I had been living a strange, miserable, solitary life. Every day Alice brought me some food, and I took it mechanically. Every day I went down stairs, and heard them speaking together. I listened when they addressed me, and answered them with perfect composure. I knew all the arrangements--by no pretext that I was not able, did I permit anything to be hid from me. I was quite able--my frame was strong--my heart was stunned--I could endure anything--there need have been no fears for me. But my intercourse with them went no further. I heard what they had to say, and answered, but I suffered no approach towards friendship. Alice waited upon me with assiduous tenderness, but I never spoke to her. Mr. Osborne appealed to our long acquaintance--to my father's old, old friendship for him--to his love for mine and me. My heart was steeled. I made no response. I went and came among them alone--alone--as I was to be alone all my life. And he--he was always there--always ready to interpose for me if I expressed a wish, or opposed any intention of Mr. Osborne, who managed everything. If I was likely to be annoyed by any importunity, I knew that he interposed and freed me from it. I seemed to see everything he did, present or absent, by some strange magic. He did not persecute me with vain endeavors after a reconciliation--he left me to myself--we scarcely spoke to each other; yet when he was away I chafed and fretted at his absence, and when he returned I knew how he looked--what he did--as well as if I had flown to meet him, or hung upon him with a young wife's foolish fondness. We were evermore parted, yet evermore united--this feud and antagonism between us was as strong a bond as love. My father was to be laid in the family grave--this was at a little solitary church half way between Cambridge and Cottiswoode. Some haughty Southcote in the old time had desired to be laid at the boundary and extreme line of his own lands, and hence had arisen a little desolate church and graveyard, and the mausoleum of the race. They had arranged that Edgar Southcote was to be the chief mourner at this lonely funeral--_that_ I could not bear--I could not see my father carried to his grave with only them two--Mr. Osborne and _him_, following up the last journey. I said nothing, but I prepared myself--I wrapped a great black cloak about me, over my mourning dress--black, black, black--it was very neat. I veiled my head and my face, and went out from these doors like something that belonged to the midnight, and not to the day. Alice stood and gazed at me aghast while I robed myself; and when I turned to go out, she fell down at my feet, and clasped her arms round me, and cried and pleaded: "Do not go--it will kill you," she cried. I drew my dress out of her hands and bade her rise. "It will not kill me," I said bitterly, "yet if it did, it would be well."