He was hastening to meet his wife, possibly with some scheme for their future, which might have hope and deliverance in it, when this calamity hurried him away into the awful, unknown world, on whose threshold we are ever standing.

But for her ardent sympathy for Felicita, Phebe would have been herself overwhelmed.

It was the thought of her, with this terrible and secret addition to her sorrow, which bore her through the long journey and helped her to meet Felicita with something like calmness.
From the bay-window of the lodging-house Mr.Clifford watched Felicita coming slowly and feebly toward the house.

So fragile she looked, so unutterably sorrow-stricken, that a rush of compassion and pity opened the floodgates of his heart, and suffused his stern eyes with tears.
Doubtless Phebe had told her all.

Yet she was coming alone to meet him, her husband's enemy and persecutor, as if he was a friend.