forsaken, and of the dark world round her, where she would find so few
friends; and of the home shut up in which she had lived her young and
pleasant life; and of the thoughts that must rise in her heart, as though
she were forsaken and abandoned of God and man. Then Lady Mary turned to
the man who had authority. She said, "If he whom I saw to-day will give
me his blessing, I will go--" and they all pressed round her, weeping and
kissing her hands.

"He will not refuse his blessing," they said; "but the way is terrible,
and you are still weak. How can you encounter all the misery of it? He
commands no one to try that dark and dreadful way."

"I will try," Lady Mary said.




V.


The night which Lady Mary had been conscious of, in a momentary glimpse
full of the exaggeration of fever, had not indeed been so expeditious
as she believed. The doctor, it is true, had been pronouncing her
death-warrant when she saw him holding her wrist, and wondered what he
did there in the middle of the night; but she had been very ill before
this, and the conclusion of her life had been watched with many tears.
Then there had risen up a wonderful commotion in the house, of which
little Mary, her godchild, was very little sensible. Had she left any
will, any instructions, the slightest indication of what she wished to be
done after her death? Mr. Furnival, who had been very anxious to be