....

There came a hush over everything as the day crept towards noon, and the
widowed woman sat in her own room with an inactive mind, watching thin
bars of sunlight burn their slow way across the floor. He was dead. It
was going on now more steadfastly than ever. He was keeping dead. He was
dead at last for good and her married life was over, that life that had
always seemed the only possible life, and this stunning incident, this
thing that was like the blinding of eyes or the bursting of eardrums,
was to be the beginning of strange new experiences.

She was afraid at first at their possible strangeness. And then, you
know, in spite of a weak protesting compunction she began to feel
glad....

She would not admit to herself that she was glad, that she was anything
but a woman stunned, she maintained her still despondent attitude as
long as she could, but gladness broke upon her soul as the day breaks,
and a sense of release swam up to the horizons of her mind and rose upon
her, flooding every ripple of her being, as the sun rises over water in
a clear sky. Presently she could sit there no longer, she had to stand
up. She walked to the closed Venetians to look out upon the world and
checked herself upon the very verge of flinging them open. He was dead
and it was all over for ever. Of course!--it was all over! Her marriage
was finished and done. Miss Satchell came to summon her to lunch.
Throughout that meal Lady Harman maintained a sombre bearing, and
listened with attention to the young doctor's comments on the manner of
Sir Isaac's going. And then,--it was impossible to go back to her room.

"My head aches," she said, "I must go down and sit by the sea," and her
maid, a little shocked, brought her not only her sunshade, but needless
wraps--as though a new-made widow must necessarily be very sensitive to
the air. She would not let her maid come with her, she went down to the
beach alone. She sat on some rocks near the very edge of the transparent
water and fought her gladness for a time and presently yielded to it. He
was dead. One thought filled her mind, for a while so filled her mind,
that no other thought it seemed could follow it, it had an effect of
being final; it so filled her mind that it filled the whole world; the
broad sapphire distances of the sea, the lapping waves amidst the rocks
at her feet, the blazing sun, the dark headland of Porto Fino and a
small sailing boat that hung beyond came all within