It seemed, however, utterly indefinite when Mrs.Lawrence would be able to plan anything.

She lay in her bed or sat in her chair, silent, pale, and as weak as a child.

The blow of her husband's desertion seemed to have stopped all the springs of action.

Neither the chaplain, the post-surgeon, nor Mrs.McGillicuddy, singly or united, could rouse Mrs.
Lawrence from the deadly lassitude of a broken heart.

Both the chaplain and the surgeon had seen such cases, and nothing in the pharmacopoeia could cure them.
Mrs.Fortescue, whose heart was not less tender from long dwelling on the airy heights of happiness and perfect love, was full of sympathy for Lawrence's unfortunate wife, and would have gone to see her, but Mrs.McGillicuddy, who delivered the message, brought back a discouraging reply.
"She says, mum, as she don't need nothin' at all, and I think, mum, she kinder shrinks from the orficers' wives more than from the soldiers' wives." Anita, who was sitting by, went to her mother and, putting her arms around Mrs.Fortescue's neck, whispered: "Mother, let me go to see Mrs.Lawrence.