Any one with keen analytic eye, noting the thin muscles of this woman, the protruding brain, the eyes deep, concealing, would have foretold that she would conquer in the fight; force her soul down,--but that the forcing down would leave the weak, flaccid body spent and dead.

One thing was certain: no curious eyes would see the struggle; the body might be nerveless or sickly, but it had the great power of reticence; the calm with which she faced the closest gaze was natural to her,--no mask.

When she left her room and went down, the same unaltered quiet that had baffled Knowles steadied her step and cooled her eyes.
After you have made a sacrifice of yourself for others, did you ever notice how apt you were to doubt, as soon as the deed was irrevocable, whether, after all, it were worth while to have done it?
How mean seems the good gained! How new and unimagined the agony of empty hands and stifled wish! Very slow the angels are, sometimes, that are sent to minister! Margret, going down the stairs that morning, found none of the chivalric unselfish glow of the night before in her home.

It was an old, bare house in the midst of dreary stubble fields, in which her life was slowly to be worn out: working for those who did not comprehend her; thanked her little,--that was all.

It did not matter; life was short: she could thank God for that at least.
She opened the house-door.