With the instinct of the stricken animal she turned from her kind.

Her father?
What had he ever been to her?
Aunt Pattie?
Her very sympathy and pity made Eleanor thankful to be parted from her.

Other kith and kin?
No! Happy, she could have loved them; miserable, she cared for none of them.

Her unlucky marriage had numbed and silenced her for years.

From that frost the waters of life had been loosened, only to fail now at their very source.
Her whole nature was one wound.