The body which had contained and by that beloved spirit been so nobly
animated, in its present awful peace, its blind dumb majesty, meant
scarcely more to her than some alabaster or waxen effigy of her dead. It
was so like, yet so terrifyingly unlike Charles Verity in life!--She had
visited it morning and evening, since to leave it in solitude appeared
wanting in reverence. Throughout each night she thankfully knew that
either Carteret, McCabe or Faircloth watched by it. Yet to her it hardly
retained as much of her father's natural presence as the clothes he had
worn, the books and papers littering his writing-table, the chair he
preferred to sit in, his guns and swords upon the wall, or the collection
of fishing-rods, walking-sticks and his spud stacked in a corner.
After the strain and publicity of the funeral her apathy deepened,
perplexing and saddening Carteret and bringing Miss Felicia near to
veritable wailing. For while thanking them both she, in fact, put them
both aside. This in no sour or irritable humour; but with a listlessness
and apartness hopeless to overcome.
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