I do not know how long it was before she heard steps below, for her senses were preternaturally quickened--and then the sound of the hall door closed, and then the rain again, as if nothing had happened. What had happened? Nothing, indeed, except that Mrs. Damerel herself had seen the visitors, which was a great compliment to them, as she never left her husband’s side. By and by her soft steps came back again, approaching gradually up the stairs and the long corridor. The sound of them fell upon Rose’s heart--was it all over then? ended forever? Then her mother came in, calm and composed, and relieved her. She did not even look at Rose, as if there were anything out of the ordinary in this very simple proceeding. She told her husband quietly that she had said good-by to young Wodehouse; that he was going early next morning; that she was very sorry for his poor mother. “Yes, my dear; but if mothers were always to be considered, sons would never do anything. Mayn’t I have something to drink?” said the patient; and thus the subject was dismissed at once and forever. “Go and see if Mary has made some fresh lemonade,” said Mrs. Damerel. Rose obeyed mechanically. The pulses were still beating so that her blood seemed like the tide at sea beating upon a broad beach, echoing hollow and wild in huge rolling waves. She went down-stairs like one in a dream and got the lemonade and carried it back again, hearing her own steps as she had heard her mother’s. When this piece of business was over, and Rose found herself again in the little anteroom, all alone, with nothing but the sound of the rain to fill up the silence, and the great waves of sound in her ears beginning to die into moans and dreary sobbing echoes, what can I say of her feelings? Was it possible that all was over and ended--that she would never more see him again--that he was gone without even a good-by? It was not only incredible to her, but it was intolerable; must she bear it? She could not bear it; yet she must. She stood at the window and looked out, and the bluish-gray world and the falling rain looked in at Rose, and no other sound came to console the aching in her heart. He was gone, and there was no hope that he would come back; and she could not, dared not, go to him. The evening went on while she sat in this train of excited feelings, wondering whether the anguish in her heart would not call for an answer somehow, and unable to believe that neither God nor man would interfere. When it was dark she broke forth from all control, and left her post, as she could not do when leaving it was of any use: but there is a point at which the intolerable cannot be borne any longer. She put a blue waterproof cloak on her, and went out into the rain and the dark; but what was poor Rose to do, even when her pain became past bearing? She strayed round the dark lawn, and looked, but in vain, for the lights of the cottage at Ankermead; and then she ventured to the gate, and stood