§ 8
In the little back bedroom she sat down on the bed and tried to gather her wits. She was overwhelmed by a feeling of physical weariness: that was not surprising, for she had walked perhaps fifteen miles that day. In the candle-light she saw her face in the mirror: she was surprised to find herself almost ashen pale. Her red hair floated cloud-like around her head: in the little hand-mirror there was not room to see all of it at once. But it was still flying as if in the wind, and it was gorgeously wild and untamed....
“My God,” George Trant had said, “your hair!” ...
... Catherine was surprised, almost shocked that she had as yet shed no tears for her mother. It seemed such a brutally callous piece of negligence, and Catherine was sure she was neither brutal nor callous.... Yet tears would not come.
She undressed and got into bed....
The pumping-engine at the water-works went on at its patient chug-chugging, and forthwith a myriad memories of childhood came back to her.... She could feel the tears welling up into her eyes, and then she realized that it was sentiment and not grief that was affecting her. She would not weep for sentiment, like the heroines in the six-penny novels that Madge Saunders read.
Ever and anon the whisper came echoing through her mind: “My God ... your hair!” ...
From the very insistence of her thoughts she could not fall asleep until morning was well advanced, but when she did, her sleep was calm and dreamless....