She was looking very badly that morning, her face was stained, and her eye hard with a look as if tears had frozen in them.

She had come in a soiled waist, too, without any collar.
"For Heaven's sake, Eva Tenny, what ails you ?" Fanny cried.
Eva flung herself for answer on the floor, and fairly writhed.

Words were not enough expression for her violent temperament.

She had to resort to physical manifestations or lose her reason.

As she writhed, she groaned as one might do who was dying in extremity of pain.
Ellen, when she heard her aunt's groans, stopped, and stood in the entry viewing it all.