Miss Charlotte Carlaw, delicately enough, had prevented the boy's presence at his father's funeral; only on the day following it the captain had gone with him to the churchyard, and had shown him a new mound, on which fresh wreaths of flowers were lying--a mound close beside the one he already knew so well. It had been a conspiracy between his aunt and the captain to keep his thoughts away from that sad subject, and the boy was a little remorseful at the thought of how well they had succeeded; but his father's life had been in a sense a thing apart from his--a thing so peaceful and full of quiet dreams that it seemed but a natural and fitting ending, even to the mind of the child, that he should sleep here calmly, in this beautiful place, beside the woman he had loved. The captain had arranged to collect such personal effects of the late David Willis as might be of interest to his son--personal papers, and some portraits of his dead mother, and a few trinkets; the rest were to be sold. Comethup's life in that quiet old place seemed to have closed strangely enough; he seemed, in a sense, to have left those who belonged to him sleeping quietly near their home, and to be going out of the life he had known quite naturally, now that the life itself existed no more. The day fixed for the departure came at last, dawning just as placidly as a hundred other days had dawned. Comethup even thought it strange that people whose faces he knew passed along in the street below the window of the inn where he sat and went about their business quite heedless of the small boy who seemed to be leaving everything behind. He reflected miserably that everything would go on just the same when he had gone--that the snow would come, and the leaves fall, and the roses bloom again, for some one else; that the captain would take his walks abroad, and sit in church on sunny Sunday mornings; that 'Linda would wander forlorn among the trees in that dreary garden. He fell upon his knees before he left his room and prayed desperately and with tears that God would teach them not to forget him. He was very silent over breakfast, and his aunt was quick to understand the cause. "What, not all the farewells made yet, boy? How many more people have you got to weep over before you're carried away captive? There, there, I'm not laughing at you; the Lord forbid! I dare say you want an hour or two to yourself, just to rush round and embrace folks. I've ordered a carriage, and I'm going to drive to Deal. I can get a train direct there to London; if I went to the wretched little station here, I should have to change once at least, and that's a nuisance. It's not a long drive, and I shall leave here directly after lunch. Lunch at two, sharp; we'll leave at a quarter to three. So I'll give you until two o'clock. Off with you."