MEETING.
Spring came round again; and Phemie, walking about the grounds at
Marshlands, saw the crocuses and the snowdrops blooming, the daffodils
rearing their gaudy heads in triumph, the violets peeping modestly up
from amongst their thick covert of green leaves, and the primroses
blossoming in the hedgerows and beside the wood paths.
In due time the wild hyacinths opened their blue and white bells, and
perfumed the air with a delicious fragrance; in the copses the wood
anemones shone like stars in shaded places; there was fresh foliage on
the trees, the grass felt soft and velvety under foot; there was a stir
of life throughout all nature—nature so recently awakened from her long
winter’s rest. And Phemie, looking around her—looking back at the years
which were past, and forward at the years which were to come—thought
sadly that for all inanimate nature there is a spring-time as well as an
autumn, but for man no second youth, no returning April wherein the
flowers of his former existence can blossom and bloom as of yore.
She had passed through grievous sickness since the night she and Miss
Derno parted; she had suffered mentally and bodily, and she was only now
just crawling out again into the air and the sunshine, to see what the
sweet sights and sounds of spring could do for her—she whom the world
thought so fortunate a woman.
For was not she young, well dowered, well cared for? She had Roundwood
to fall back upon whenever Marshlands came to be claimed by its rightful
owner. Her husband was dead; but people said if she could not please
herself again, supposing she desired to do so, who could?
Society felt it was the proper thing for her to live in strict
seclusion, to receive no visitors, to be in a poor state of health and
in low spirits; but at the same time society concluded that when the
days of mourning were expired, Mrs. Stondon would feel that it had been
the will of God for Captain Stondon to die, and that as he was to die,
she ought to be thankful it had likewise been the will of God to provide
her with a satisfactory portion of this world’s goods.
Many people were already making inquiries as to the amount of personalty
Captain Stondon had left behind him, and how he had disposed of
it—whilst the value of Roundwood was known to a shilling. Those ladies
who had brothers or sons anxious to marry a wife able to contribute her
share towards the expenses of a household, ventured finally to remark to
Mr. Aggland that they thought dear Mrs. Stondon was leading too much the
life of a hermit, and that a little society, “not exactly society, but
merely seeing a few intimate friends, would be extremely good for her.”
To which Mr. Aggland replied, in all truthfulness, that he thought the
shock had been almost too much for his niece. “They were so much
attached,” he added, “she seems to feel his loss more and more every
day.”
(Which was not encouraging to the young men.)
“She will be better perhaps when we get her away from Norfolk,” went on
Mr. Aggland; “change of scene will, I hope, work wonders. It is her
first great sorrow in life, and you remember, madam, ‘Every one can
master a grief but he that has it.’ Few are able to say just at the
first—‘The hand of the Lord hath wrought this.’ In time, I have no doubt
but that her present anguish will—
‘Settle down into a grief that loves
And finds relief in unreproved tears;
Then cometh sorrow like a Sabbath, and, last
Of all, there falls a kind oblivion
Over the going out of that sweet light
In which we had our being.’”
“What a wonderful memory you have, Mr. Aggland,” said his visitor, with
a simper; and then she drove down the avenue, and called at half-a-dozen
houses, and whispered in each of them—“I do think there must be some
little insanity in Mrs. Stondon’s family. That uncle of hers is as
eccentric and odd as possible. His brain seems to me a perfect library,
or rather a book filled with familiar quotations.”
“It did not strike me that they were familiar at all,” said Mr. Ralph
Chichelee; “quite the contrary, indeed.”
“And, besides,” put in Mrs. Enmoor, who had rather an affection for
Phemie, “he is not her uncle by blood, only by marriage.”
“But it is so strange the way she goes on,” persisted the first speaker;
“she sees no one—she goes out nowhere—she is even ‘not at home,’ or ‘too
ill to receive’ to the clergyman’s wife.”
“Do you not believe she is ill, then?” asked Mr. Chichelee.
“I met her out driving one day last week, and I am sure she then looked
like a ghost,” added Mrs. Enmoor. “I was quite shocked to see her.”
“But she adopts no means to get well.”
“I hear she is having that place of hers in Sussex put into thorough
order,” said Mr. Chichelee. “No doubt she will soon be leaving
Marshlands now; and that reminds me—has anything been heard of the
missing heir?”
“People seem convinced he is dead,” was the reply.
“And who is the fortunate man in that case?” inquired Mr. Chichelee.
“A Mr. Haslett Stondon, I hear,” answered Mrs. Enmoor; “who was born in
Canada—a great boor, I am told. Ah! Marshlands will never again be what
it was—poor dear Captain Stondon!” finished Mrs. Enmoor, with grateful
reminiscences of all Phemie had tried to do for her and hers in that
pretty drawing-room which looked out over the flower-garden, and the
walk under the elm trees.
It was all true—Phemie was going away, and Marshlands would never again
be bright and gay as formerly. Mrs. Stondon had scarcely realised to
herself how much she loved Marshlands till she was called upon to quit
it. Roundwood might be a very nice property, but it was not Marshlands.
And to leave Marshlands, to vacate the old familiar rooms in favour of
Mr. Haslett Stondon, a man who openly stated he should never reside
there, and that with all his heart and with all his soul, and with a
good many oaths into the bargain, he wished she would stay, as it would
save him the expense of a caretaker!
Phemie wished so too; but still she could not continue to live in the
house she had owned, as a mere tenant. It was best for her to effect her
change of residence as speedily as might be, and try to get over all her
troubles at once. The ray of hope that had illumined her life had faded
away. No tidings came of Basil; there seemed no reason to doubt but that
it was really he who had died on board the _Lahore_.
“We will leave this and go to Roundwood, uncle, before the summer is
over,” she said one day. And Mr. Aggland eagerly assenting—forthwith
preparations for their departure were made, and bills were posted on
every wall and paling in the neighbourhood, announcing that on the —th
inst. there would be an auction at Marshlands of household furniture,
carriages, stock, farming utensils, &c.
“I intend to have that inlaid cabinet,” said Mrs. Hurlford to her
husband.
“And I,” answered he, “that roan horse, if he goes at all reasonable.”
“It seems strange to me she can bear to sell the furniture,” remarked
soft-hearted little Mrs. Enmoor, never thinking that Phemie wanted to
have done with all the old associations—that she wished to forget—to
begin an entirely new life in a new place.
When once her own personal effects were off the premises, Mrs. Stondon
meant to proceed to Roundwood, leaving her uncle to arrange all other
matters for her; and it wanted but a day or two of her intended
departure when a special messenger arrived with a letter from Messrs.
Gardner, Snelling, and Co., stating that Mr. Basil Stondon was alive,
that he was in England, that he might be expected at Marshlands almost
at any hour.
“Uncle!” She put the letter into his hands, and then fell back in a dead
faint on the sofa where she was seated.
“My dear child,” Mr. Aggland said, when the weary eyes opened once more,
and rested on the paper lying on the table, “my poor Phemie, I must get
you away; you must be kept quiet. These surprises and sudden tidings are
killing you. Those men might have had more consideration, more sense.
You must leave Marshlands.”
Then, as it seemed, speaking almost without her own will, Phemie cried
out—
“Let me wait and see him—let me see the dead man alive again, and then
take me where you will, away from this for ever. Let me stay,” she went
on, with earnest pleading, “just to welcome him back, just to make him
feel he has come home, and I will leave the next hour.”
That was her first prayer; her second was to leave immediately—to have
everything packed up, and ready for immediate departure.
Then a new fancy seized her: she would have all the bills for the
auction taken down; she would have every article of furniture put back
in its place; the mirrors refixed, the pictures rehung, the curtains
re-arranged; there should not be a chair out of place when the wanderer
returned.
“My husband would have wished it so,” she said to Mr. Aggland, and Mr.
Aggland gave orders to have the rooms they had already vacated put in
order, the fatted calf killed, and the house got ready for the reception
of the new owner.
He certainly inclined to the opinion that Phemie was a little out of her
mind. He had long thought her odd—and now he was confident his niece was
not merely odd, but also something more.
“Fainting and crying, and having the whole place upset on account of the
return of a man whom she never could bear—for whom she never had a civil
word!” Mr. Aggland muttered; but he comforted himself a moment
afterwards by recollecting that—
“——Good as well as ill,
Woman’s at best a contradiction still;”
and thought that perhaps, when all was said and done, Phemie’s
eccentricities were matters not of mind but of sex.
“I am not sure that it is good for women to have their own way,” he
reflected; “for if they have the guiding of themselves they are never
content with one road for two minutes together. Likely as not, she will
want the bills posted again to-morrow, so I won’t have them taken down
at any rate.”
“Do you not think it would be well for you to send a messenger, begging
Mrs. Montague Stondon to come down here to receive her son?” he ventured
to propose next morning.
“Am I mistress here now?” Phemie angrily retorted. “Is the house mine,
to ask or to bid keep away? I ought to be out of Marshlands at this
minute. I shall merely remain to touch hands with Basil, and bid him
welcome home, and then go when he arrives. Let the luggage be sent over
to Disley, and it will be ready for whatever train we choose to start
by.”
“But I think it most improbable he will be here for some days; he will
naturally remain in London to see his lawyers and his mother, and——”
“Basil Stondon will come straight on to Marshlands,” she interrupted.
“He will not lose an hour in hastening to—to—take possession of his
property.” And her heart fluttered like a bird’s as she spoke; while Mr.
Aggland answered—
“That she seemed to have a high opinion of Mr. Basil Stondon and of his
unselfishness. If he will feel no sorrow for your husband’s death, and
only rejoice at your having to leave Marshlands, why do you remain to
receive him, why can you not travel to Roundwood at once?”
“Because it would seem hard to him—no matter what he may be—for no
creature to be here to say, ‘I am glad you are alive—God give you
happiness as He has given you wealth.’”
“Well, suppose I stay here and say all that in your name?” suggested Mr.
Aggland, who had an intuitive feeling his niece would be better away. “I
can tell him all your wishes—how you desire that he shall retain the
whole or any portion of the furniture—how the cows and horses, the sheep
and the pigs are his to command, if he have any liking for any of
them—how you have enough and to spare without stripping the house of its
ornaments. I can say as well as you that ‘there is no winter’ in your
generosity; can prove how good a steward you have been, spending your
own money on another’s land. All that has occurred here since his
departure I can relate for his benefit, and I can bring news to you at
Roundwood where and how he has passed the time during which we have all
thought him dead. Will you take my advice, Phemie, and go? The memories
he will recall, the excitement of seeing a man risen from the grave, as
one may say, will certainly prove too much for you. Will you go?”
“I have a fancy to stay, uncle,” she answered; “just as I said before,
to wish him health and happiness before I leave Marshlands for ever.
Most likely I shall never enter its doors again—let my last thought of
the old home be a gracious one.”
And there came such a sad, wistful look into the sweet face that Mr.
Aggland could press the point no further. He only said it should all be
as she wished, and entreated her to lie down and recruit her strength,
so that when the journey had to be taken she might be ready for it.
“I hope to see the colour back in your cheeks some day, my dear,” he
concluded. “We will all take such care of you when we get you among us
once more, that you shall not have any choice left but to get well and
strong again. With all your life still before you, it will never do for
you to settle down into a desponding invalid.”
“Have patience,” Phemie answered; “let me only get this meeting over—let
me once begin a new existence elsewhere, and I will try to make a good
thing of it.”
“Have you not made a good thing of it?” he asked; but Mrs. Stondon shook
her head.
“We will not talk about the past,” she replied; “the present is enough
for us, surely. Let me go now, uncle,” she added; “I want to be quiet
for a time, quiet and alone.”
Mr. Aggland followed her with his eyes, as she ascended the staircase.
He felt there was something about Phemie which he could not
understand—which he had never understood—“and which _I_ probably never
shall,” he decided, when he heard a distant door close behind her. “I do
think she is very odd but somehow very sweet.”
Could he have seen what Phemie was doing at that very moment, he would
have thought her odder still.
She was standing before her mirror, looking at all that was left of the
Phemie who had once been so beautiful; looking at the pale, wan face, at
the sharpened features, at the dark lines under her eyes, at the lines
across her forehead, at her figure round and symmetrical no longer, at
the ghastly whiteness of her cheeks, at the widow’s cap which concealed
her hair, at the black trailing dress.
Her beauty! Ah, Heaven! that had been a dream too, and it was gone—like
her youth, like her gaiety, like her pride, like her vanity, like her
innocence of soul—gone for ever.
She turned away from the glass, and covered her face with her hands. She
was no heroine, only a woman; and she could not help mourning over the
fact that her youth was gone and her beauty with it.
Yet what had youth and beauty done for her?—what? Had they not led her
into temptation? Had she not wept such tears, whilst her eyes were
bright, and her face round, and her cheeks blooming, as she hoped never
to shed again till the day of her death?
Had her very loveliness not brought such suffering upon her as had
wrought the wreck she was? Why should she mourn because she had no
attractions left to charm the man who once loved her so passionately?
Why was it so terrible to her now to realise the full force of the truth
which had glimmered across her understanding that night when she sat
looking through the darkness down over Tordale?
She had owned one life—on this side of the grave she could never own
another. In the eyes of the world she had made a very good thing of it;
she had married well, she had associated well, she had succeeded to the
Keller property; her husband also had left her abundantly provided for;
she had done well so far as money was concerned, but for all that Phemie
knew, now when she sat looking—not through the darkness down upon
Tordale, but back through the years to her girlhood—that her life had
been a lost one, that although there were plenty more lives in the world
still to be lived out and made much of or spoiled—enjoyed or marred—yet
there could be no second existence for her, no return of the years, no
retracing of her steps, no re-writing the book, no erasing the past.
Do you comprehend at last the story I have been trying to tell?—the
story which has had in it so little of variety or excitement, but yet
that was after all the tale of a woman’s life—of a woman who, like the
rest of us, whether man or woman, had but one—and spoiled it! In the
world’s great lottery, as I said early in these pages, her little
investment might seem a mere bagatelle; but it was the whole of her
capital notwithstanding.
And she had lost! Looking back, this conviction forced itself upon her;
she had lost, and it was too late for her to hope for a profit in the
future.
Had she hoped? had she still clung to the idea of that man loving her?
had she believed they might again meet for once, as of old, and then
part? What had she thought? what had she hoped till she looked
critically at herself in the unflattering mirror?
My reader, I cannot tell—though that was an hour when Phemie tried hard
to understand herself, to comprehend why she had wished to stay—why she
now wished to go.
All that passed swiftly and sharply through her heart, it would be well
nigh impossible for any one to imagine. She could not have told herself
aught save this—that her part was played out, on a stage where every
step had proved a failure; that there was literally nothing more left
for her to do, save walk behind the scenes, and leave the ground clear
for those who had still to act out their life’s drama—ill or well, as
the case might be.
She rose and stood in the middle of her room irresolute. Should she go?
should she not go? should she play the hostess in Marshlands for the
last time? remain to greet the new owner and then pass away like the old
year? or should she follow the bent of her own inclination and avoid
this meeting?
Could she bear to see his look when he saw her changed face? could she
assume indifference, or he forgetfulness?
“I will go,” she concluded; and the grey evening shadows were settling
down as this idea became a fixed determination. “I will go!—better to
seem unkind than to play the fool. My uncle will wait and welcome him—a
fitter one to do so than I.” And she rang her bell, and bade Marshall
pack the few articles still lying about, and prepare for their immediate
departure.
“I think we can catch the night express,” she said; and she went
downstairs to speak to her uncle about it.
He was not in the drawing-room, and while she remained for a moment
irresolute, there was a noise in the hall as of some one’s arrival.
She tried to move forward to the door, but the blood rushing back to her
heart took the power of movement from her. He had come—he had come from
out of those great waters—from the grave—out of the past. She forgot the
years—she forgot her widow’s weeds—she forgot the dead husband lying in
the churchyard beyond the village—she forgot the loss of her beauty—the
time that had passed—she remembered nothing save this man whom she had
loved, and who had come back again; and when the door opened she
stretched out her arms towards him, and cried—“Basil—Basil!”
Then, as in a sort of fright, the dead alive, with a quick glance behind
him, answered warningly, while he advanced to meet Phemie—
“And my wife!”
There are times when the very excess of their fear gives men courage;
there are occasions when the very intensity of the suffering deadens
sensation; and there are also moments in life when, out of the very
depth of the previous humiliation, there arises sufficient pride to
carry humanity over the most critical moment of its agony and despair.
Such a moment arrived to Phemie then. She had forgotten her pride—her
dead—her resolutions; she had stretched out her arms with a great cry of
joy to the lost who was found. Another second, and, God help her! she
would have let him take her to his heart; but, almost before his name
had passed her lips there came crashing down upon her that cruel warning
sentence—
“And my wife.”
Then she saw his wife. Standing behind him in the doorway, with her
bright, mocking eyes fixed on Phemie’s face, was the woman he had
married.
She was younger than Phemie; watching had not paled her cheeks, nor
grief wasted her figure. The mourning dress which made Phemie look so
white and worn and haggard only set off the other’s beauty to greater
advantage; and there was a malicious satisfaction playing over every
feature, as the new mistress of Marshlands heard Basil’s remark, and
perceived the effect it produced on Phemie. But next moment Phemie was
mistress of the position.
“You are welcome!” she said, and she held out her hand, which neither
shook nor faltered, towards the woman who had supplanted her. “I have
waited here to say this to both of you, Georgina; waited to wish you
health, wealth, and happiness in Marshlands—before leaving it for ever.”
She was like a queen beside the new arrival—like a queen in her manner,
her carriage, her address; and when she turned and spoke to Basil, and,
looking him straight in the face, told him—with just that tremor in her
voice which comes into most voices when people speak of a great pain
endured—of a great peril escaped—how she had mourned for his reported
death—how she had suffered much suspense and much sorrow concerning
him—how even at that moment she could scarcely believe it was really to
Basil Stondon, Basil raised from the dead, she was speaking—she still
remained in possession of the field, and Mrs. Basil Stondon, _née_
Hurlford, gained no advantage over her.
Phemie speaking to Basil never tried to conceal how much the thought of
his death had affected her; never strove to explain away her cry at his
entrance. She had sustained a grievous defeat, and yet she mastered her
men so well, she displayed her resources so admirably, she addressed the
wife with so gracious a courtesy, and the husband with such an earnest
joy and sincerity, that Georgina could scarcely decide whether, after
all, she was not the one worsted in the encounter—whether the former
mistress of Marshlands had not the best of the day.
She could not even flatter herself into thinking her arrival was driving
Phemie off the field; for Phemie’s preparations had all been made before
she knew Basil Stondon had brought a wife back with him.
The departing combatant always, too, seems, like the Parthian, to be
able to leave some stinging arrow behind him. There is a victory in the
mere act of “going,” the greatness of which is generally felt, though
rarely, I believe, acknowledged.
There is a grand moral power in walking out of a room, or driving away
from a house, that produces an effect on the individuals left behind. It
is action—it is force—it is doing what another person is unable to do.
Their intentions are powerless to detain; the will of the one combatant
has been stronger than that of the other; and perhaps it was some idea
of this kind which made Mrs. Basil Stondon so earnestly press Phemie to
remain.
“You will not pain us—you will not be cruel?” she urged. But Phemie had
made all her arrangements, and was not to be turned aside from her path.
“I stayed but to bid you welcome—you, Basil, whom I knew were coming,
you also, Georgina, whom I did not expect—it seems I remained to receive
you both. Having done so, let me go, for this is my home no longer, and
no kindness can ever make it seem home to me again.”
She passed by them, and walked towards her uncle. “Is the carriage
ready?” she asked; adding, in an undertone, “For God’s sake let us get
away from here at once!”
And still Phemie kept moving forward, and next moment caught sight of
Basil’s child.
The nurse was surrounded by a group of excited domestics, who, standing
in the centre of the hall, were criticising and admiring the heir, a
fine boy, who neither cried nor shrieked, but kept essaying to talk, and
crowing mightily.
There are limits to all things, and there were limits even to Phemie’s
self-command. From that group she turned aside and fled, up the wide
staircase, along the corridor, to the room that had been hers, but
which, like all the rest, must now be abandoned to strangers. She sent
away her maid, she put on her bonnet, she threw her shawl around her,
she took one last look out over the park, and then hurried away from the
familiar apartment as though a plague were in it.
The carriage was at the door, her maid on the box beside the coachman;
Georgina stood at the hall door, and Basil came out and assisted Phemie
into her brougham. As he did so he whispered—
“I wanted to come down alone, but she would not let me.”
Then Mr. Aggland took his seat beside his niece, and Phemie, leaning
forward, bowed a farewell to Basil and his wife; and the horses sprang
forward down the long avenue and through the gates, and were soon
dashing along the level road leading to Disley, leaving Marshlands far
behind.
So long as they were under the shadow of the pines and the elm-trees,
uncle and niece never exchanged a sentence; but once they were outside
the domain, Mr. Aggland laid his hand gently on the poor thin fingers
which were knotted and twisted together in a kind of convulsive agony,
and said, “Phemie!”
No other word—but at the sound of that she flung herself on his breast
and cried with such a frenzy of grief that he answered her inarticulate
appeal for comfort with broken words of consolation and sympathy.
“Don’t!” she cried—“don’t! I deserve it all. Let me bear it. Oh, uncle,
do you understand what has been the misery of my life at last?”
What was there to be said—what to be done—what?—but to secure a
compartment all to themselves, and stow Marshall and the smaller effects
into another. He felt thankful to have caught the express, even though
Sewel’s bays had been greatly distressed in order to compass that
desirable end. He knew Phemie’s grief must have its way; and so he let
her lie back and weep out her trouble as they dashed on through the
night.
He did not speak to her. He did not go near her. She sat in her corner,
and he in his; and they both thought—thought—while the hours went by.
They travelled the same mental course—he in his way, she in hers. He
recalled to mind the girl who had come to him in his sanctum to ask his
advice, and whom he had afterwards prayed might never know what it was
really to love.
And this was the end. O God! this was the end. And the man’s eyes were
dim with tears as he bent forward and looked out into the darkness.
Whilst Phemie!—she was reciting to herself and preaching out of her own
experience a sermon upon it.
She had gone back to Tordale too. She was sitting—unmarried—unwooed—in
that little church under the shadows of the everlasting hills. The man
whom she afterwards wedded, came in at the porch, and entered the pew,
and shared her book, and he was nobody to her then.
She had been dreaming of heroes of romance—lords and knights and young
esquires. And what was that middle-aged tourist to her? What concern was
he of hers? What meaning had the text Mr. Conbyr selected for her
either?
“The wages of sin is death!” he said. And Phemie looked down at her
faded muslin dress—at her poor finery—and thought of Lord Ronald
Clanronald while the preacher proceeded.
Well, the years had gone by. And she dreamed no more of youths of high
degree—of skirts of green satin—of the great future that might be in
store for her. The old things regarded then were unheeded now; but the
truth heard so many a long day before came home to her fully in the half
darkness of that summer night.
“The wages of sin is death!” Had they not been death to her? death to
every pleasant memory—to every innocent recollection—to every future
hope—to every dream of happiness—to every plan—to every desire. There
was nothing in her past she could look back to with satisfaction; there
had been flowers, but there was a blight on them; there had been bright
green foliage, but, behold, the trees were naked and bare; there had
been a fair sunny landscape, but the clouds had come up, and in lieu of
sunshine there was blackness—instead of rejoicing, despair.
She had given her love to that man—for his sake she had forgotten her
husband, been cruel to herself. For his sake! Ah! Heaven! and he had
forgotten her—forgotten all her tears—all her struggles—all her
sorrow—and suffered his wife to come down and see her humiliation.
Wife and child—wife and child! had now taken possession of Marshlands.
Where she had been much she was now nothing. Where she had been exalted
she was brought low. Her day was declining, her reign over. “The wages
of sin is death!” And the woman’s tears flowed fast.
On through the flat Cambridgeshire fields—on to the point where
Hertfordshire and Essex shake hands—on to the marsh lands, and the
nursery-grounds round and about Water Lane and Tottenham—on in the glad
light of a summer’s morning across the Lea—and away within sight of the
wooded heights of Clapton to Stratford and Mile End—and so to
Shoreditch.
On! she had preached her sermon—she had conned her lesson. She had dried
her eyes, and was looking over the fields and the river—over the
house-tops and the sea of red-tiled roofs, at the life on which she was
going to enter.
The hour before dawn is always the darkest; and that night was probably
the blackest, in its deep despair, which Phemie Keller ever passed
through.
Yet with the dawn came light; and this was the beam of sunshine which
stole in on Phemie Keller’s life—Duty.
Were there no sick to tend—no poor to visit—no sorrowing ones to
comfort—no children to educate?
Though she had erred she would yet try to do whatever work her hand
found to do.
“I will not sit down in idleness, uncle,” she said. “I have sinned—I
have suffered—but I will try——”
And as the train, with a shriek and a whistle, steamed into Shoreditch
Station, her uncle bent down and kissed her hand with an intense pity,
with an unutterable sympathy.
“‘Employment is nature’s physician,’ says Galen,” he remarked. “God in
His mercy grant that it may bring you back to health.”
“I mean to try,” she repeated; and she drew her veil over her face, and
passed out, with the bright sunlight of that summer’s morning streaming
on her, into the deserted London streets.