As he stood and watched her working quite assiduously but in something like isolation, he felt as though ten years had slipped from his age, and trifled with his pleasure as the rest of us do when we behold a despaired-of goal loom suddenly in sight.

Was she the woman he had pictured in his mind's eye?
Hardly.

Yet there was an admirable directness in her movements.

From the way she went about things, he could plainly see that she would master her duties in no time if Fate did not interpose to prevent.

It certainly was hard to interrupt her in her work just when she was on the way to safety and competence.