It was not so with Magdalen.

Tearless and speechless, she sat in the room where the revelation of her father's death had first reached her; her face, unnaturally petrified by the sterile sorrow of old age--a white, changeless blank, fearful to look at.

Nothing roused, nothing melted her.

She only said, "Don't speak to me; don't touch me.

Let me bear it by myself"-- and fell silent again.