She was trying to rouse herself to those feelings which had been the cause of all her past misery and whose crisis had brought about the final desperate action. She was trying to rouse in her mother sympathy for those feelings, and it goaded her to know that both efforts failed. Mrs. Ingestre was gazing out of the window, and her pale face was still grave and pitiful.
"You see things with your own eyes, my Nora," she said, with a faint, wistful smile. "I see them from a long way off, and with eyes that suffering has cleared from all prejudice and hatred. And then—I was very fond of Wolff."
Nora turned away, her small hands clenched.
"That—that means I have done wrong?" she said almost fiercely.
"Have I blamed you?"
"No, but——"
"I can have pity for both, Nora. I can see that you had much to bear—perhaps more than was tolerable for one so young and headstrong. But I can see Wolff's side too. I can see him come home that night and find you gone——"
She stopped as though her imagination had led her before a sorrow for which she found no words, and Nora too was silent. Profoundly embittered and disappointed, she stood looking at the still beautiful face of the woman in whose sympathy she had had implicit trust. Was, then, everything to fail her, even in her home, the home which she had seen in her exile's dreams? Was she to stand alone? Was there no one who would understand her and all that she had endured?
"When Miles believed that war had broken out he would not stay an hour longer," she said at last, and her voice had a defiant note. "He could not bear to be away from his own country. Why should I, because I am a woman, feel less than he?"
"Because you are a woman, and because you feel more, the greater sacrifice is asked of you," was the quiet answer. "In this life there is always some one who must bring the sacrifice, and it is always the one who feels deepest and loves most. That is why it is ordained that women should suffer for their children, and often for their husbands. It seems at first sight unjust. It is really the greatest compliment which God and Nature can pay us."