tually used. He
had looked at it, and in the corner he had found the Weldon crest. As to
how it had come in his possession, he had at the time given no thought.
Weldon, in one of his visits, might have left it at Waverley Place, or
he himself might have borrowed it when dining at Weldon's house. He was
absent-minded, he knew, and apt to be forgetful, and so at the time he
had given the matter no further thought. After all, what incident could
be more trivial? But now the handkerchief, like a magician's rug,
carried him back to Narragansett. As well as he could remember, the last
occasion on which he wore that coat was the day on which the butler's
telegram had summoned him to town. Then, on learning of his father's
death, he had put on other things, of sombrer hue. Harris, without
rummaging in the pockets, had folded the coat and put it away. And it
had remained folded ever since till the other day at Bologna--no, at
Bergamo.

That morning at Narragansett, when he was hurrying into the cottage, the
man who had aided Viola home the preceding evening drove up with her
hat, with this very handkerchief, and the story of a dream. Aye, and his
own dream. So this was Truth. She had pursued him, indeed. He could feel
her knees on his arms, her fetid breath in his face. But this time it
was not a nightmare. It was the real.

Yes, it was that. One by one he recalled the incidents of the
past--incidents on which his mind loathed to dwell, rebelling against
its own testimony until he coerced the shuddering memories to his will.
There were the numberless times in which he had encountered Weldon
coming in or leaving her house, almost haunting it with his presence.
There was that wanton lie, and the unexplained and interrupted scene
between them. It was then, perhaps, that he had first shown the demon
that was in him. And then, afterward, was that meeting on the cars--he
with a bruise on his cheek and a gash on his neck. Why was Viola's whip
broken, if it were not that she had broken it on his face? Why did the
nails of her ungloved hand look as though they had been stained with the
juice of berries? Why, indeed, if it were not that she had sunk them in
his flesh. Why had he heard her calling "Coward" to the night? It was
for this, then, that the engagement had been broken; it was for this
that she had hidden herself abroad.

For the first time since his boyhood, he threw himself on the bed and
sobbed aloud. To stifle his grief he