Other people began to come into the room, and to pass her,
but she did not speak to any of them or even look at them, and at last,
as if it were necessary to do something, she sat down in a chair, and
looked quietly and fixedly in front of her. She felt very old this
morning, and useless too, as if her life had been a failure, as if it
had been hard and laborious to no purpose. She did not want to go on
living, and yet she knew that she would. She was so strong that she
would live to be a very old woman. She would probably live to be eighty,
and as she was now fifty, that left thirty years more for her to
live. She turned her hands over and over in her lap and looked at them
curiously; her old hands, that had done so much work for her. There did
not seem to be much point in it all; one went on, of course one went
on. . . . She looked up to see Mrs. Thornbury standing beside her, with
lines drawn upon her forehead, and her lips parted as if she were about
to ask a question.
Miss Allan anticipated her.
"Yes," she said. "She died this morning, very early, about three
o'clock."
Mrs. Thornbury made a little exclamation, drew her lips together, and
the tears rose in her eyes. Through them she looked at the hall which
was now laid with great breadths of sunlight, and at the careless,
casual groups of people who were standing beside the solid arm-chairs
and tables.
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