, and had listened to the fears
and the wishes and hopes she had expressed respecting the children.

At Matching, amidst the ruins of the old Priory, there is a parish
burying-ground, and there, in accordance with her own wish, almost
within sight of her own bedroom-window, she was buried. On the day
of the funeral a dozen relatives came, Pallisers and M'Closkies, who
on such an occasion were bound to show themselves, as members of the
family. With them and his two sons the Duke walked across to the
graveyard, and then walked back; but even to those who stayed the
night at the house he hardly spoke. By noon on the following day they
had all left him, and the only stranger in the house was Mrs. Finn.

On the afternoon of the day after the funeral the Duke and his guest
met, almost for the first time since the sad event. There had been
just a pressure of the hand, just a glance of compassion, just some
murmur of deep sorrow,--but there had been no real speech between
them. Now he had sent for her, and she went down to him in the room
in which he commonly sat at work. He was seated at his table when she
entered, but there was no book open before him, and no pen ready to
his hand. He was dressed of course in black. That, indeed, was usual
with him, but now the tailor by his funereal art had added some
deeper dye of blackness to his appearance. When he rose and turned to
her she thought that he had at once become an old man. His hair was
grey in parts, and he had never accustomed himself to use that skill
in managing his outside person by which many men are able to preserve
for themselves a look, if not of youth, at any rate of freshness.
He was thin, of an adust complexion, and had acquired a habit of
stooping which, when he was not excited, gave him an appearance of
age. All that was common to him; but now it was so much exaggerated
that he who was not yet fifty might have been taken to be over sixty.

He put out his hand to greet her as she came up to him.
"Silverbridge," he said, "tells me that you go back to London
to-morrow."

"I thought it would be best, Duke. My presence here can be of no
comfort to you."

"I will not say that anything can be of comfort. But of course it
is right that you should go. I can have no excuse for asking you to
remain. While there was yet a hope for her--" Then he stopped, unable
to say a word further in that direction, and yet there was no sign of
a tear and no sound of a sob.

"Of