the shelter of her home and the tendance
of her own servants. His part in the whole matter was over when he stepped
back into the brougham which she had left. The Warrenders had seen but
little of the Marklands, though they were so near. The habits of the young
lord had naturally been little approved by Theo Warrender's careful
parents; and his manners, when the young intellectualist from Oxford met
him, were revolting at once to his good taste and good breeding. On the
other hand, the Warrenders were but small people in comparison, and
any intimacy with Lord and Lady Markland was almost impossible. It was
considered by all the neighbours "a great compliment" when Lord Markland
came to the funeral. Ah, poor Markland, had he not come to the funeral!
Yet how vain to say so, for his fate had been long prophesied, and
what did it matter in what special circumstances it came to pass! But
Warrender felt, as he left the house, that there could be no longer
distance and partial acquaintance between the two families. Their lines
of life--or was it of death?--had crossed and been woven together. He
felt a faint thrill go through him,--a thrill of consciousness, of
anticipation, he could not tell what Certainly it was not possible that
the old blank of non-connection could ever exist again. _She_, to whom
he had scarcely spoken before, who had been so entirely out of his
sphere, had now come into it so strangely, so closely, that she could
never be separated from his thoughts. She might break violently the
visionary tie between them,--she might break it, angry to have been
drawn into so close a relation to any strangers,--but it never could be
shaken off.

He drove quickly down the long bare avenue, where all was so naked and
clear, and put his head out of the carriage window to look back at the
house, standing out bare and defenceless in the full moonlight, showing
faintly, through the white glory which blazed all around, a little
pitiful glimmer of human lights in the closed windows, the watch-lights
of the dead. It seemed a long time to the young man since in his own
house these watch-lights had been extinguished. The previous event
seemed to have become dim to him, though he was so much more closely
connected with it, in the presence of this, which was more awful, more
terrible. He tried to return to the thoughts of the morning, when his
father was naturally in all things his first occupation, but it was
impossible to do it. I