icult for you to comprehend such cowardice--you
have always done the square thing." The man winced, but the boy did
not see it.

"Try to think of a brute like that, Father, and be glad that our name
means 'right.' She saved him from terrible disfigurement if not from
death. Having instinctively thrown up her right arm, she got the
worst of it there, and on her shoulder. Her face was badly burned,
but not so deeply as to be scarred. She showed me her shoulder--it
is awful. I never had seen anything like it. She said her arm was
worse, but she did not show me that."

"He never knew?" asked Anthony Dexter, huskily. Ralph seemed to be
demanding something of him, and the veiled figure, steadily advancing
and retreating, demanded more still.

"No," answered Ralph, "he never knew. He went to the hospital only
once. He had told her that very day that he loved her for the
beautiful soul she had, and at the test, his love failed. He never
saw her again. He went away, and married, and he has a son. Think
of the son, Father, only think of the son! Suppose he knew it! How
could he ever bear a disgrace like that!"

"I do not know," muttered Anthony Dexter. His lips were cold and
stiff and he did not recognise his own voice.

"When she understood what had happened," Ralph continued, "and how he
had deserted her for ever, after taking his cowardly life from her as
a gift, her hair turned white. She has wonderful hair. Father--it's
heavy and white and dull--it does not shine. She wore the veil at
first because she had to, because her face was healing, and before it
had wholly healed she had become accustomed to the shelter of it.
Then, too, as she said, it kept people away from her--she could not
be tempted to love or trust again."

There was an interval of silence, though the very walls seemed to be
crying out: "Tell him! Tell him! Confess, and purge your guilty
soul!" The clock ticked loudly, the blood roared in his ears. His
hands were cold and almost lifeless; his body seemed paralysed, but
he heard, so acutely that it was agony.

"Miss Evelina said," resumed Ralph, "that she did not think he had
told his son. Do you know what I was thinking, Father, while she was
talking? I was thinking of you, and how you had always done the
square thing."

It seemed to Anthony Dexter that all the tortures of his laboratory
had been chemically concentrated and were being poured out upon his
head. "Our name means