Certainly there was much in the past to darken her life with an ineffaceable shadow, and nothing in the future to throw any light on the present.
Once her life had been radiantly happy in the sunlight of wedded love, but a terrible trial had come upon her which ended in divorce and a desolated home.
The passionate pride of a strong nature had helped her to bear it before the eyes of the world. What she suffered in secret only Heaven knew.
In her pride she would have perished rather than unmask her secret suffering.
“Through many a clime ’twas mine to go,
With many a retrospection curst,
And all my solace is to know,
Whate’er betides I’ve known the worst.
What is that worst? Ah, do not ask,
In pity from the search forbear;