But in this great crisis in her life she could not write.

She would sit for hours vainly striving to arouse her languid brain.

It seemed to her that she had lost this gift also in the utter ruin that had overtaken her.
Felicita's white, silent, benumbed grief, accepting the conviction of her husband's guilt with no feminine contradicting or loud lamenting, touched Mr.Clifford with more pity than he felt for Madame, who bore her son's mysterious absence with a more simple and natural sorrow.
There was something irritating to him in the fact that Roland's mother ignored the accusation he made against him.

But when Roland had been away three months, and the police authorities had given up all expectation of discovering anything by watching his home and family, Mr.
Clifford felt that it was time something should be arranged which would deliver Felicita from her voluntary imprisonment.
"Why do you not go away ?" he asked her; "you cannot continue to live mewed up here all your days.

If Roland should be found, it would be better for you not to be in Riversborough.