"Oh, I can't bear it! I can't bear it! What is life to me now? It's finished—absolutely done! There is nothing to hope for, nothing to wait for! Nothing will ever come to me now!"
She went back in thought to the years that stretched behind her. One figure, one personality, was prominent in them all. Archie Hughes had been a playmate first, then a friend, then a lover. She and he latterly had been separated by distance, but it had only made the future brighter to her, for would it not bring them together? In all she planned, Archie took a prominent part. She did not now seem able to adjust her life without him. Never had she looked forward to the years stretching away in front of her without a happy thrill, the certain hope that she would have Archie to advise her, comfort her, and be her stand-by.
Sidney was no modern young woman with an assurance and independence of thought which made a single life appear so attractive. She had grown-up amongst men who still held chivalrous ideas of women. She was accustomed to little attentions from them, and perhaps queened it over them rather more than was good for her.
"Oh," she moaned, as she pulled in her oars and let herself drift for a little with the tide, bowing her head in her hands in abject misery, "if it had been anyone but Archie! He must have tired of me. Perhaps I showed him too much how I cared. And yet when he wished me good-bye, he whispered, 'Good-bye, little wifie!' What can have happened to make him change so?" She recalled his letters; but a pang went through her as she remembered how few and far between they had been of late.
It was bitter to her to feel that he had flung her aside without a word, without giving her any reason for doing so. "Perhaps," she soliloquised, "he was tired of waiting for me. Men are not like women. I tried his patience. But how secure I felt! How implicitly I trusted him!"
Then she sat up and pushed her hair off her forehead, and the proud little poise of her head told that there was still some spirit left in her.
"I must have pluck and courage. Others have gone through as bad a time as I am having now. Some women seem to be happy without husbands or lovers. Monica is. She never seems to have a thought about them, except to like a friendly chat with them occasionally. I must rise above my trouble. I will not brood over it. I shall never be tempted to leave dad now. I must learn to look at life differently. God will help me. My life belongs to Him, and He has arranged it so. I will try not to pity myself any more. If only I could forget!"
She caught up her oars again and swung the boat round. Rowing back against the tide was hard work, but the exercise to muscle did her good, and the desire to battle with difficulty was realised.
When she brought the boat back to its mooring-place she saw that visitors were with her father. A young fellow, seeing her, sprang towards her.
He was a curly-haired merry-faced boy of twenty-two, a special crony of hers.