The church was crowded with the villagers all dressed in mourning. At the words ‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ the bishop’s voice broke down, and it was as though a sob arose from all that multitude. When the mourners of the family had withdrawn, many lingered around the grave, weeping. It was growing dark before the last mourner went home. The coffin was covered with wreaths and crosses. At the lych-gate two women, farmers’ wives, who had a long-standing quarrel, chanced to meet, and, hardly realising what they were doing, one of them clasped the other’s hand, saying fervently amidst her tears, ‘She loved us all.’ Lord Venniker and Harry sobbed like children, standing by the grave. Gerald alone remained unmoved, as if insensible. On his return to the Hall he went to his bedroom and locked the door. A packet of letters was waiting for him on the table. He looked at the envelopes and put them down, all except one. It was in the handwriting of Mr. Selby. Just as he was about to open it there came a gentle knock at the door, and the voice of the old family butler was heard inquiring if he could do anything for him. Gerald answered, ‘Nothing.’ He heard the butler’s steps returning along the passage, and it seemed that the butler stopped once not far from the door and listened. Gerald opened Mr. Selby’s letter and read it. It was written on black-edged paper. At one place the paper was blistered a little, as if a tear had fallen upon it; but that might be fancy. Mr. Selby wrote that, being away from home, he had only just heard of Gerald’s bereavement. It was so terrible, so personal, that he feared to intrude upon it, even by a word of sympathy. But Gerald would forgive him for writing. He could never forgive himself if he did not write. And there was something (he said) which seemed to give him perhaps a title to write such a letter; something beyond the privilege of friendship, something which he had never told to anyone at St. Anselm’s. Nobody knew it, nobody guessed it. (Perhaps that was not quite so, Mr. Selby.) ‘Many years ago,’ he went on, ‘it was my own blessed privilege to know and love one so much higher than myself in life and character, that now, after all those years, I can only wonder how it was ever permitted me to win her love. We were going to be married soon. She died. O my dear Eversley, may not my affliction minister to yours? The world has not been the same to me since then; it can never be. There is not a day of my life when I do not dwell upon her memory, and in the thought and hope of seeing her again death has lost for me its sting.’ It was idle, Mr. Selby’s letter proceeded to say, to seek to minimise such sorrows; it was only the base or the shallow who could forget the past, or live as if it had not been; but God, who is all-merciful, did send with human grief the grace to bear it, and at last the consciousness of a blessing underlying it. ‘And what inspiration of good,’ said Mr. Selby,