That was when her husband was
brought home to die in her arms. She had a sudden conviction, as,
holding the blind in her hand, she looked out into the night, that again
tragedy was to cross her threshold. Standing for an instant under the
fascination of terror, she recovered herself with a shiver, and, stepping
down from the chair where she had been fixing the blind, with the
instinct of real woman, she ran to the bed of the room where she was, and
made it ready. Why did she feel that it was Shiel Crozier's bed which
should be made ready? Or did she not feel it? Was it only a dazed,
automatic act, not connected with the person who was to lie in the bed?
Was she then a fatalist? Were trouble and sorrow so much her portion
that to her mind this tragedy, whatever it was, must touch the man
nearest to her--and certainly Shiel Crozier was far nearer than Jesse
Bulrush. Quite apart from wealth or position, personality plays a part
more powerful than all else in the eyes of every woman who has a soul
which has substance enough to exist at all. Such men as Crozier have
compensations for "whate'er they lack." It never occurred to Mrs. Tynan
to go to Jesse Bulrush's room or the room of middle-aged, comely Nurse
Egan. She did the instinctive thing, as did the woman who sent a man a
rope as a gift, on the ground that the fortune in his hand said that he
was born not to be drowned.
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