How it had come to pass that Mrs Finn and the Duchess had
become singularly bound together has been told elsewhere. But
there had been close bonds,--so close that when the Duchess on
their return from the Continent had passed through London on her
way to Matching, ill at the time and very comfortless, it had been
almost a thing of course, that Mrs Finn should go with her. And as
she had sunk, and then despaired, and then died, it was this woman
who had always been at her side, who had ministered to her, and
had listened to the fears and the wishes and hopes that she had
expressed respecting the children.
At Matching, amidst the ruins of the old Priory, there is a parish
burying-ground, and there, in accordance with her own wish, almost
within sight of her own bedroom-window, she was buried. On the day
of the funeral a dozen relatives came, Pallisers and McCloskies,
who on such an occasion were bound to show themselves, as members
of the family. With them and his two sons the Duke walked across
to the graveyard, and then walked back; but even to those who
stayed the night at the house he hardly spoke.
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