cracked note. The Rev. Charles was crammed down with the soil by the
eager spades of the sexton and his friend, who were cold and wanted
a drink.

Maggie, meanwhile, watched the final disappearance of her father
with an ever-growing remorse. Ever since her declaration to her
uncle during their walk yesterday this new picture of her father had
grown before her eyes. She had already forgotten many, many things
that might now have made her resentful or at least critical. She saw
him as a figure most disastrously misunderstood. Without any
sentimentality in her vision she saw him lonely, proud, reserved,
longing for her sympathy which she denied him. His greed for money
she saw suddenly as a determination that his daughter should not be
left in want. All those years he had striven and his apparent
harshness, sharpness, unkindness had been that he might pursue his
great object.

She did not cry (some of the villagers curiously watching her
thought her a hard-hearted little thing), but her heart was full of
tenderness as she stood there, seeing the humped grey church that
was part of her life, the green mounds with no name, the dark wood,
the grey roofs of the village clustered below the hill, hearing the
bell, the rooks, the healthy voice of Mr. Trefusis, the bark of some
distant dog, the creak of some distant wheel.

"I missed my chance," she thought. "If only now I could have told
him!"

Her aunt stood at her side and once again Maggie felt irritation at
her composure. "After all, he was her brother," she thought. She