Gwynne,
smiling, when, after some faint resistance, she had taken Olive for a
companion. "'Tis nothing like my Harold's, and yet I am glad to have it.
I am afraid I shall often have to look to it now Harold is away. Are you
willing, Olive?"

"Quite, quite willing;--nay, very glad!"

Olive went nearly all the way to Harbury. She was almost happy, walking
between Harold's mother and Harold's child. But when she parted from
them she felt alone, bitterly alone. Then first she began to realise the
truth, that the dream of so many months was now altogether ended! It
had been something, even after her sorrow began, to feel that Harold was
near! that, although days might pass without her seeing him, still
he _was_ there--within a few miles. Any time, sitting wearily in her
painting room, she might hear his knock at the door; or in any walk,
however lonely and sad, there was at least the possibility of his
crossing her path, and, despite her will, causing her heart to bound
with joy. Now, all these things could not be again. She went homeward
along the dear old Harbury road, knowing that no possible chance could
make his image appear to brighten its loneliness; that where they had
so often walked, taking sweet counsel together as familiar friends, she
must learn to walk alone. Perhaps, neither there nor elsewhere, would
she ever walk with Harold more.

In her first suffering, in her brave resolve to quit Harbury, she had
not thought how she should feel when all was indeed over. She had not
pictured the utter blankness of a world wherein Harold was not. The
snare broken and her soul escaped, she knew not how it would beat its
broken wings in the dun air, meeting nothing but the black, silent
waste, ready once more to flutter helplessly down into the alluring
death.

Olive walked along with feet heavy and slow. In her eyes were no
tears--she had wept them all away long since. She did not look up much;
but still she saw, as one sees in a dream, all that was around her--the
white, glittering grass, the spectral hedges, the trees laden with a
light snow, silent, motionless, stretching their bare arms up to the
dull sky. No, not the sky, that seemed far, far off; between it and
earth interposed a mist, so thick and cold that it blinded sight and
stifled breath. She could not look up at God's dear heaven--she almost
felt that through the gloom the pitying Heaven could not look at her.
But after a while the mist changed a little,