Although she was now three-and-twenty, she was still a child, a child of thirteen, who had retired within herself, absorbed in the bitter catastrophe which had annihilated her.

You could tell this by the frigidity of her glance, by her absent expression, by the haunted air she ever wore, unable as she was to bestow a thought on anything but her calamity.

And never was woman's soul more pure and candid, arrested as it had been in its development.

She had had no other romance in life save that tearful farewell to her friend, which for ten long years had sufficed to fill her heart.

During the endless days which she had spent on her couch of wretchedness, she had never gone beyond this dream--that if she had grown up in health, he doubtless would not have become a priest, in order to live near her.