On the table beside her lay a book which she had thrown down with a gesture of impatience.

She was too restless to read, or to work; and the intense quietude of the great house weighed upon her with the weight of a tomb.
All day, since she had left Stafford, his words of passionate love had haunted her.

They sang in her ears even as she spoke to her father or Jessie, or the dogs who followed her about with wistful eyes as if they were asking her what ailed her, and as if they would help her.
He loved her! She had said it to herself a thousand times all through the long afternoon, the dragging evening.

He loved her.

It was so strange, so incredible.