How beautiful was the lined face!--so pale in the golden dusk, in its heavy frame of black. Mary could not take her eyes from it. It betrayed an animation, a passion of life, which had been foreign to it for months. In these few crowded hours, when every word and action had been simple, instructive, inevitable; love to God and man working at their swiftest and purest; through all the tragedy and the horror some burden seemed to have dropped from Catharine's soul. She met her daughter's eyes, and smiled. When Meynell had finished, the crowd silently drifted away, and he came back to the Elsmeres. They noticed the village fly coming toward them--saw it stop in the roadway. "I sent for it," Meynell explained rapidly. "You mustn't let your mother do any more. Look at her! Please, will you both go to the Rectory? My cook will give you tea; I have let her know. Then the fly will take you home." They protested in vain--must indeed submit. Catharine flushed a little at being so commanded; but there was no help for it. "I _would_ like to come and show you my den!" said Meynell, as he put them into the carriage. "But there's too much to do here." He pointed sadly to the cottages, shut the door, and they were off. During the short drive Catharine sat rather stiffly upright. Saint as she was, she was accustomed to have her way. They drove into the dark shrubbery that lay between the Rectory and the road. At the door of the little house stood Anne in a white cap and clean apron. But the white cap sat rather wildly on its owner's head; nor would she take any interest in her visitors till she had got from them a fuller account of the tumult at the pit than had yet reached her, and assurances that Meynell's wound was but slight. But when these were given she pounced upon Catharine. "Eh, but you're droppin'!" And with many curious looks at them she hurried them into the study, where a hasty clearance had been made among the books, and a tea-table spread. She bustled away to bring the tea. Then exhaustion seized on Catharine. She submitted to be put on the sofa after it had been cleared of its pile of books; and Mary sat by her a while, holding her hands. Death and the agony of broken hearts overshadowed them. But then the dogs came in, discreet at first, and presently--at scent of currant cake--effusively friendly. Mary fed them all, and Catharine watched the colour coming back to her face, and the dumb sweetness in the gray eyes. Presently, while her mother still rested, Mary took courage to wander round the room, looking at the books, the photographs on the walls, the rack of pipes, the carpenter's bench, and the panels of half-finished carving. Timidly, yet eagerly, she breathed in the message it seemed to bring her from its owner--of strenuous and frugal life. Was that half-faded miniature of a soldier his father--and that sweet gray-haired woman his mother? Her heart thrilled to each discovery.