to fling herself face downward upon the bed,
which would have been fatal; kept stoutly upon her feet. And presently,
summoning all her courage, she stood at the window and peeped,
pale-faced, between the curtains. All was well down there now. The old
avenger was gone. There were only people passing serenely over the
familiar sidewalk, and the sunlight dying where she had stood and
learned just now that a lie has a long life.

Yes, the Colonel was gone: and with him, so it seemed, all veils and
draperies, all misty sublimations. One doesn't idealize one's self too
much, with curses ringing in one's ears.

Cally leaned weakly against the wall, both gloved palms pressed into the
cold smoothness of her cheeks. Somewhere in the still house a door
suddenly banged shut, and she just repressed a scream....

Old Colonel Dalhousie did not deal in moral subtleties, that was clear.
Regret, penitence, sufferings, tears, or dreamy aspiration: he did not
stay to split such hairs as these. His eye was for the large, the stark
effect. And by the intense singleness of his vision, he had freighted
his opinions with an extraordinary conviction. He had shouted down, as
from a high bench, the world's judgment on the life of Cally Heth.

Twenty-four years and over she had lived in this town; and at the end to
be called a she-devil and a hell-cat.

The girl's bosom heaved. She became intensely busy in the bedroom, by
dint of some determination; taking off her street things and putting
them painstakingly away, straightening objects here or there which did
very well as they were. Flora knocked, and was sent away. On the mantel
was discovered a square lavender box, bearing a blazoned name well known
in another city. Fresh flowers from Canning, these were; and Carlisle,
removing the purple tinsel from the bound stems, carefully disposed the
blossoms in a bowl of water. Once in her goings and comings, she
encountered her reflection in the mirror, and then she quickly averted
her eyes. One glance of recognition between herself and that poor
frightened little thing, and down would come the flood-gates, with
profitless explanations to follow in a certain quarter. She avoided that
catastrophe; but not so easily did she elude the echoing words of her
neighbor the Colonel, which were like to take on the inflection of an
epitaph....

After a time, when the dread of weeping had waned, Cally threw herself
down in her chaise-longue near the window, and