And when, ah, woe! she loves alone
Through passionate duty love flames higher
As grass grows taller round a stone.
Coventry Patmore.
Never! ’tis certain that no hope is—none?
No hope for me, and yet for thee no fear,
The hardest part of my hard task is done;
Thy calm assures me that I am not dear.
Jean Ingelow.
Erle was quite shocked at Fay’s changed appearance, but he said very little about it. He had an instinctive feeling that the shadow had deepened, and that Fay was sick at heart; but he only showed his sympathy by an added kindness, and an almost reverential tenderness, and Fay was deeply grateful for his delicacy, for she knew now that, though she had been blind, others had had their eyes open; and she had a morbid fear that every one traced her husband’s restlessness and dissatisfaction with his life to the right cause, and knew that she was an unloved wife. Fay was very proud by nature, though no one would have guessed it from her exceeding gentleness; and this knowledge added largely to her pain. But she hid it—she hid it heroically, and no one knew till too late how the young creature had suffered in her silence.