Had it struck her, indeed, it would have moved her to laughter, for Elizabeth had a practical mind.
What did strike her, as she turned and watched the rich squire's sturdy form vanish through the doorway into the dark beyond, was a certain sense of wonder.

Supposing she had never seen that shiver of returning life run up those white limbs, supposing that they had grown colder and colder, till at length it was evident that death was so firmly citadelled within the silent heart, that no human skill could beat his empire back?
What then?
Owen Davies loved her sister; this she knew and had known for years.

But would he not have got over it in time?
Would he not in time have been overpowered by the sense of his own utter loneliness and given his hand, if not his heart, to some other woman?
And could not she who held his hand learn to reach his heart?
And to whom would that hand have been given, the hand and all that went with it?
What woman would this shy Welsh hermit, without friends or relations, have ever been thrown in with except herself--Elizabeth--who loved him as much as she could love anybody, which, perhaps, was not very much; who, at any rate, desired sorely to be his wife.

Would not all this have come about if she had never seen that eyelid tremble, and that slight quiver run up her sister's limbs?
It would--she knew it would.
Elizabeth thought of it as for a moment she stood in the passage, and a cold hungry light came into her neutral tinted eyes and shone upon her pale face.

But she choked back the thought; she was scarcely wicked enough to wish that her sister had not been brought back to life.