"One could not think of oneself at such a time. For Evelyn it was terrible. To be there on the spot, and to see him! But even my father could not keep her back."
"And since then she has been—"
"Very, very sad. I don't think I should have expected—But nobody ever knows beforehand. She seems to feel that everything is gone, and that her life is at an end."
"You would not have expected what?"
"Ought I to say it? One feels some things that one does not like to speak out. Only—to you—may I not? He was so good and kind—but still so very much older, and different in every way. Yet now one might fancy that her life had been perfect; even though one knows how things really were."
"The manner of her loss must have intensified it. The shock and suddenness—"
"I dare say that had something to do with her feeling. It was all very dreadful. It couldn't help being so. And besides—" Jean hesitated, falling into a slower walk. "I suppose it is sometimes worse to lose anybody, if—Worse in one way, I mean—"
"If there has not been perfect oneness? If there has been friction?"
"Yes, I see you understand. I didn't half like to say it—unless you knew . . . Evelyn seems to feel that she must do every single thing, exactly as he would have wished. She reads all the little books and sermons that he liked. I suppose they helped him; but I don't believe they help her. And she has locked up some of her own books, which do help her, because he didn't like them. And she always goes to St. John's—twice every Sunday—never to our Church. And she tries so hard to like his friends better than her own."
Jem understood. "You see less of her now?"