Not that she was idle, for she had obtained through Courtier the work of reviewing music in a woman's paper, for which she was intuitively fitted.

This, her flowers, her own music, and the affairs of certain families of cottagers, filled nearly all her time.

And she asked no better fate than to have every minute occupied, having that passion for work requiring no initiation, which is natural to the owners of lazy minds.
Suddenly she dropped her newspaper, went to the bowl of flowers on the breakfast-table, and plucked forth two stalks of lavender; holding them away from her, she went out into the garden, and flung them over the wall.
This strange immolation of those two poor sprigs, born so early, gathered and placed before her with such kind intention by her maid, seemed of all acts the least to be expected of one who hated to hurt people's feelings, and whose eyes always shone at the sight of flowers.
But in truth the smell of lavender--that scent carried on her husband's handkerchief and clothes--still affected her so strongly that she could not bear to be in a room with it.

As nothing else did, it brought before her one, to live with whom had slowly become torture.

And freed by that scent, the whole flood of memory broke in on her.