Time stood still.
Let no one say that he has found life difficult till he has known what it is to wait; till he has waited through the endless days that turn into weeks more slowly than an acorn turns into a sapling; through the unmoving weeks that turn into months more slowly than a sapling turns into a forest tree,--for a word which does not come.
* * * * * Late in the autumn, six months and five days after the death of the duke--Michael marked each day with a scratch on the wall--he received a letter from Wentworth.

He was allowed to receive two letters a year.
He dreaded to open it.

He should hear she was dead.

He had known all the time that she was dead.

That flowerlike face was dust.
With half blind eyes, that made the words flicker and run into each other, he sought through Wentworth's long letter for her name.