Edgar felt that his connection with them was over for ever when he took leave of them on the evening of the funeral. The only one over whom his heart yearned a little was Jeanie, who was the true mourner of the only mother she had ever known, but who, in the midst of her mourning, poor child, felt another pang, perhaps more exquisite, at the thought of seeing him, too, no more. All the confusion of sentiment and feeling, of misplaced loves and indifferences, which make up the world were in this one little family. Jeanie had given her visionary child’s heart to Edgar, who, half aware of, half disowning the gift, thought of her ever with tender sympathy and reverence, as of something sacred. Margaret, less exquisite in her sentiments, yet a loving soul in her way, had given hers to Willie, who was vain of her preference, and laughed at it--who felt himself a finer fellow, and she a smaller creature because she loved him. Dr. Charles, uneasy soul, would have given his head had he dared to marry Jeanie, yet would not, even had she cared for him, have ventured to burden his tottering gentility with a wife so homely. Thus all were astray from the end which might have made each a nobler and certainly a happier creature. Edgar never put these thoughts into words, for he was too chivalrous a man even to allow to himself that a woman had given her heart to him unsought; but the complications of which he was conscious filled him with a vague pang--as the larger complications of the world--that clash of interests, those broken threads, that never meet, those fulnesses and needinesses, which never can be brought to bear upon each other--perplex and pain the spectator. He was glad, as we all are, to escape from them; and when he reached London, where his love was, and where, the first thing he found on his arrival was the announcement of his appointment, his heart rose with a sudden leap, spurning the troubles of the past, in elastic revulsion. He had his little fortune again, not much, at any time, but yet something, which Gussy could hang at her girdle, and his old mother’s watch for her, quaint, but precious possession. He was scarcely anxious as to his reception, though she had written him but one brief note since his absence; for Edgar was himself so absolutely true that it did not come into his heart that he could be doubted. But he could not go to Gussy at once, even on his arrival. Another and a less pleasant task remained for him. He had to meet his sister at the hotel she had gone to, and be present at the clandestine marriage--for it was no better--which was at last to unite legally the lives of Arthur Arden and Clare.