To abide by a mistake is sometimes all that an impetuous youth leaves an honorable middle age to do.

Poor middle age, with its clear vision, that might do and be so much if it were not for the heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, which youth has bound upon its shoulders.
And worse than the dreary weight of personal unhappiness, harder to bear than the pang of disappointed love, was the aching sense of failure, of having misunderstood God's intention, and broken the purpose of her life.

For some natures the cup of life holds no bitterer drop than this.
Ruth dimly saw the future, the future which she had chosen, stretching out waste and barren before her.

The dry air of the desert was on her face.

Her feet were already on its sandy verge.