"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.
"Girl," said the Mayor sharply, "is it true?'
"Yes," said Loveday.