The Mayor had stepped forward, fearing lest this young person might be annoying the heiress; the bandsmen had turned from the final survey of their instruments to gaze; here and there various people who recognised Loveday were pressing through the crowd, eager to see and hear.  Only Miss Le Pettit had drawn back against the protecting arm of the gentleman who was to be her partner.  Loveday still stayed, her riband in her hands.

There came comments from the crowd.

“Loveday Strick!  She’m mad!  This month past she’m been like a crazy thing about the Flora!”

“I thought all the time she must be mad to have imagined Miss Le Pettit meant to dance along wi’ she!”

“What’s the maid got on?  I can’t rightly see.”

“Old white, but a brave new sash.”

At that Loveday raised her head and looked about her.  A shrill voice from the crowd answered the last speaker.

“A new sash; Ted’n possible.  Us have all been laughing because she couldn’ come by one nohow.”  And Cherry Cotton elbowed her way through the ring of curious folk to where Loveday stood.  Suddenly Cherry gave a scream, and pointed an accusing finger at Loveday.

“Ah, a new sash, sure enough....  Ask her where she got ’en.  Ask her, I say.”

Loveday answered nothing, only turned her head a little to stare at Cherry.

“You ask her where she took it from, Miss!  You should know, seeing you gave it!”

“I gave it to her?  Nonsense.”

“Not to her, but to poor Primrose Lear.  ’Tes the riband that tied up your wreath.  She’s robbed the dead.  Loveday Strick’s robbed the dead.”

Then indeed, after a moment’s stupefaction following on the horrid revelation, a murmur of indignation ran from mouth to mouth.

“She’s robbed the dead!”

“My soul!  To rob the living’s stealing, but to rob the dead’s a profane thing.”

“’Tisn’t man as can judge her, ’tis only God Almighty!” cried an old minister, aghast.

“Look at the maid, how she stands....  Her own conscience judges her, I should say!”

“She’s no word to excuse herself, simmingly.”

“That’s because she do know nothing can excuse what she’s done....”

And, indeed, Loveday stood without speech.  Perhaps in all that buzz of murmuring she heard the voice of her own conscience at last, for she made no effort to defend herself, or, perhaps, even at that hour, she heard nothing but the dread whisper of defeat.  She stood before Flora Le Pettit like a wilted rose whose petals hang limply, about to fall, fronting a bloom that spreads its glowing leaves in the full flush of noon.  The one girl was triumphant in her beauty and her unassailable position, every flounce out-curved in freshness; the other drooped at brow and hem, her slender neck downbent, her sash-ends pendant as broken tendrils after rain upon her heavily hanging skirts.

All she was heard to murmur, and that very low, was a halting sentence about her white sash:  “But you said—­you said you’d dance with me if I got my sash ...” or some such words, but only Miss Le Pettit caught all the muttered syllables, and she never spoke of them, save with a petulant reluctance to Mr. Constantine when he questioned her afterwards.