He supported her to a chair, where she sank as if all her joints were loosened.
Sir James flew for restoratives; bathed her brow with a dampened handkerchief; held strong salts to her nostrils, and murmured words of foolish, banal consolation, whilst Rotherby, in a half-dreaming condition, stunned by the suddenness of the blow, stood beside her, mechanically lending his assistance and supporting her.
Gradually she mastered her agitation.

It was odd that she should feel so much at losing what she valued so little.

Leastways, it would have been odd, had it been that.

It was not--it was something more.

In the awful, august presence of death, stepped so suddenly into their midst, she felt herself appalled.
For nigh upon thirty years she had been bound by legal and churchly ties in a loveless union with Lord Ostermore--married for the handsome portion that had been hers, a portion which he had gamed away and squandered until, for their station, their circumstances were now absolutely straitened.