worth. She had been both
generous and severe in her judgments; but there had never been anything
tame, or mild, or weak about her. She had always known her own mind;
she yielded freely to impulse without ever expressing regret or
repentance. Small as her circle had been, Hugh yet felt that she had
somehow affected the world; and yet he could indicate nothing that she
had accomplished, except for the fact that she had been a kind of
bracing influence in the lives of all who had come near her.

Her last message to him had been an intensely sympathetic letter of
outspoken encouragement. She had heard that a severe judgment had been
passed upon Hugh's writings by a common friend. She knew that this had
been repeated to Hugh, and judged rightly that it had hurt and wounded
him. Her letter was to the effect that the judgment was entirely
baseless, and that he was to pursue the line he had taken up without
any attempt to deviate from it. It went to Hugh's heart that he had
made little effort of late, owing to circumstances and pressure of
work, to see her; but he knew that she was aware of his affection, and
he had never doubted hers. He felt, too, that if there had been
anything to forgive, any shadow of dissatisfaction, it was forgiven in
that moment. Her death seemed somehow to Hugh to be the strongest
proof he had ever received of the permanent identity of the soul; it
was impossible to think of her as not there; equally impossible was it
to think of her as wrapt in sleep, or even transformed to a heavenly
meekness; he could think of her, with perhaps an added brightness of
demeanour, at the knowledge of how easy a thing after all had been the
passage she had feared, with the dark eyes that he knew so well, like
wells of fire in the pale face, smiling almost disdainfully at the
thought that others should grieve for her; she was one whom it was
impossible ever to compassionate, and Hugh could not compassionate her
now. She would have had no sort of tolerance for any melancholy or
brooding grief; she would desire to be tenderly remembered, but she
would have been utterly impatient of the thought that any grief for her
should weaken or darken the outlook of her friends upon the world.
Hugh resolved, with a great flood of strong love for his friend, that
he would grieve for her as she would have had him grieve, as though
they were but separated for a little.

She had left, he learnt, the most decisive direction that