The daughters and daughter-in-law let fall their veils and pulled on

their gloves, and Herbert Dorrance beckoned somewhat impatiently to

his wife from the parlor door. While she was on her way to join him,

she saw his complexion vary to a greenish sallow, his mouth work

spasmodically, and his eyes sink in anger or dismay.

Winston Aylett likewise noted and knew it, for the same look of

abject terror he had observed upon the hard Scotch face when Mabel

enumerated upon her fingers those she accused of having robbed her

of her babe.

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 in stern fixity, not at her from whom he had been

parted in the early summer of his manhood, nor at his successful

rival, nor yet at the guardian who had offered him gratuitous insult

in addition to the injury of refusing to permit his ward's marriage

with a disgraced adventurer--but at Mrs. Aylett, the chatelaine of

Ridgeley, the wife whose serene purity had never been blemished by a

doubting breath; chaste and polished matron; the admired copy for

younger and less discreet, but not more beautiful women. He surveyed

her boldly--if the imagination had not seemed preposterous--Mr.

Aylett would have said scornfully, as he might study the face and

figure of some abandoned wretch who had accosted him in the public

thoroughfare as an acquaintance.




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