The wife attributed it to displeasure at seeing Frederic Chilton among the mourners.  Her whilom guardian, never charitable overmuch, inclined the more to the belief begotten within him by other incidents, to wit:  that his brother-in-law’s talk was more doughty than his deeds, and his real sentiment upon beholding the man he boasted of having flogged as a libertine and coward, was physical dread for his own safety.  Watchful alike of the other party to the ancient quarrel, he was rewarded by the sight of Chilton’s irrepressible start and frown, when Mabel put her hand within her husband’s arm, and stood awaiting the formation of the procession.  The discarded lover gazed steadfastly into Dorrance’s countenance in passing to his place, in recognition that scouted assimilarity with salutation, but his eye did not waver or his color fade.

“I would not be afraid to wager that this is but another version of the fable of the statue of the man rampant and the lion couchant,” thought Mr. Aylett, following with his wife in the funeral train down the grass-grown alley leading through the garden to the family burying-ground.  “It would be an entertaining study of human veracity if I could hear Chilton’s story, and compare the two.  He is either an audacious rascal, or there is something back of all that I have heard which will not bear the light.”

It was not remorse at the thought of the total alteration in his sister’s life and feelings that had grown out of this imperfect or false evidence, but simple curiosity to inspect the lineaments and note the actions of the cool rascal whose audacity commanded his admiration, and note his bearing in the event of his coming into closer contact with his former foe, that prompted him to single him out for scrutiny among those whose relationship to the deceased secured them places nearest the grave.

For a time the widower was gravely quiet, holding his child’s hand and looking down steadfastly into the pit at his feet, perhaps remembering more vividly than anything else a certain sunny day in March, many years back, when another fissure yawned close by, where now a green mound—­the ridged scar with which the earth had closed the wound in her breast—­and a stately shaft of white marble were all that remained to the world of “Rosa, wife of Frederic Chilton.”  But, while the mould was being heaped upon the coffin, he raised his eyes, and let them rove aimlessly over the crowd, neither avoiding nor courting observation—­the cursory regard of a man who had no strong interest in any person or group there.  They changed singularly in resting upon the family from Ridgeley.  A stare of stupefaction gave place to living fires of angry suspicion and amazement—­lurid flame that testified its violence in the reddening of cheeks and brow, in the dilating nostril and quivering lips.  Then he passed his hand downward over his features, evidently conscious of their distortion, and striving after a semblance of equanimity, and looked again