“’T is not for me to be asking it, for God knows I could never be worthy, but I’ve thought of Heaven as a place where you and I might fare together always, with me to heal your wounds, help you over the rough places, and guide you through the dark.  That part of it, I’m to have, I’m thinking, for God has been very good to me.  I’m to know that wherever you are, you re happy at last, because it’s been given me to lead you into the light.  I called you, and you came.”

“Yes,” said Evelina, her voice lingering upon the words, “you called me and I came, and was redeemed.  Tell me, in your thought of Heaven, have you ever asked to see my face?”

“Nay,” cried the Piper, “do you think I’d be asking for what you hide from me?  I know that ’t is because you are so beautiful, and such beauty is not for my eyes to see.”

“Piper Tom,” she answered; “dear Piper Tom!  I told you once that I had been terribly burned.  I was hurt so badly that when the man I was pledged to marry, and whose life I had saved, was told that every feature of mine was destroyed except my sight, he went away, and never came back any more.”

“The brute who hurt Laddie,” he said, in a low tone.  “I told him then that a man who would torture a dog would torture a woman, too.  I’d not be minding the scars,” he added, “since they’re brave scars, and not the marks of sin or shame.  I’m thinking that ’t is the brave scars that have made you so beautiful—­so beautiful,” he repeated, “that you hide your face.”

Into Evelina’s heart came something new and sweet—­that perfect, absolute, unwavering trust which a woman has but once in her life and of which Anthony Dexter had never given her the faintest hint.  All at once, she knew that she could not let him go; that he must either stay, or take her, too.

She leaned forward.  “Piper Tom,” she said, unashamed, “when you go, will you take me with you?  I think we belong together—­you and I.”

“Belong together?” he repeated, incredulously.  “Ah, ’t is your pleasure to mock me.  Oh, my Spinner in the Sun, why would you wish to hurt me so?”

Tears blinded Evelina so that, through her veil, and in the night, she could not see at all.  When the mists cleared, he was gone.

XXVI

The Lifting of the Veil

From afar, at the turn of night, came the pipes o’ Pan—­the wild, mysterious strain which had first summoned Evelina from pain to peace.  At the sound, she sat up in bed, her heavy, lustreless white hair falling about her shoulders.  She guessed that Piper Tom was out upon the highway, with his pedler’s pack strapped to his sturdy back.  As in a vision, she saw him marching onward from place to place, to make the world easier for all women because a woman had given him life, and because he loved another woman in another way.

Was it always to be so, she wondered; should she for ever thirst while others drank?  While others loved, must she eternally stand aside heart-hungry?  Unyielding Fate confronted her, veiled inscrutably, but she guessed that the veil concealed a mocking smile.