"That will do," said the parson. "Mrs. Russelthorpe's affairs are no concern of yours, Brown; or mine," he added to George, as soon as the man had retired somewhat crestfallen.
"Perhaps Mr. Deane did not wish to see his daughter. God bless me! To think of his daughter! Deane doesn't look a hard man either. I wonder whether,—but it's not my business."
Mr. Sauls smiled, not very pleasantly. "You wonder whether Mr. Deane knew she had been sent away?" he said. "I don't wonder about it, sir; but I'll tell you one thing,—if he didn't, he shall know!"
CHAPTER VIII.
I do not see them here; but after death
God knows I know the faces I shall see,
Each one a murdered self, with low last breath,
I am thyself, what hast thou done to me?
And I—and I—thyself (Lo! each one saith),
And thou thyself to all eternity.
—Rossetti.
As for Meg, she turned her face towards the farm again, and of that journey back she never liked to think so long as she lived.
There are griefs we outlive, whose dead faces we can bear to look on, recognising that they are dead; but there are some hours of pain we can never look at overmuch, even through the merciful veil of many years, as there are some joys which we know will be ours always, so long as we are ourselves, those sharpest pains and joys which touch the eternal in us, and make us realise what is meant by the "doing away of time".