No
longer a cold, clear face; you would have thought, looking at it, what a
strong spirit the soul of this woman would be, if set free in heaven
or in hell. The man who held it in his power went on carelessly, not
knowing that the mere sound of his step had raised it as from the
dead. She, and her right, and her pain, were nothing to him now, she
remembered, staring out at the taunting hot sky. Yet so vacant was the
sudden life opened before her when he was gone, that, in the desperation
of her weakness, her mad longing to see him but once again, she would
have thrown herself at his feet, and let the cold, heavy step crush her
life out,--as he would have done, she thought, choking down the icy
smother in her throat, if it had served his purpose, though it cost his
own heart's life to do it. He would trample her down, if she kept him
back from his end; but be false to her, false to himself, that he would
never be!
So the hot, long day wore on,--the red bricks, the dusty desk covered
with wool, the miserable chicken peering out, growing sharper and more
real in the glare. Life was no morbid nightmare now; her weak woman's
heart found it actual and near. There was not a pain nor a want, from
the dumb hunger in the dog's eyes that passed her on the street, to her
father's hopeless fancies, that did not touch her sharply through her
own loss, with a keen pity, a wild wish to help to do something to save
others with this poor life left in her hands.
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