"Vesty 's married Gurd! Vesty 's gone and got married to Gurd!" said the children, big and joyful with news, on their way to school. Yes, that was what she had done! I leaned heavily for a moment where I stood. That was Vesty! Oh, child-madness! Sweet, lost child! Oh, pity of the world! and I crawling on with such a hurt; I did not think that should have wrung me so. I was getting near her door; not anywhere else could I have gone. She would be at the Rafes' cottage now--so easily do the Basin brides move, without wedding journey or trousseau. The wash-tubs and cooking-stove stood at one end of the long, low-raftered room, the cabinet organ and violins at the other. Captain Rafe and the boys were out, hauling their sea-traps, and Vesty had been doing the washing that they were wont to do for themselves; the mother, like her own, being dead. The room was nice as I had never seen it before, and Vesty was putting some pitiful little ornaments to rights at the cabinet-organ end. She turned to me with so strange and febrile a look, yet with so wild and startled a welcome in her eyes. "Hush!" I said. "You wanted me, child; I am here." I saw that she had turned to lean against the organ, and that she was shaken with sobs. "What have you done, Vesty? Wicked and false beyond any woman I know--_you_!" "Have you seen him?" she sobbed. "No, I have not seen Notely. You were married only last night." "I wrote to him. There was only one way to save Notely from marrying me--only one way." "You might have waited." "Notely would never have waited. Notely meant to marry me." "You should have married him, and not been false." "I would rather be false than ruin Notely." "You thought that it would ruin him? You had some assistance in that belief; his lady mother came to see you; the property is hers. If he transgresses, no property, no wealthy Grace Langham, no easy glory at the bar or in the state. What were those to your love, Vesty?" She looked up, dim, and shook her head. "You have done a wilful, blind, impetuous thing. You were piqued, proud, angry, and so you gave yourself, body and soul, to this mad leap." "I don't care for my body (sob) or soul (sob) if Notely isn't sick." "There is One who is above Notely, to punish as well as to pity, Vesty." "God"--very softly--"oh, yes!" The bewildered, grief-tormented eyes looked faith into mine. "I didn't mean that. I asked Him. I could only find one way. He won't let Notely come to harm, but help him to make the best of himself." "Your lover is a brave man. He would not have been selfish toward you as this great hulk, Gurdon. He knew you intelligently. He would have lifted, considered, cared for you." Vesty held herself aloft, pale. "Gurdon is good. If any one ever asked Gurd for anything he always gave it to them."