Yet painful, even terrible in its demand for action, it did not waver,
but shone like a star behind the dark and heavy clouds. In Margery
Pendyce (who had been a Totteridge) there was no irascible and acrid
"people's blood," no fierce misgivings, no ill-digested beer and
cider--it was pure claret in her veins--she had nothing thick and angry
in her soul to help her; that which she had resolved she must carry out,
by virtue of a thin, fine flame, breathing far down in her--so far that
nothing could extinguish it, so far that it had little warmth. It was
not "I will not be overridden" that her spirit felt, but "I must not be
over-ridden, for if I am over-ridden, I, and in me something beyond me,
more important than myself, is all undone." And though she was far from
knowing this, that something was her country's civilisation, its very
soul, the meaning of it all gentleness, balance. Her spirit, of that
quality so little gross that it would never set up a mean or petty
quarrel, make mountains out of mole-hills, distort proportion, or get
images awry, had taken its stand unconsciously, no sooner than it must,
no later than it ought, and from that stand would not recede. The issue
had passed beyond mother love to that self-love, deepest of all, which
says:
"Do this, or forfeit the essence of your soul"
And now that she stole to her bed again, she looked at her sleeping
husband whom she had resolved to leave, with no anger, no reproach, but
rather with a long, incurious look which toad nothing even to herself.
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