The dam crashed, the barrier of years was broken, the obstructions were swept out to sea.  Remorse and shame, no longer denied, overwhelmingly submerged his soul.  He struggled up from the couch blindly, and went out—­broken in body, crushed in spirit, yet triumphantly a man at last.

XIV

A Little Hour of Triumph

Miss Evelina sat alone in her parlour, which was now spotlessly clean.  Araminta had had her supper, her bath, and her clean linen—­there was nothing more to do until morning.  The hard work had proved a blessing to Miss Evelina; her thoughts had been constantly forced away from herself.  She had even learned to love Araminta with the protecting love which grows out of dependence, and, at the same time, she felt herself stronger; better fitted, as it were, to cope with her own grief.

Since coming back to her old home, her thought and feeling had been endlessly and painfully confused.  She sat in her low rocker with her veil thrown back, and endeavoured to analyse herself and her surroundings, to see, if she might, whither she was being led.  She was most assuredly being led, for she had not come willingly, nor remained willingly; she had been hurt here as she had not been hurt since the very first, and yet, if a dead heart can be glad of anything, she was glad she had come.  Upon the far horizon of her future, she dimly saw change.

She had that particular sort of peace which comes from the knowledge that the worst is over; that nothing remains.  The last drop of humiliation had been poured from her cup the day she met Anthony Dexter on the road and had been splashed with mud from his wheels as he drove by.  It was inconceivable that there should be more.

Dusk came and the west gleamed faintly.  The afterglow merged into the first night and at star-break, Venus blazed superbly on high, sending out rays mystically prismatic, as from some enchanted lamp.  “Our star,” Anthony Dexter had been wont to call it, as they watched for it in the scented dusk.  For him, perhaps, it had been indeed the love-star, but she had followed it, with breaking heart, into the quicksands.

To shut out the sight of it, Miss Evelina closed the blinds and lighted a candle, then sat down again, to think.

There was a dull, uncertain rap at the door.  Doctor Ralph, possibly—­he had sometimes come in the evening,—­or else Miss Hitty, with some delicacy for Araminta’s breakfast.

Drawing down her veil, she went to the door and opened it, thinking, as she did so, that lives were often wrecked or altered by the opening or closing of a door.

Anthony Dexter brushed past her and strode into the parlour.  Through her veil, she would scarcely have recognised him—­he was so changed.  Upon the instant, there was a transformation in herself.  The suffering, broken-hearted woman was strangely pushed aside—­she could come again, but she must step aside now.  In her place arose a veiled vengeance, emotionless, keen, watchful; furtively searching for the place to strike.