But one
pang he did not suffer which Evelina would have suffered in his
place. He mourned not over nor realized the grief of her tender heart
when she should read his letter, otherwise he could not have sent it.
He writhed under his own pain alone, and his duty hugged him hard,
like the iron maiden of the old tortures, but he would not yield.
As for Evelina, when she got his letter, and had read it through, she
sat still and white for a long time, and did not seem to hear when
old Sarah Judd spoke to her. But at last she rose and went to her
chamber, and knelt down, and prayed for a long time; and then she
went out in the garden and cut all the most beautiful flowers, and
tied them in wreaths and bouquets, and carried them out to the north
side of the house, where her cousin Evelina was buried, and covered
her grave with them. And then she knelt down there, and hid her face
among them, and said, in a low voice, as if in a listening ear, "I
pray you, Cousin Evelina, forgive me for what I am about to do."
And then she returned to the house, and sat at her needlework as
usual; but the old woman kept looking at her, and asking if she were
sick, for there was a strange look in her face.
She and old Sarah Judd had always their tea at five o'clock, and put
the candles out at nine, and this night they did as they were wont.
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