The elder pair on the other side of the wall were not moved by these ineffable visionary pangs. They did not stand aghast at the strange thought that their happiness was being interfered with, that heaven and earth had ceased to favour them--nor did they think that everything was over and life must come to a standstill. Their feelings were less full of the rapture of anguish; yet perhaps the heavy oppression of pain that troubled them was more bitter in its way. They knew very well that life would go on just as before, and nothing dreadful happen. They would only miss each other--miss the kind look and kind word, and simple daily consolation and quiet confidence each in the other. Nobody else could give them that rest and mutual support which they were thus forced to give up without cause. It was a trouble much less to be understood by the common eye, and appealing a great deal less to the heart than those pangs of youth which we have all felt more or less, and can all sympathise with--but it was not a less real trouble. After the interval of silence which neither of them broke, because neither of them had anything to say, James Beresford sank upon his knees and took her hands into his--not in any attitude of sentimental devotion, but only to approach her as she sat there. They looked at each other through tears which to each half blurred the kind countenance which was the friendliest on earth. Then he kissed the hands he held one after the other. ‘God bless you,’ she sobbed, her tears falling upon his sleeve. Why was it? Why was it? yet it had to be. And then they parted; he going back to his gloomy library, she sitting still where he had left her in her lonely drawing-room, wiping away the tears, few but bitter, which this unlooked-for parting had brought to her eyes. They would not complain nor resist--nor even say what the separation cost them--but the young ones would cry out to heaven and earth, sure at least of pity, and perhaps of succour. That made all the difference. While her father came in with his latch-key, and shut his door, shutting himself up with his thoughts, Cara was lifting the mute anguish of her sweet eyes to Edward, disturbing his very soul, poor fellow, with the question, whether it was only his sympathy she asked as a spectator of her misery in parting with his brother, whether it was---- When he said that about going to India, with that tremulous smile and attempt to mock at his own pain, the tears fell suddenly in a little shower, and a sob came from Cara’s oppressed bosom. For whom? Such distracting tumults of excitement do not rise in the maturer being--he was almost out of himself with wonder and anxiety, and hope and dread, dismay and terror. Was it for Oswald? Was it only his sympathy she asked for--was it but a pang of sisterly pity intensified by her own suffering, that she gave to him?