m, and out to the study. There sat
the meagre charity-seekers, looking as if they were at the doctor's.

'Mr Crich can't see you. He can't see you at this hour. Do you think he
is your property, that you can come whenever you like? You must go
away, there is nothing for you here.'

The poor people rose in confusion. But Mr Crich, pale and black-bearded
and deprecating, came behind her, saying:

'Yes, I don't like you coming as late as this. I'll hear any of you in
the morning part of the day, but I can't really do with you after.
What's amiss then, Gittens. How is your Missis?'

'Why, she's sunk very low, Mester Crich, she's a'most gone, she is--'

Sometimes, it seemed to Mrs Crich as if her husband were some subtle
funeral bird, feeding on the miseries of the people. It seemed to her
he was never satisfied unless there was some sordid tale being poured
out to him, which he drank in with a sort of mournful, sympathetic
satisfaction. He would have no RAISON D'ETRE if there were no
lugubrious miseries in the world, as an undertaker would have no
meaning if there were no funerals.

Mrs Crich recoiled back upon herself, she recoiled away from this world
of creeping democracy. A band of tight, baleful exclusion fastened
round her heart, her isolation was fierce and hard, her antagonism was
passive but terribly pure, like that of a hawk in a cage. As the years
went on, she lost more and more count of the world, she seemed rapt in
some glittering abstraction, almost purely unconscious. She would
wander about the house and about the surrounding country, staring
keenly and seeing nothing. She rarely spoke, she had no connection with
the world. And she did not even think. She was consumed in a fierce
tension of opposition, like the negative pole of a magnet.

And she bore many children. For, as time went on, she never opposed her
husband in word or deed. She took no notice of him, externally. She
submitted to him, let him take what he wanted and do as he wanted with
her. She was like a hawk that sullenly submits to everything. The
relation between her and her husband was wordless and unknown, but it
was deep, awful, a relation of utter inter-destruction. And he, who
triumphed in the world, he became more and more hollow in his vitality,
the vitality was bled from within him, as by some haemorrhage. She was
hulked like a hawk in a cage, but her heart was fierce and undiminished
within her, though her mind was destroyed.