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