irit was in the dust, for she knew now that she
had given her love unasked. Was not this enough, after all the years
of longing and dreary waiting and sickening commonplace? Could not
the Fates have let her off from this cup, so bitter to a proud woman's
lips? Why should she be delivered over to an unworthy love? Why should
they exact this uttermost farthing of anguish her heart could pay? But
is he unworthy? is this proved? asked the sweet voice of Hope. Then
the face which you were sure could never brighten, did brighten, but,
alas! so little; for there was another voice, a voice that dismayed:
"Why otherwise the silence, the mystery?" Persistently the question
was repeated, till Mrs. Summerhaze came in and asked Susan to do some
marketing for dinner.

"You look all fagged, anyway: the fresh air 'll be good for you."

So Susan put on her bonnet and went out, feeling there was nothing
could do her any good. She drew her veil down, the better to shut away
her suffering from people, and a little way from home turned into a
meat-market. She was in the centre of the shop before she discovered
Mr. Falconer a few yards away, his back turned to her. She
involuntarily caught at her veil to make sure it was closely drawn.
She held it securely down, and hurried away at random to the remotest
part of the shop, though her ear was all the while strained to hear
what Mr. Falconer was saying.

He was ordering sundry packages to be sent to No. 649 North Jefferson
street--Susan's house. In her remote corner, from behind her veil,
with eager eyes Susan looked at the face that to her had been so
noble, at the form which had seemed full of graceful strength. She
would have yielded up her life there to have had that face and form
now as it had been to her. He went out of the shop, and she went about
making her purchases in a dazed kind of way that caused the shopman
to stare. Then she wandered up the street past her home to 649 North
Jefferson street, to the house she had built with such abounding
pride and pleasure. How changed it now seemed! It had become a haunted
house--haunted by the ghosts of her faith and peace.

For three days Susan as much as possible kept away from the family,
and appeared very much engaged with Prescott's _Conquest of Peru_. But
at the breakfast-table on the third day she received a start. Gertrude
and Tom had been at a party the evening before. (They averaged some
four parties a week.) Tom looked surly and