The top of the buggy had been lowered, and as they rode homeward she leaned her head back, turning her face to the sickly moonlight.
They went into the house, and as he filled and lighted his pipe, his cavernous eyes ran curiously over her.
"How you have blazed to-night! Your diamonds are superb."
"Yes, sir."
"Go to sleep at once, child. You look as if you had seen a ghost. What has knotted up your forehead in that style?"
"I have looked upon a melancholy death to-night, and have seen two helpless children orphaned. Come and see me soon; I want to consult you about an orphan asylum for which father has given me a lot. Good night, sir; I am very much obliged to you for your kindness in bringing me home. Nobody else is half so considerate and thoughtful."
In her own room she took off the jewels, withered violets and moist tulle—and drawing on her dressing-gown, went up to the observatory, and sat down on the threshold of one of the glass doors looking eastward.
"Think of a man who laughs at his own idiocy, and strives to forget that he ever believed there lived one woman who would be true to her own heart, though the heavens fell and the world passed away!"
These words of scorn were the burning shares over which her bare feet trod, and his bitter accents wailed up and down her lonely heart. Through the remainder of that cloudless night she wrestled silently. At last, when the sky flushed rosily, like an opal smitten with light, and holy Resignation—the blessing born only of great trial like hers—shed its heavenly chrism over the worn and weary, bruised and bleeding spirit, she gathered up the mangled hopes that might have gladdened, and gilded, and glorified her earthly career, and pressing the ruins to her heart, laid herself meekly down, offering all upon the God-built altar of Filial Obedience.
In the