It was Stephen's tone of misery, it was the doubt in the justice of her own resolve, that made the balance tremble, and made her once start from her seat to reach the pen and paper, and write "Come!"
But close upon that decisive act, her mind recoiled;and the sense of contradiction with her past self in her moments of strength and clearness came upon her like a pang of conscious degradation. No, she must wait;she must pray; the light that had forsaken her would come again; she should feel again what she had felt when she had fled away, under an inspiration strong enough to conquer agony,–to conquer love; she should feel again what she had felt when Lucy stood by her,when Philip's letter had stirred all the fibres that bound her to the calmer past.