To others she would have appeared the image of stern woe.

The gentleness which had been so readily observable beneath her habitual gravity was absorbed in the severity of her suffering and spiritual conflicts; only a touching suggestion of endurance, of weakness bearing up against terrible fatality, made its plea to tenderness.

Withal, she looked no older than in the days of her happiness; a young life, a young heart, smitten with unutterable woe.
When the sound of the opening gate made itself heard, she lay back for a moment in the very sickness of pain it recalled the past so vividly, and chilled her heart with the fear of what she had now before her.

She stood, as soon as the knock came at the front door, and kept the same position as Wilfrid entered.
He was startled at the sight of her, but in an instant was holding both her hands, gazing deep into her eyes with an ecstasy of tenderness.

He kissed her lips, and, as he did so, felt a shudder in the hands he pressed.