During their three months of hardship their relations had undergone a curious change. Mary’s outburst of jealous anger when she learned the true cause of his dismissal from The Dyke, had swept through her like a storm, stripping her heart of its hidden grudges and reservations. It passed, leaving her weak, bewildered, and yet happy. It was as if this sudden tempest, while almost destroying her, had snapped the last threads that bound her to her old life. All the past was broken. It rolled away from her in a tumult of spent cloud, and in the serene silence that followed she came to herself, realising that she was alone in the world with Abner and her children. It was like the bewildered calm that comes after an escape from death; the hushed birth of a new world; a strange, unearthly quiet. In this new state she found herself most eager to atone for the endless, wordless contest that she had waged against him. She knew that she could never repay him a hundredth part of what he had given her and suffered at her hands. The money was nothing. What he had sacrificed for her was his freedom, a hard denial for a man in the prime of youth. And so, thinking gratefully of his goodness toward her and of his unfathomed patience, she began to dwell tenderly on other aspects of the man: his splendid, supple strength, his honest eyes, the straightness and simplicity of his whole nature, and to compare them, instinctively, with what she knew of her husband: his superficial charm, his persuasive manners, and his callous heart: all those qualities that she had been taught by bitterest experience to hate and to mistrust. It was in this light that Abner seemed to her most wonderful. And she had used him like a shrew! Every natural impulse of kindness in him she had checked and thwarted! Pride had made her thankless; prudishness had hardened her. She was detestable, and if he hated her she had only herself to thank for it. But did he hate her? She hoped, fervently, that he did not. She could not bear that he should hate her. It pained her even to think that she owed his kindness to the fact that he had given some promise to George, and in the simplicity of his nature felt that he must redeem it. She knew that he was fond of the children and could not bear to see them suffer; but that was not enough for her. Her new being craved for a personal devotion. If that were not forthcoming she felt that she would have little left in the world, that her life must be finally bitter and useless. And she knew that she was far too young for any such finality. She hated the pride that had brought her to this, and resolved to proclaim her new humility by every means in her power.