Carew was naught to her, and had been naught
for twoscore years. But the tide of memory was at its flow within her
brain; and because the Past _is_ Past it touches us. This man had loved
her once, after his own scornful manner, when he was young, and before
power and selfishness had made him stone. He had been the father of her
only son, and now he was Dead.
"I am so sorry," said Harry, not quite knowing what to say.
"There is no need for sorrow," replied the other, quietly. "Let us go up
stairs and finish our work."
CHAPTER XXXVII.
WITCHERY.
Carew of Crompton was really dead, as men said, "at last," not that he
had been long dying, or was an old man, but that he had eventually
succumbed to one of those deadly risks to which he had so often
voluntarily exposed himself. On the occasion which had been fatal to him
he had started from home one frosty morning at the gallop, with a cigar
in his mouth, the reins on his horse's neck, and both his hands in his
pockets, and had been pitched off and broken his neck within half a mile
of his own door. His chaplain, who had dispatched the news to Mrs.
Basil, had been riding by his side at the very moment. "He was a good
friend to me," was the laconic remark that poor Parson Whymper had added
to the bare intelligence.
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