It is not pleasant for a man to be branded, in his own consciousness, a coward.  Refusal to admit it by day does not change the hour of the night when life is at its lowest ebb, and, sleepless, man faces himself as he is.

The necklace slipped snakily over his hand—­one of those white, firm hands which could guide the knife so well—­and Anthony Dexter shuddered.  He flung the box far from him into the shrubbery, went back into the house, and slammed the door.

He sat down at the table, but could not eat.  The Past had come from its grave, veiled, like the ghost in the garden that he had seen yesterday.

It was not an hallucination, then.  Only one person in the world could have laid those discoloured pearls at his door in the dead of night.  The black figure in the garden, with the chiffon fluttering about its head, was Evelina Grey—­or what was left of her.

“Why?” he questioned uneasily of himself.  “Why?” He had repeatedly told himself that any other man, in his position, would do as he had done, yet it was as though some one had slipped a stiletto under his armour and found a vulnerable spot.

Before his mental vision hovered two women.  One was a girl of twenty, laughing, exquisitely lovely.  The other was a bent and broken woman in black, whose veil concealed the dreadful hideousness of her face.

“Pshaw!” grumbled Doctor Dexter, aloud.  “I’ve overworked, that’s all.”

He determined to vanquish the spectre that had reared itself before him, not perceiving that Remorse incarnate, in the shape of Evelina, had come back to haunt him until his dying day.

V

Araminta

“Araminta,” said Miss Mehitable, “go and get your sewing and do your stent.”

“Yes, Aunt Hitty,” answered the girl, obediently.

Each year, Araminta made a new patchwork quilt.  Seven were neatly folded and put away in an old trunk in the attic.  The eighth was progressing well, but the young seamstress was becoming sated with quilts.  She had never been to school, but Miss Mehitable had taught her all she knew.  Unkind critics might have intimated that Araminta had not been taught much, but she could sew nicely, keep house neatly, and write a stilted letter in a queer, old-fashioned hand almost exactly like Miss Mehitable’s.

That valiant dame saw no practical use in further knowledge.  She was concerned with no books except the Bible and the ancient ledger in which, with painstaking exactness, she kept her household accounts.  She deemed it wise, moreover, that Araminta should not know too much.

From a drawer in the high, black-walnut bureau in the upper hall, Araminta drew forth an assortment of red, white, and blue cotton squares and diamonds.  This was to be a “patriotic” quilt, made after a famous old pattern which Miss Hitty had selfishly refused to give to any one else, though she had often been asked for it by contemporary ladies of similar interests.