She went to the gate and leaned upon it, looking down the road. Thus she had watched for Anthony Dexter in years gone by. Memories, mercilessly keen, returned to her. As though it were yesterday, she remembered the moonlit night of their betrothal, felt his eager arms about her and his bearded cheek pressed close to hers. She heard again the music of his voice as he whispered, passionately: "I love you, oh, I love you—for life, for death, for all eternity!"
The rose-bush had been carefully pruned and tied up, but it promised little, at best. The cypress had grown steadily, and, at times, its long shadow reached through the door and into the house. Heavily, too, upon her heart, the shadow of the cypress lay, for sorrow seems so much deeper than joy.
A figure came up the road, and she turned away, intending to go into the house. Then she perceived that it was Piper Tom, and, drawing down her veil, turned back to wait for him. He had never come at night before.
Even in the darkness, she noted a change in him; the atmosphere of youth was all gone. He walked slowly, as though he had aged, and the red feather no longer bobbed in his hat.
He went past her silently, and sat down on the steps.
"Will you come in?" asked Evelina.
"No," answered the Piper, sadly, "I'll not be coming in. 'T is selfish of me, perhaps, but I came to you because I had sorrow of my own."
Miss Evelina sat down on the step beside him, and waited for him to speak.
"'T is a small sorrow, perhaps, you'll be thinking," he said, at last. "I'm not knowing what great ones you have seen, face to face, but 't is so ordered That all sorrows are not the same. 'T is all in the heart that bears them. I told you I had known them all, and at the time, I was thinking I spoke the truth. A woman never loved me, and so I have lost the love of no woman, but," he went on with difficulty, "no one had ever killed my dog."
"How?" asked Miss Evelina, dully. It seemed a matter of small moment to her.