For the time was so long, and she was so tired.
Still she never doubted that her lover would comeback: he had said he would come: she was as sure that he would come as she was sure that God came in the midst of the people when the silver bell rang and the Host was borne by on high.
Bebee did not heed much, but she vaguely-felt the isolation she was left in: as a child too young to reason feels cold and feels hunger.
"No one wants me here now that Annemie is gone," she thought to herself, as the sweet green spring days unfolded themselves one by one like the buds of the brier-rose hedges.
And now and then even the loyal little soul of her gave way, and sobbing on her lonely bed in the long dark nights, she would cry out against him, "Oh, why not have left me alone?
I was so happy--so happy!" And then she would reproach herself with treason to him and ingratitude, and hate herself and feel guilty in her own sight to have thus sinned against him in thought for one single instant.
For there are natures in which the generosity of love is so strong that it feels its own just pain to be disloyalty; and Bebee's was one of them.
And if he had killed her she would have died hoping only that no moan had escaped her under the blow that ever could accuse him.
These natures, utterly innocent by force of self-accusation and self-abasement, suffer at once the torment of the victim and the criminal..