it often happened
that she lay down only to rise before she could sleep. Her task was
lighter when her mother's mind strayed from the present; but even then
Mrs. Hood talked constantly, and was irritated if Emily failed in
attention. The usual subject was her happiness in the days before her
marriage; she would revive memories of her school, give long accounts of
her pupils, even speak of proposals of marriage which she had had the
pleasure of declining. At no time did she refer to Hood's death, but
often enough she uttered lamentations over the hardships in which her
marriage had resulted, and compared her lot with what it might have been
if she had chosen this or that other man. Emily was pained unspeakably
by this revelation of her mother's nature, for she knew that it was idle
to explain such tendencies of thought as the effect of disease; it was,
in truth, only the emphasising of the faults she had always found it so
hard to bear with. She could not understand the absence of a single note
of affection or sorrow in all these utterances, and the fact was indeed
strange, bearing in mind Mrs. Hood's outburst of loving grief when her
husband was brought home, and the devotedness she had shown throughout
Emily's illness. Were the selfish habits of years too strong for those
better instincts which had never found indulgence till stirred by the
supreme shock? Thinking over the problem in infinite sadness, this was
the interpretation with which Emily had to satisfy herself, and she saw
in it the most dreadful punishment which a life-long fault could have
entailed.

Though to her mother so sublimely forbearing, in her heart she knew too
well the bitterness of revolt against nature's cruelty; her own causes
of suffering became almost insignificant in her view of the tragedy of
life. Was not this calamity upon her surviving parent again a result of
her own action? Was it possible to avoid a comparison between this
blasted home and the appearance it might at this moment have presented
if she had sacrificed herself? What crime had she ever been guilty of
that such expiation could be demanded of her? She mocked at her misery
for so questioning; as if causes and effects were to be thus discerned
in fate's dealings. Emily had never known the phase of faith which finds
comfort in the confession of native corruptness, nor did the desolation
of her life guide her into that orthodox form of pessimism. She was not
conscious of impurity,