The man started forward, his face ashen, for she had raised her veil, and was standing full in the light.

In the tense silence he gazed at her, fascinated.  Every emotion that possessed him was written plainly on his face for her to read.  “The night of realisation,” she was saying, “turned my hair white.  Since I left the hospital, no human being has seen my face till now.  I think you understand—­why?”

Anthony Dexter breathed hard; his body trembled.  He was suffering as the helpless animals had suffered on the table in his laboratory.  Evelina was merciless, but at last, when he thought she had no pity, she lowered her veil.

The length of chiffon fell between them eternally; it was like the closing of a door.  “I understand,” he breathed, “oh, I understand.  It is my punishment—­you have scored at last.  Good——­”

A sob drowned the last word.  He took her cold hand in his, and, bending over it, touched it with his quivering lips.

“Yes,” laughed Evelina, “kiss my hand, if you choose.  Why not?  My hand was not burned!”

His face working piteously, he floundered out into the night and staggered through the gate as he had come—­alone.

The night wind came through the open door, dank and cold.  She closed it, then bolted it as though to shut out Anthony Dexter for ever.

It was his punishment, he had said.  She had scored at last.  If he had suffered, as he told her he had, the sight of her face would be torture.  Yes, Evelina knew that she had scored.  From her hand she wiped away tears—­a man’s hot, terrible tears.

Through the night she sat there, wide-eyed and sleepless, fearlessly unveiled.  The chiffon trailed its misty length unheeded upon the floor.  The man she had loved was as surely dead to her as though he had never been.

Anthony Dexter was dead.  True, his body and mind still lived, but he was not the man she had loved.  The face that had looked into hers was not the face of Anthony Dexter.  It had been cold and calm and cruel, until he came to her house.  His eyes were fish-like, and, stirred by emotion, he was little less than hideous.

Her suffering had been an obsession—­there had been no reason for it, not the shadow of an excuse.  A year, as the Piper said, would have been long enough for her to grieve.  She saw her long sorrow now as something outside of herself, a beast whose prey she had been.  When Anthony Dexter had proved himself a coward, she should have thanked God that she knew him before it was too late.  And because she was weak in body, because her hurt heart still clung to her love for him, she had groped in the darkness for more than half of her life.

And now he had come back!  The blood of triumph surged hard.  She loved him no longer; then, why was she not free?  Her chains yet lay heavily upon her; in the midst of victory, she was still bound.