Thinking of the day when she had given it up, she remembered it with a vague consciousness of having fought a deadly struggle with her fate, and that she had been conquered,--never had lived again.

Let it be; she could not bear the struggle again.
She went on dressing herself in a dreary, mechanical way.

Once, a bitter laugh came on her face, as she looked into the glass, and saw the dead, dull eyes, and the wrinkle on her forehead.

Was that the face to be crowned with delicate caresses and love?
She scorned herself for the moment, grew sick of herself, balked, thwarted in her true life as she was.

Other women whom God has loved enough to probe to the depths of their nature have done the same,--saw themselves as others saw them: their strength drying up within them, jeered at, utterly alone.