And she was taken home--to Easton, which she loved: and said she was much better, and was able to be out on her husband’s arm, and sit on the lawn and watch the sun setting and the stars coming out over the trees. But she had got her death wound. She lay on the sofa for months, for one lingering winter after another, smiling upon all that was done for her, very anxious that Janet should go everywhere and enjoy everything, and that Beaufort should be pleased and happy. She asked nothing for herself, but gave them her whole heart of love and interest to everything that was done by them. She had her sofa placed where she could see them when they went out, and smiled when Beaufort said, always with a slight hesitation, for he thought it was not right to leave her, that he was going to ride over to the club, or to spend a day in town. ‘Do; and bring us back all the news,’ she said. And when Janet went away with compunctions to go to balls with her grandmother, Lady Car was the one who explained away all objections. ‘Quite pleased to have you go--to have Beau to myself for a little,’ Lady Car said sometimes, a little vexing her child; but, when Janet was gone, urging Beaufort to the pleasure he longed for but did not like to take. ‘It is just what I wanted that you should go to town: and you can bring me back news of my little Den.’ Sometimes they were even a little piqued that she wanted them so little--poor Lady Car! And thus quite gently she faded away, loved--as other people love, not as she loved: cherished and revered, but not as she would have revered and cherished; with a husband who read the papers and went to his club, and got very gracefully through life, in which he was of no importance to anyone, and her only son banished in Africa shooting big game. Janet was a good child, very good: but her mother never knew how near the girl was to her in the shadowy land where people may wander side by side, but without the intervention of words or some self-betrayal never find each other out. Perhaps had Janet found the courage to fling herself down at her mother’s side, and say all that was in her heart, the grasp of that warm hand might still have brought Lady Car back to life. But Janet had not the courage and everything went on in its daily calm, and the woman whose every hope had faded into blank disappointment, and all her efforts ended in failure, faded away. During the first summer Lady Car still went out to dine, and walked a little about the garden with her husband’s arm; the next she was carried out to her sofa on the lawn. All went so very gradually, so very softly, that no one noted. She was very delicate. When that gets to be fully recognised, there seems no reason why it should not go on for ever; not so happy a state as perfect health, to be sure, but with no reason in it why there should be any further change.