Before breakfast in the dewy
grass, gathering apples; during work hours, talking through the open
window as he chanced to pass; after five o'clock, walks in the orchard,
walks over the farm, in the woods everywhere, and always those two
together, because there were four of them. How much worse it was that
there were four of them! And the evenings, moonlight, starlight; on the
piazza; good-night on the stairs--it was maddening to think of.
But, nevertheless, she thought of it hour after hour, with no other
result than to become more and more convinced that she was truly in love
with a man who had never given any sign that he loved her, and that there
was every reason to believe that when he gave a sign that he loved, it
would be to another woman, and not to her.
She rose and looked out of the window. A piece of the moon, far gone in
the third quarter, was rising above a mass of evergreens. She had a
courageous young soul, and the waning brightness of the lovers' orb did
not affect her as a disheartening sign.
"It is not right," she said to herself.
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