The Mother's Recompense by Edith Wharton

Extreme exhaustion -- the sense of having reached the last limit of / endurable emotion -- plunged Kate Clephane, that night, into a dreamless / sleep. It was months and months since she had reached those nethermost / levels below sound or image or any mental movement; and she rose from / them revived, renewed -- and then suddenly understood that they had been / only a grief-drugged mockery.

The return to reality was as painful as that of a traveller who has / fallen asleep in the snow. One by one she had to readjust all her / frozen faculties to the unchanged and intolerable situation; and she / felt weaker, less able to contend with it. The thought that that very / day she might have to face Chris Fenno paralyzed her. He had asked to / see her alone -- and she lay there, in the desolate dawn, rehearsing / to herself all the cruel things he would find to say; for his ways / of being cruel were innumerable. The day before she had felt almost / light-heartedly confident of being able to outface, to outlast him; of / her power of making the situation even more intolerable to him than / he could make it to her. Now, in the merciless morning light, she / had a new view of their respective situations. Who had suffered most / the previous evening, he or she? Whose wakening that morning was most / oppressed by fears? He had proposed to have a talk with her; he had had / the courage to do that; and she felt that by having that courage he had / already gained another point in their silent struggle.