Then she eat the food, and drank a drop of wine, and allowed the old woman to take her away to the bed that had been prepared for her.  Of her husband she saw no more for four days.  On the next morning a note was brought to her, in which Sir Hugh told her that he had returned to London.  It was necessary, he said, that he should see his lawyer and his brother.  He and Archie would return for the funeral.  With reference to that he had already given orders.

During the next three days, and till her husband’s return, Lady Clavering remained at the rectory; and in the comfort of Mrs. Clavering’s presence, she almost felt that it would be well for her if those days could be prolonged.  But she knew the hour at which her husband would return, and she took care to be at home when he arrived.  “You will come and see him?” she said to the rector, as she left the parsonage.  “You will come at once—­in an hour or two?” Mr. Clavering remembered the circumstances of his last visit to the house, and the declaration he had then made that he would not return there.  But all that could not now be considered.

“Yes,” he said, “I will come across this evening.  But you had better tell him, so that he need not be troubled to see me if he would rather be alone.”

“Oh, he will see you.  Of course he will see you.  And you will not remember that he ever offended you?”

Mrs. Clavering had written both to Julia and to Harry, and the day of the funeral had been settled.  Harry had already communicated his intention of coming down; and Lady Ongar had replied to Mrs. Clavering’s letter, saying that she could not now offer to go to Clavering Park, but that if her sister would go elsewhere with her—­to some place, perhaps, on the sea-side—­she would be glad to accompany her; and she used many arguments in her letter to show that such an arrangement as this had better be made.

“You will be with my sister,” she had said; “and she will understand why I do not write to her myself, and will not think that it comes from coldness.”  This had been written before Lady Ongar saw Harry Clavering.

Mr. Clavering, when he got to the great house, was immediately shown into the room in which the baronet and his younger brother were sitting.  They had, some time since, finished dinner, but the decanters were still on the table before them.  “Hugh,” said the, rector, walking up to his elder nephew briskly, “I grieve for you.  I grieve, for you from the bottom of my heart.”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “it has been a heavy blow.  Sit down, uncle.  There is a clean glass there, or Archie will fetch you one.”  Then Archie looked out a clean glass, and passed the decanter; but of this the rector took no direct notice.

“It has been a blow, my poor boy—­a heavy blow,” said the rector.  “None heavier could have fallen.  But our sorrows come from Heaven, as do our blessings, and must be accepted.”

“We are all like grass,” said Archie, “and must be cut down in our turns.”  Archie, in saying this, intended to put on his best behavior.  He was as sincere as he knew how to be.