Agneta and Mary had started when Cecilia stood alone in front of her image in the glass; she held up her veil and looked into the reflected face. It was the last time she would see Cecilia Raeburn, and, with a kind of curiosity, she regarded the outer shell of the woman, who, it seemed to her, had no identity left. The Cecilia who had grown up at Morphie was dead; as dead as that companion with whom she had shared the old house. Between the parted friends there was this momentous difference: while one was at rest, the other had still to carry that picture in the mirror as bravely as she could through the world, till the long day’s work should roll by and the two should meet. She thought of that dark morning at Morphie and of her aunt’s dying face against Fullarton’s shoulder, and told herself that, were the moment to return, she would not do differently. She was glad to remember that, had Gilbert Speid come back, he would have cast no shadow between them; the knowledge seemed to consecrate the gleam of happiness she had known with him so briefly. But it was hard that, when the path by which they might have reached each other had been smoothed at so terrible a cost, the way had been empty. She was thinking of the time when two pairs of eyes had met in a looking-glass and she had plastered his cut cheek in the candlelight. After to-day, she must put such remembrances from her. She dropped her veil and turned away, for Fullarton’s voice was calling to her to come down. While she sat beside him in the carriage, looking out, her hands were pressed together in her lap. The rain-washed world was so beautiful, and, between the woods touched with spring, the North Lour ran full. The lights lying on field and hill seemed to smile. As they passed Morphie House she kept her face turned from it; she could not trifle with her strength. She was thankful that they would not be near the coast where she could hear the sea-sound.