Why had he so clearly pitied her just now in the passage?
Why had he checked himself from the kiss?
She was too tired to reason it out.

She was conscious that she was very wretched, and the tears gathered in her eyes; and in the darkness of her room she cried silently, pressing the sheet to her lips lest a sob should be heard.

Were all her dreams mere empty imaginings?
she asked.

If so, why should they ever have come to her?
she inquired piteously; why should she have found solace in them--why should they have become her real life?
Did no one walk the earth of all that company which went with her in her fancies?
Upon that her thoughts flew to the Alps, to the evening in the Pavillon de Lognan, the climb upon the rocks and the glittering ice-slope, the perfect hour upon the sunlit top of the Aiguille d'Argentiere.

The memory of the mountains brought her consolation in her bad hour, as her friend had prophesied it would.