ontinually 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