It was little enough, but little as it was it made them both more silent than ever. With the boatman close before them, it was impossible to talk of what was in their thoughts. Fanny, for her part, was glad of it. She had understood her old-maid cousin since the night when Cordelia had broken down and laughed and cried in the garden, and she knew how little there could be to say. But Cordelia did not understand Fanny in the least. It was a marvel to her that any one should prefer Lawrence to Brinsley--almost as great a marvel as that she herself, in her sober middle age, should have felt what she knew was love and believed to be passion. And now, Brinsley was going, and it was over. He would never come back, and she should never see him again--she was sure of that. She was only an old maid; a middle-aged gentlewoman who had never possessed any great attraction for anybody; who had always been more or less poor and unhappy, though of the best and living amongst the best; whose few pleasures had come to her unexpectedly, like rare gleams of pale sunshine on a very long rainy day; who had looked for little and had got next to nothing out of life, save the crumbs of enjoyment from the feast of rich relations, like the Trehearnes--a woman who had known something more grievous than sorrow and worse than violent grief, trudging through life in the leaden cowl of many limitations--the leaden cowl of that most innocent of all hypocrites, of her, or of him, who knows the daily burden of keeping up appearances on next to nothing, and of doctoring poor little illusions through a feeble existence, worth having because they represent all that there is to have. She had been wounded by one of those arrows shot in the dark which hit hearts unawares and unaimed; and now that the shaft was suddenly drawn out, the heart's blood followed it and the nerves quivered where it had been. It was only one of the little tragedies which no one sees, few guess at, and nothing can hinder. But Fanny Trehearne felt that it was beside her, there in the little boat, while she watched the pretty fireworks, and she was sorry and did what she could to soothe the pain. "Let's change, now," she said at last, just as the glow of a multitude of coloured fires died away on the water. "You take Mr. Brinsley, and I'll take Mr. Lawrence." As she spoke, she gave her cousin's hand a little squeeze of sympathy, and heard the small sigh of satisfaction that answered the proposal. The rearrangement was effected in a few moments, the men holding the boats together by the gunwales while the ladies stepped from one into the other. "Pull away," said Fanny, authoritatively, as soon as Lawrence had shoved off. "Let's get out of this! I'll steer, so you needn't bother about running into things."