Once more she thought of the chance which Miss Roseberry had lost.

Unhappy creature! what a home would have been open to her if the shell had only fallen on the side of the window, instead of on the side of the yard! Mercy pushed the letter away from her, and walked impatiently to and fro in the room.
The perversity in her thoughts was not to be mastered in that way.

Her mind only abandoned one useless train of reflection to occupy itself with another.

She was now looking by anticipation at her own future.
What were her prospects (if she lived through it) when the war was over?
The experience of the past delineated with pitiless fidelity the dreary scene.

Go where she might, do what she might, it would always end in the same way.