The distant line of black has passed now, and colours follow: men and women, boys and girls; displaying, if not all the tints of the rainbow, the shades and hues, dirt included, that prevail in the every-day attire of the great unwashed. Mary Anne glided into her room, and sank down on her knees in the darkest corner.
Some time after, when she thought they might be coming home, for the mourners would return to the Red Court, not the Mermaid, she came out again, her eyes swollen, and entered her step-mother's room. My lady, looking worse and worse, every day bringing her palpably nearer the grave, sat with her prayer-book in her hand She had been reading the burial service. Ah, how changed she was; how changed in spirit!
"I suppose it is over," she said, in a subdued tone, as she laid the book down.
"Yes; by this time."
"May God rest his soul!" she breathed, to herself rather than to her companion.
Mary Anne covered her face with her hand, and for some moments there was perfect silence.
"I shall be going hence to-morrow, as you know," resumed Lady Ellis, "never to return, never perhaps to hold further communication with the Red Court Farm. I would ask you one thing first, Mary Anne, or the doubt and trouble will follow me: perhaps mix itself up with my thoughts in dying. What of Cyril?"
"Of Cyril?" returned Miss Thornycroft, lifting her face, rather in surprise. "We have not heard from him."
"Of course I know that. What I wish to ask is--what are the apprehensions?"
"There are none. Papa and my brothers seem perfectly at their ease in regard to him."