However, she went on working placidly at her hack-work, and living
for little Dolly. Her one wish now was to make Dolly press toward
the mark for the prize of the high calling she herself by mere
accident had missed so narrowly. Her own life was done; Alan's
death had made her task impossible; but if Dolly could fill her
place for the sake of humanity, she would not regret it. Enough
for her to have martyred herself; she asked no mercenary palm and
crown of martyrdom.
And she was happy in her life; as far as a certain tranquil sense
of duty done could make her, she was passively happy. Her kind of
journalism was so commonplace and so anonymous that she was spared
that worst insult of seeing her hack-work publicly criticised as
though it afforded some adequate reflection of the mind that
produced it, instead of being merely an index of taste in the minds
of those for whose use it was intended. So she lived for years, a
machine for the production of articles and reviews; and a devoted
mother to little developing Dolly.
On Dolly the hopes of half the world now centred.