‘They are both Mountford names,’ said Anne, ‘but very severe--archæological, rather than historical.’ And then they came out on the other side and were silent, coming to the broad stretch of the park on which Mr. Mountford’s accident took place. They walked along very silently with a sort of mournful fellowship between them. So far as this went there was nobody in the world with whom Anne could feel so much in common. His mind was full of melancholy recollections as he walked along the crisp and crackling grass. He seemed to see the quiet evening shadows, the lights in the windows, and to hear the tranquil voice of the father of the family pointing out the welcome which the old house seemed to give: and then the stumble, the fall, the cry; and the long long watch in the dark, so near help--the struggles of the horse--the stillness of the huddled heap which could scarcely be identified from the horse, in the fatal gloom. When they came to the spot they stood still, as over a grave. There were still some marks of the horse’s frantic hoofs in the heavy grass. ‘Was it long?’ he said. ‘The time seemed years to me--but I suppose it was not an hour.’ ‘They thought only about half-an-hour,’ said Anne, in a low reverential voice. ‘A few minutes were enough,’ Heathcote said, and again there was a silence. He took her hand, scarcely knowing what he did. ‘We are almost strangers,’ he said; ‘but this one recollection will bind us together, will it not, for all our lives?’ Anne gave a soft pressure to his hand, partly in reply, partly in gratitude. Her eyes were full of tears, her voice choked. ‘I hope he had no time to think,’ she said. ‘A moment, but no more. I feel sure that after that first cry, and one groan, there was no more.’ She put down her veil and wept silently as they went back to the house. Mrs. Mountford all the time was sitting with Rose in her bedroom watching Worth as she packed all the favourite knicknacks, which make a lady’s chamber pretty and homelike. She liked to carry these trifles about, and she was interested and anxious about their careful packing. Thus it was only the daughter whom he had wronged who thought of the dead father on the last day which the family spent at Mount. CHAPTER XXVII. A NEW BEGINNING.