At last the scene closed; the horrible jarring of shovels, gravel, and earth had ceased, and Greville Hampton came back to his broken and desolate home, where he sat like a man turned to stone, twisting fatuously, yet caressingly, a tress of shining dark brown hair, all that remained to him now of Mary, save the little boy, who nestled, with scared and wistful eyes, beside his knee. The drawn blinds had for some days told all the passers-by that there was death in the cottage at Finglecombe. Strangers hurried past with a momentary glance, and thought no more of it, in the bright sunshine and business of life; but some there were who looked sorrowfully and went by with slower step, and there were the poor who missed the ministering hand of Mary Hampton. Even now the little birds, for whom she was wont to spread out crumbs, were tapping with their beaks at the window. The blinds were drawn up now, and an unnatural flood of sunny light seemed to fill the place. Everything Greville's haggard glance fell on seemed to have a history of its own, a tender association, connected with her who had passed away. The little womanly trifles her hands had made to brighten this, their latter, humble home, were all there still; the cheap but artistic-looking cretonne with which her pretty and industrious fingers had deftly covered the furniture, brought back to memory the song she sang while doing so; the water-colours on the wall were her work too, scenes associated with the past years and long vanished happiness; and no comfort could be gathered from Tennyson's hackneyed couplet-- "'Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all." The terrible distinctness with which the first clod of earth fell--as it seemed to him--on Mary's tender breast, was yet ringing in Greville's ears, together with the cry that escaped from Derval. So Mary was gone, and for her the long, long night of the grave had begun! CHAPTER II. "Therefore he loved gold in special."--Chaucer. "It is a great calamity, a heavy dispensation!" said a neighbour to Patty Fripp. "He will get over it in time--the master," said others, especially the women; "all men get over these things--he'll marry again, no doubt; he is too young to live all alone in the world." Patty was very indignant at this suggestion being made already. "Time tries all, and soothes all," said another gossip; "we shall see by and by--men don't break their hearts for love, look you. And how about the little boy?" "Poor little soul! he is fretting sorely for his mother," said Patty, polishing her face with her checked apron, after having 'a good cry'; "but that is just human natur, I s'pose."