No, without George there was only loveless old age--there was only the future of Miss Amelia before her.

And she clung to this idea with a horror which Miss Amelia, who seldom reflected that she was loveless and by no means considered herself an object of pity, would have despised.
"I have no right to marry George, and yet if I don't marry him I shall be miserable all my life," she told herself with a sensation of panic.
It would be so long, the rest of her life, and without George it was as desolate as the gray road of her vision.

All the beauties of the universe, all the miracles of hope, of youth, of spring; her health, her intellect, her capacity for work and for taking pleasure in little things--all these were as nothing to her if she lost George out of her life.

"I oughtn't to marry him," she repeated, "but if I don't marry him I shall be miserable every minute until I die." Then a terror more awful than any she had yet suffered clutched at her heart.

Suppose he should never come back! Suppose he had really meant to leave her for good! Suppose he had ceased to love her since he went out of the house! The possibility was so agonizing that she rose blindly from her chair and turned from the window as if the quiet street, filled with the dreamy sunshine of October, had offered an appalling, an unbelievable sight to her eyes.