The lawn-party had been a great success, and the Colonel knew he ought to be the happiest man in town, whereas he was the most miserable. He could not hear Mandy Ann's curses as she knelt on her mistress's grave, nor see her dusky arms swaying in the darkness to emphasize her maledictions. He didn't know there was a grave, but something weighed him down with unspeakable remorse. Every incident of his first visit South came back to him with startling vividness, making him wonder why God had allowed him to do what he had done. Then he remembered his trip on the "Hatty," when he kept himself aloof from everybody, with a morbid fear lest he should see some one who knew him, or had heard of him, or would meet him again. He remembered the log-house and his supper, when Mandy Ann served from a dinner-plate, and his napkin was a pocket handkerchief. He remembered the mumbling old woman in her chair; but most of all he remembered the girl who sat opposite him. Her face was always with him, and it came before him now, just as it was in the moonlight, when she said: "You can trust me. I will do the best I can." She had stood with her hands upon the fence and he saw them as they looked then, and holding up his own he said, "They were little brown hands, but they should have been white like mine. Poor Dory!" There was a throb of pity in his heart as his remorse increased, and the hot night seemed to quiver with the echo of Mandy Ann's "cuss him, cuss him wherever he may be, and if his bed is soff as wool doan' let him sleep a wink." His bed was soft as wool, but it had no attraction for him, and he sat with his hot-water bag and blanket until his chill passed, and was succeeded by a heat which made him put blanket and bag aside, and open both the windows of his room. The late moon had risen and was flooding the grounds with its light, bringing out distinctly the objects nearest to him. Some tables and chairs were left standing, a few lanterns were hanging in the trees, and in front of him was the long bench on which the little girls had been sleeping, with their feet from the ground, when he made his speech. The sight of this brought to his mind the day three years before when, just as his plans were perfected, there had come a letter which made him stagger as from a heavy blow, while all around him was chaos, dark and impenetrable. In most men the letter would have awakened a feeling of tenderness, but he was not like most men. He was utterly selfish, and prouder than any Crompton in the long line of that proud race, and, instead of tenderness or pity, he felt an intense anger against the fate which had thus dealt with him when he was trying to do right. What to do next was the question, which Tom Hardy, as cold and unfeeling as himself, answered for him.