A woman's figure fled hurriedly up the yard into the house as they approached.

There was a curious shrinking look about her as she fled, her very clothes, her muslin skirts, her light barege shawl, her green bonnet, seemed to slant away before the eyes of the two women who were watching her.
The Pembroke woman leaned close to her cousin's ear, and whispered with a sharp hiss of breath.

The cousin started and colored red all over her matronly face and neck.

She stared with a furtive shamed air at poor Rebecca hastening into her house.

The door closed after her with a quick slam.
It was always to Rebecca, years beyond her transgression, admitted ostensibly to her old standing in the village, as if an odor of disgrace and isolation still clung to her, shaken out from her every motion from the very folds of her garments.