“She’s gone and given it away, and she hasn’t got a good silk dress herself; she’s wearing her old cloak to meeting,” he half sobbed to himself.  He wondered piteously, thinking of his savings and of his property since his father’s death, if he might not, at least, buy Charlotte a new silk dress and a mantilla.  “I don’t believe she’d be mad,” he said; “but I’m afraid her father wouldn’t let her wear it.”

The more he thought of it the more it seemed as if he could not bear it, unless he could buy Charlotte the silk dress.  “Her clothes ain’t as good as mine,” he said, and he thought of his best blue broadcloth suit, and his flowered vest and silk hat.  It seemed to him that with all the terrible injury he was doing Charlotte, he also injured her by having better clothes than she, and that that was something which might be set right.

As Barney sat by his window that Sunday afternoon he saw a man coming down the hill.  He watched him idly, then his heart leaped and he leaned forward.  The man advanced with a careless, stately swing, his head was thrown back, his mulberry-colored coat had a sheen like a leaf in the sun.  The man was Thomas Payne.  Barney turned white as he watched him.  He had not known he was in town, and his jealous heart at once whispered that he had come to see Charlotte.  Thomas Payne came opposite the house, then passed out of sight.  Barney sat with staring eyes full of miserable questioning upon the road.  Had he been to see Charlotte? he speculated.  He had come from that direction; but Barney remembered, with a sigh of hope, that Squire Payne had a sister, an old maiden lady, who lived a half-mile beyond Charlotte.  Perhaps Thomas Payne had been to see his aunt.

[Illustration:  “Thomas Payne advanced with a careless, stately swing”]

All the rest of the day Barney was in an agony of doubt and unrest over the unsettled question.  He had been living lately in a sort of wretched peace of remorse and misery; now it was rudely shaken.  He walked the floor; at night he could not sleep.  He seemed to be in a very torture-chamber of his own making, and the tortures were worse than any enemies could have devised.  Suppose Thomas Payne was sitting up with Charlotte this Sunday night.  Once he thought, wildly, of going up the hill to see if there was a light in her parlor, but it seemed to him as if the doubt was more endurable than the certainty might be.  Suppose Thomas Payne was sitting up with Charlotte; he called to mind all her sweet ways.  Suppose she was looking and speaking to Thomas Payne in this way or that way; his imagination threw out pictures before him upon which he could not close his eyes.  He saw Thomas Payne’s face all glowing with triumph, he saw Charlotte’s with the old look that she had worn for him.  Charlotte’s caresses had been few and maidenly; they all came into his mind like stings.  He knew just how she would put her tender arm around this other man’s neck, how she would lift grave, willing lips to his.  He wished that they had never been for him, for all they seemed worth to him now was this bitter knowledge.  His fancy led him on and on to his own torment.  There was a bridal mist around Charlotte.  He followed the old courses of his own dreams, after his memories were passed, and they caused him worse agony.