This was the blessing with which she sent him away from her. She cried over it afterwards, in penitence looking at her husband’s portrait, which had been brought out of a corner in the library downstairs. Poor soul, it was with a pang of remorse that she felt she was going to be happy in her widow’s mourning. If she could have restrained herself, she would have kept in these words expressive of a latent joy which came by means of sorrow. She stood and looked at the picture with a kind of prayer for pardon in her heart--Oh, forgive me! with once more that strange confidence that death had given the attributes of God to the man who was dead. If he was near, as she felt him to be, and could hear the breathing of that prayer in her heart, then surely, as Edward said, it was with ‘larger, other eyes’ that he must look upon her, understanding many things which up to his last day he had not been able to understand. But they were all very glad when the day was over--that first day which was not connected with the melancholy business or presence of death which ‘the family’ are supposed to suffer from so deeply, yet which proves a kind of chapel and seclusion for any grief which is not of the deepest and most overwhelming kind. The Merediths would have been glad even of a mock funeral, a public assuming of the trappings of woe, a distinct period after which life might be taken up again. But there was nothing at all to interrupt their life, and the whole affair remained unauthentic and strange to them. Meanwhile, in the house next door these strange tidings had made a sudden tumult. The packings had been stopped. The servants were angry at their wasted trouble; the ladies both silenced and startled, with thoughts in their minds less natural and peaceful than the sympathy for Mrs. Meredith, which was the only feeling they professed. As for Mr. Beresford himself, it would be difficult to describe his feelings, which were of a very strange and jumbled character. He was glad to have the bondage taken off his own movements, and to feel that he was free to go where he pleased, to visit as he liked; and the cause of his freedom was not really one which moved him to sorrow though it involved many curious and uncomfortable questions. How much better the unconscious ease of his feelings had been before anyone had meddled! but now so many questions were raised! Yet his mind was relieved of that necessity of immediate action which is always so disagreeable to a weak man. Yes, his mind was entirely relieved. He took a walk about his room, feeling that by-and-by it would be his duty to go back again to Mrs. Meredith’s drawing-room to ask what he could do for her, and give her his sympathy. Not to-night, but soon; perhaps even to-morrow. The cruel pressure of force which had been put upon him, and which he had been about to obey by the sacrifice of all his comforts, relaxed and melted away. It was a relief, an undeniable relief; but yet