The first morning song ceased, and at the silence the sun smiled out in golden irony, and everything was shot with colour.  A wan glow fell on Mrs. Pendyce’s spirit, that for so many hours had been heavy and grey in lonely resolution.  For to her gentle soul, unused to action, shrinking from violence, whose strength was the gift of the ages, passed into it against her very nature, the resolution she had formed was full of pain.  Yet painful, even terrible in its demand for action, it did not waver, but shone like a star behind the dark and heavy clouds.  In Margery Pendyce (who had been a Totteridge) there was no irascible and acrid “people’s blood,” no fierce misgivings, no ill-digested beer and cider—­it was pure claret in her veins—­she had nothing thick and angry in her soul to help her; that which she had resolved she must carry out, by virtue of a thin, fine flame, breathing far down in her—­so far that nothing could extinguish it, so far that it had little warmth.  It was not “I will not be overridden” that her spirit felt, but “I must not be over-ridden, for if I am over-ridden, I, and in me something beyond me, more important than myself, is all undone.”  And though she was far from knowing this, that something was her country’s civilisation, its very soul, the meaning of it all gentleness, balance.  Her spirit, of that quality so little gross that it would never set up a mean or petty quarrel, make mountains out of mole-hills, distort proportion, or get images awry, had taken its stand unconsciously, no sooner than it must, no later than it ought, and from that stand would not recede.  The issue had passed beyond mother love to that self-love, deepest of all, which says: 

“Do this, or forfeit the essence of your soul”

And now that she stole to her bed again, she looked at her sleeping husband whom she had resolved to leave, with no anger, no reproach, but rather with a long, incurious look which toad nothing even to herself.

So, when the morning came of age and it was time to rise, by no action, look, or sign, did she betray the presence of the unusual in her soul.  If this which was before her must be done, it would be carried out as though it were of no import, as though it were a daily action; nor did she force herself to quietude, or pride herself thereon, but acted thus from instinct, the instinct for avoiding fuss and unnecessary suffering that was bred in her.

Mr. Pendyce went out at half-past ten accompanied by his bailiff and the spaniel John.  He had not the least notion that his wife still meant the words she had spoken overnight.  He had told her again while dressing that he would have no more to do with George, that he would cut him out of his will, that he would force him by sheer rigour to come to heel, that, in short, he meant to keep his word, and it would have been unreasonable in him to believe that a woman, still less his wife, meant to keep hers.