Hitherto she had walked on air, driven by one overpowering impulse. Now, as she sat in the train, she thought a little of herself. What was before her? To break to Mrs. Staines that her husband was dead. To tell her all her misgivings were more than justified. To encounter her cold civility, and let her know, inch by inch, it must be exchanged for curses and tearing of hair; her husband was dead. To tell her this, and in the telling of it, perhaps reveal that it was HER great bereavement, as well as the wife's, for she had a deeper affection for him than she ought.
Well, she trembled like an aspen leaf, trembled like one in an ague, even as she sat. But she persevered.
A noble woman has her courage; not exactly the same as that which leads forlorn hopes against bastions bristling with rifles and tongued with flames and thunderbolts; yet not inferior to it.
Tadcaster, small and dull, but noble by birth and instinct, had seen the right thing for her to do; and she, of the same breed, and nobler far, had seen it too; and the great soul steadily drew the recoiling heart and quivering body to this fiery trial, this act of humanity—to do which was terrible and hard, to shirk it, cowardly and cruel.
She reached Gravesend, and drove in a fly to Kent Villa.
The door was opened by a maid.
“Is Mrs. Staines at home?”
“Yes, ma'am, she is at HOME: but—”
“Can I see her?”
“Why, no, ma'am, not at present.”