I made no answer. I did not love Miss Mortimer, as I suppose, in some sort of way, her sister did; and, besides, my thoughts were all turned in another direction again. I had ceased to see the Park and its troubles so acutely as I had done for some days past. My mind was returned to my own private burden. I had little to say to anybody after that. I turned away even from Aunt Milly, with a dreadful feeling that I was not to see her again till Harry was gone. For I knew in my heart, though they never said anything to me, that this was how it was to be. I had not the heart to talk even to Harry, as we drove slowly back to Chester--slowly, as I fancied. We went in the carriage all the way. We had no railway or tunnel to go through this time. Nothing to help me to a moment’s delusion of plunging away to the end of the world, or into the bowels of the earth, it did not matter which, _all together_. That was impossible. Miss Mortimer’s carriage put nothing in my mind but the inevitable parting, and all that was to happen to me after Harry was gone. When we got to our Chester lodgings, Domenico was there, as usual, full of the noisiest, kindest bustle, to help in getting everything in, as if he had belonged to us, instead of belonging to a stranger, who, most likely, had little reason to bear the heirs of the Mortimers any good will. Mr. Luigi was standing at the window all the time, looking at the carriage, the horses, the servants; thinking, perhaps, they might all have been his under different circumstances. How can I tell what he was thinking? I am sure at that moment, though I observed him at the window, I took no pains to imagine what his thoughts were, and did not care. I did not care for anything just then. It was one of my bad times. It was one of the hundred partings which I had with Harry before the real parting came. When the things were lifted out of the carriage, I could see them all in my own mind lifted in again, all but Harry’s share of them, and myself sitting blind in that corner with all the world dark before me. Well, well; it is no use reasoning over it, as if that would make things any better. Thousands and thousands were just the same as me; did that make it any better, do you suppose? I thought of the poor woman in the Edinburgh High Street, and her hard damp hand that pressed mine. I was a soldier’s wife like all the rest. I went up into my own room and got Harry’s old sash again, and bound it tight over my heart. It gave me a kind of ease, somehow. And to hear baby shouting at sight of his old toys, and Harry calling for his Milly darling, downstairs! It was an agony of happiness and anguish; it was life. CHAPTER XII.