"I had no children," she said hardly; "all the stitches I've ever gathered was for my man."
Her gaze upon Mary continued for a long silence then, as though her needles had called them, her eyes withdrew to her knitting. Saying no more, she continued her occupation.
To Mary could she have said less? There was the gap filled in between that winsome creature whose portrait hung upon the wall in the other room and this woman, sour of countenance, whose blood had turned to vinegar in her heart.
Many another woman would have been still more afraid, possessed of such knowledge as that. With a heart that swelled in her to pity, Mary found her fear had gone.
Somewhere in that forbidding exterior, she knew she could find the response of heart she needed. Even Nature, with her crudest whip, could not drive out the deeper kindliness of the soul. It was only the body she could dry up and wither, with the persisting ferment of discontent; only the external woman she could embitter with her disregard.
For here was one whom circumstance had offered and Nature had flung aside. Great as the tragedy of her sisters' lives might be, Mary knew how much greater a tragedy was this. Here there was no remedy, no fear of convention to make excuse, no want of courage to justify. Like a leper she was outcast amongst women. The knowledge of it was all in her face. And such tragedy as this, though it might wither the body and turn sour the heart, could only make the soul great that suffered it.
Mary's fear was gone. At sight of the unforgiving line of lip and square set chin to meet adversity, she knew a great soul was hidden behind that sallow mask.
The long silence that had followed Mrs. Peverell's admission added a fullness of meaning to Mary's words.
"It'd sound foolish and empty if I said I was sorry," she said quietly, "but I know what you must feel."
The lusterless eyes shot up quickly from their hollows. Almost a light was kindling in them now.