He wondered why she pitied him.  The place must surely be full of memories of her mother for her:  why did she say “Poor papa!” to him?  He did not see what she saw—­that peaceful September evening, and the bottle of cherry-water on the table, with the little phial of thirty deaths in her hand; and now the contents emptied into the harmless draught; and now madame pale and dead.  The whole scene transacted itself vividly before her, and she shuddered at her memories and her past self, as always with a kind of vague wonder how she could have been so wicked, and where did she get the force, the courage, for such a cruel crime?

For all these four years at school the shadow of that dreadful deed had been ever in the background of her life; and as time went on, and she came to a better understanding of morality, it grew clear to her as a crime.  Its consciousness of guilt had broken down her pride, and thus had made her more malleable, more humble.  She could no longer harden herself in her belief that she was superior to every one else.  Those girls, her companions—­they had not had an Andalusian mother, truly; they did not pray to the saints, and the Holy Virgin took no care of them; they were Protestants and English, frogs and pigs; but they had not committed murder.  If she should stand up in the middle of the room and tell them what she had done, which of them would touch her hand again? which of them speak to her?  English and Protestants as they were, how far superior in their innocence to her, an Andalusian Catholic, in her guilt!  But no one lives with remorse.  It comes and goes gustily, fitfully; but the things of the present are stronger than the things of the past, else the man with a shameful secret in his life would go mad.

One of these gusty storms broke over Leam as she passed through the gates of the old home, and for the moment she felt as if she must confess the truth to her father and tell him what evil thing she had done.  Yet it passed, as other such storms had passed:  the things of the present took their natural place of prominence, and those of the past sank again into the background, shadows that never faded quite away, but that were not actualities pressing against her.

The news of Leam’s home-coming created quite a pleasurable excitement in the neighborhood, and the families flocked to Ford House to welcome her among them as one of themselves, all anxious to see if the Ethiopian of North Aston had shed her skin, if the leopardess had changed her spots.  They were divided among themselves as to whether she had or had not.  Some said she was charming, and like any one else, but others shook their heads, and, like experts in brain disease, professed to see traces of the old lunacy, and to be doubtful as to her cure.  At the worst, however, here she was—­one of themselves whom they must receive; and common sense dictated that they should make the best of her, and hope all things till they proved some.