covered her eyes with her
hand. And now with all her will--and she had never lacked for will--she
strove to take her mind from what no piety or wit could now amend:
struggling to think and remember how she had tried once, at a price, to
set right that wrong she had done. For other comfort there was none:
what she had written, she had written. She might give her life to the
ways of Dorcas; she might beat her breast and fill her hands with
pluckings of her gay hair. But she could not bring Dalhousie back to
life now, or face his poor father as a girl who had done no wrong....

* * * * *

Life in the House moved on. There was a caller or two, who found the
ladies excused; there was a telephone summons from Miss Evelyn McVey,
whose desire it was to entertain Mr. Canning at dinner, but who now met
only with a maid's message; and then, toward seven, there came mamma
herself, who was, of course, not so lightly to be disposed of.

But Cally had fortified herself for the little visit, and passed the
inspection without mishap. Mrs. Heth was acquiescent enough in her
daughter's desire to dine upstairs, which saved the bother of hunting up
another man in Hugo's stead, though involving regrettable waste of two
covers already prepared. Mamma lingered for fifteen minutes making arch,
tactful inquiries about the afternoon; but she noticed nothing more than
was accountable for by the slight headache to which Carlisle frankly
admitted. The little general's side remarks conceded no doubt whatever
that Hugo would present himself very shortly indeed after dinner, for
resumption of the agreeable matter in hand. They should have the library
to themselves, she promised, company or no company....

Cally dined at a reading-table, set by the fire. Later, when the tray
was gone and she was alone again, she relapsed into thoughts which had
gained unwonted lucidity and vigor.

She had been thinking of the night, a year ago this month, to which
everything in her life since seemed to run straight back. She had not
certainly calculated the ruin of Dalhousie that night: rather her lack
was that she had hardly cared what she did to him. In that narrow circle
of engrossments where she had moved, mistaking it for the living
universe, the great want, so it seemed now, was that she had never been
asked to measure herself by moral standards at all. What she got: this
was all that people looked at here, and according to this