a person Hilda was! With the eyes shut, Sarah's worn face
under her black bonnet had precisely the aspect of a corpse--and the
corpse of somebody who had expired under the weight of all the world's
woe! Hilda thought: "When she is dead she will look just like that!...
And one day, sooner or later, she will be dead." Strange that Sarah
Gailey, with no malady except her chronic rheumatism, and no material
anxiety, and every prospect of security in old age, could not be
content, could not at any rate refrain from being miserable! But she
could not. She was an exhaustless fount of worry and misery. "I suppose
I like her," thought Hilda. "But why do I like her? She isn't agreeable.
She isn't amusing. She isn't pretty. She isn't even kind, now. She's
only depressing and tedious. As soon as she's fixed up here, I shall go.
I shall leave her. I've done enough, and I've had enough. I must attend
to my own affairs a bit. After all--" And then Hilda's conscience
interrupted: "But can you leave her altogether? Without you, what will
happen to her? She's getting older and worse every day. Perhaps in a few
years she won't even be competent. Already she isn't perhaps quite,
quite as competent as she was." And Hilda said: "Well, of course, I
shall have to keep an eye on her; come and see her sometimes--often."
And she knew that as long as they both lived she could never be free
from a sense of responsibility towards Sarah Gailey. Useless to argue:
"It's George Cannon's affair, not mine!" Useless to ask: "_Why_ should I
feel responsible?" Only after she had laid Sarah Gailey in the tomb
would she be free. "And that day too will come!" she thought again. "I
shall have to go through it, and I shall go through it!"

The poignant romance of existence enveloped her in its beautiful veils.
And through these veils she saw, vague and diminished, the far vista of
the hours which she had spent with the Orgreaves. She saw the night of
Edwin Clayhanger's visit, and herself and him together in the porch,
and she remembered the shock of his words, "There's no virtue in
believing." The vision was like that of another and quite separate life.
Would she ever go back to it? Janet was her friend, in theory her one
intimate friend: she had seen her once in London,--beautiful, agreeable,
affectionate, intelligent; all the Orgreaves were lovable. The glance of
Edwin Clayhanger, and the sincerity of his smile, had affected her in a
manner absolutely unique...