One thing was certain: no curious eyes
would see the struggle; the body might be nerveless or sickly,
but it had the great power of reticence; the calm with which she
faced the closest gaze was natural to her,--no mask. When she
left her room and went down, the same unaltered quiet that had
baffled Knowles steadied her step and cooled her eyes.
After you have made a sacrifice of yourself for others, did you
ever notice how apt you were to doubt, as soon as the deed was
irrevocable, whether, after all, it were worth while to have done
it? How mean seems the good gained! How new and unimagined the
agony of empty hands and stifled wish! Very slow the angels are,
sometimes, that are sent to minister!
Margret, going down the stairs that morning, found none of the
chivalric unselfish glow of the night before in her home. It was
an old, bare house in the midst of dreary stubble fields, in
which her life was slowly to be worn out: working for those who
did not comprehend her; thanked her little,--that was all. It
did not matter; life was short: she could thank God for that at
least.
She opened the house-door. A draught of cold morning air struck
her face, sweeping from the west; it had driven the fog in great
gray banks upon the hills, or in shimmering swamps into the cleft
hollows: a vague twilight filled the space left bare. Tiger,
asleep in the hall, rushed out into the meadow, barking, wild
with the freshness and cold, then back again to tear round her
for a noisy good-morning.
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