“It only seems so to you,” she said, in a voice muffled by the beating of her heart. Anything might happen—she had no power.... Mother—almost killed by things she could not control, having done her duty all her life ... doing thing after thing had not satisfied her ... being happy and brave had not satisfied her. There was something she had always wanted, for herself ... even mother....
Mrs. Henderson shuddered and sighed. Her pose relaxed a little.
“I might have done something for the poor.”
“Oh, yes? What things?” She had lived in a nightmare of ways and means, helpless....
“I might have made clothes, sometimes....”
“That worries you, so that you can hardly bear it.”
“Yes.”
“It needn’t. I don’t mean the poor need not be helped. But you needn’t have that feeling.”
“You understand it?”
“I feel it this moment, as you feel it.”