for a few moments the edge of his remorse. In the wavering
clouds of smoke he saw her eyes once more. And the crimson cloak! Was
ever a wrap worn by mortal woman so bewitching, so deliciously
contradictory in its suggestions? The Shaker women never married, and
this was their peculiar garment, though they always wore one of sad,
monotonous gray. Every winter they came to Warwick and sold cloaks of
worldly colours to the rich young women of the town, seeking money for
their dwindling settlement. In the contradiction between the
demureness of outline and the warmth of colour the wearer found a
weapon of coquetry.

Presently the pipe was smoked out, and then the second and the third,
with gradual lessening of narcotic power. The vision of the senses was
gone, and the relentless reality of duty returned. Once more he left
his chair and began his restless pacing to and fro. Thus the miserable
night wore on, until he threw himself upon his bed to win the oblivion
of sleep.

But now another memory assailed him: the night following his meeting
with Felicity in the woods, when, during fitful dreams, a vision of
that strange figure rising up in the shadows beyond the fire returned
to haunt him. Suddenly he was sitting up in bed, staring into the
darkness. In despair he went to his windows and raised the curtains to
see if it were near the dawn. It was four o'clock, but night still
covered the wintry landscape. The full moo