Her mind was beaten to the ground by this catastrophe, of which to this moment she had never allowed herself to think.  She had never allowed herself to think of it.  The figure of her husband, like some pitiful beast, wounded and bleeding, filled her mind.  She gave scarcely a thought to Hugh.  “Oh, what can I do for him?” she asked herself, sitting down before her unlit bedroom fire....  “What can I say or do?”

She brooded until she shivered, and then she lit her fire....

It was late that night and after an eternity of resolutions and doubts and indecisions that Mrs. Britling went to her husband.  He was sitting close up to the fire with his chin upon his hands, waiting for her; he felt that she would come to him, and he was thinking meanwhile of Hugh with a slow unprogressive movement of the mind.  He showed by a movement that he heard her enter the room, but he did not turn to look at her.  He shrank a little from her approach.

She came and stood beside him.  She ventured to touch him very softly, and to stroke his head.  “My dear,” she said.  “My poor dear!

“It is so dreadful for you,” she said, “it is so dreadful for you.  I know how you loved him....”

He spread his hands over his face and became very still.

“My poor dear!” she said, still stroking his hair, “my poor dear!”

And then she went on saying “poor dear,” saying it presently because there was nothing more had come into her mind.  She desired supremely to be his comfort, and in a little while she was acting comfort so poorly that she perceived her own failure.  And that increased her failure, and that increased her paralysing sense of failure....

And suddenly her stroking hand ceased.  Suddenly the real woman cried out from her.

“I can’t reach you!” she cried aloud.  “I can’t reach you.  I would do anything....  You!  You with your heart half broken....”

She turned towards the door.  She moved clumsily, she was blinded by her tears.

Mr. Britling uncovered his face.  He stood up astonished, and then pity and pitiful understanding came storming across his grief.  He made a step and took her in his arms.  “My dear,” he said, “don’t go from me....”

She turned to him weeping, and put her arms about his neck, and he too was weeping.

“My poor wife!” he said, “my dear wife.  If it were not for you—­I think I could kill myself to-night.  Don’t cry, my dear.  Don’t, don’t cry.  You do not know how you comfort me.  You do not know how you help me.”

He drew her to him; he put her cheek against his own....

His heart was so sore and wounded that he could not endure that another human being should go wretched.  He sat down in his chair and drew her upon his knees, and said everything he could think of to console her and reassure her and make her feel that she was of value to him.  He spoke of every pleasant aspect of their lives, of every aspect, except that he never named that dear pale youth who waited now....  He could wait a little longer....