He had never rebuked her for lack of courage; he had simply taken it for granted that she would keep her grip of herself.
Sara's thoughts slid back to an incident which had occurred during their early days together.

She had been very much alarmed by the appearance of a huge mastiff who was permitted the run of the house, and her uncle, noticing her shrinking avoidance of the rather formidable looking beast, had composedly bidden her take him to the stables and chain him up.

For an instant the child had hesitated.

Then, something in the man's quiet confidence that she would obey had made its claim on her childish pride, and, although white to the lips, she had walked straight up to the great creature, hooked her small fingers into his collar, and marched him off to his kennel.
Courage under physical pain she had learned from seeing Patrick contend with his own infirmity.

He suffered intensely at times, but neither groan nor word of complaint was ever allowed to escape his set lips.
Only Sara would see, after what he described as "one of my damn bad days, m'dear," new lines added to the deepening network that had so aged his appearance lately.
At these times she herself endured agonies of reflex suffering and apprehension, since her attachment to Patrick Lovell was the moving factor of her existence.