They were at the foot of the hill, in view of an inn announcing livery stables.  She wished to walk the whole distance.  He shook his head.

The fly was ready for her soon, and he begged to see her safe home.  She refused, after taking her seat, but said:  ’At any other time.  We are old friends.  You will really go through the ceremony of consulting me about the school?’

He replied:  ‘I am honoured.’

‘Ah, not to me,’ said Aminta.  ’We will be the friends we—­You will not be formal with me?—­not from this day?’

She put out her hand.  He took it gently.  The dead who had drawn them together withheld a pressure.  Holding the hand, he said:  ’I shall crave leave of absence for some days.’

‘I shall see you on the day,’ said she.  ’If it is your desire:  I will send word.’

‘We both mourn at heart.  We should be in company.  Adieu.’

Their hands fell apart.  They looked.  The old school time was in each mind.  They saw it as a shore-bank in grey outline across morning mist.  Years were between; and there was a division of circumstance, more repelling than an abyss or the rush of deep wild waters.

Neither of them had regrets.  Under their cloud, and with the grief they shared, they were as happy as two could be in recovering one another as friends.

On the day of the funeral Aminta drove to the spot where they had parted—­she walked to the churchyard.

She followed the coffin to its gravel-heap, wishing neither to see nor be seen, only that she might be so far attached to the remains of the dead; and the sense of blessedness she had in her bowed simplicity of feeling was as if the sainted dead had cleansed and anointed her.

When the sods had been cast on, the last word spoken, she walked her way back, happy in being alone, unnoticed.  She was grateful to the chief mourner for letting her go as she had come.  That helped her to her sense of purification, the haven out of the passions, hardly less quiet than the repose into which the dear dead woman, his mother, had entered.

London lay beneath her.  The might of the great hive hummed at the verge of her haven of peace without disturbing.  There she had been what none had known of her:  an ambitious girl, modest merely for lack of intrepidity; paralyzed by her masterful lord; aiming her highest at a gilt weathercock; and a disappointed creature, her breast a home of serpents; never herself.  She thought and hoped she was herself now.  Alarm lest this might be another of her moods, victim of moods as she had latterly been, was a shadow armed with a dart playing round her to find the weak spot.  It sprang from her acknowledged weakness of nature; and she cast about for how to keep it outside her and lean on a true though a small internal support.  She struck at her desires, to sound them.