insolent
liberty of looking at her house!

"A pretty young wife," Miss Hitty had said. Yes, doubtless a pretty
one. Anthony Dexter delighted in the beauty of a woman in the same
impersonal way that another man would regard a picture. And a son. A
straight, tall young fellow, doubtless, with eyes like his
father's--eyes that a woman would trust, not dreaming of the false
heart and craven soul. Why had she been brought here to suffer this
last insult, this last humiliation? Weakly, as many a woman before
her, Miss Evelina groped in the maze of Life, searching for some clue
to its blind mystery.

Was it possible that she had not suffered enough? If five-and-twenty
years of sodden misery were not sufficient for one who had done no
wrong, what punishment would be meted out to a sinner by a God who was
always kind? Miss Evelina's lips curled scornfully. She had taken
what he should have borne--Anthony Dexter had gone scot free.

"The man sins and the woman pays." The cynical saying, which, after
all, is not wholly untrue, took shape in her thought and said
itself--aloud. Yet it was not altogether impossible that he might yet
be made to pay--could be--

Her cheeks burned and her hands closed tightly. What if she were the
chosen instrument? What if she had been sent here, after all the dead,
miserable years, for some purpose which hitherto she had not guessed?

What if she, herself, with her veiled face, were to be the tardy
avenger of her own wrong? Her soul stirred in its despair as the dead
might stir in the winding sheet. Out of her sodden grief, could she
ever emerge--alive?

"The fire was kind," said Miss Evelina, in a whisper. "It showed me
the truth. The fire was kind and God is kind. He has brought me here
to pay my debt--in full."

She began to consider what she might do that would hurt Anthony Dexter
and make him suffer as she had suffered for half a lifetime. If he had
forgotten, she would make him remember--ah, yes, he must remember
before he could be hurt. But what could she do? What had he given her
aside from the misery that she hungered to give back to him?

The pearls! Miss Evelina lighted her candle and hurried upstairs.

In her dower chest, beneath the piles of heavy, yellowed linen, was a
small jewel case. She knelt before the chest, gasping, and thrust her
questioning fingers down through the linen to the solid oak. With a
little cry, she rose to her feet, the jewel case