The very beauty made her
heart ache. Seaward there was nothing--nothing but the leaping little
waves and the sky. From the land side help might come at any hour, and
at every roll of wheels along the road her heart beat faster and hope
sprang up anew. But day after day nothing came.
Perhaps there is no greater bravery than this sort of waiting, doing the
daily duty and waiting. Endurance is woman's bravery, and Edith was
enduring, with an almost broken but still with a courageous heart. It
was all so strange. Was it simply shame that kept him away, or had he
ceased to love her? If the latter, there was no help for her. She had
begged him to come, she had offered to leave the boy with her cousin
companion and go to him. Perhaps it was pride only. In one of his short
letters he had said, "Thank God, your little fortune is untouched."
If it were pride only, how could she overcome it? Of this she thought
night and day. She thought, and she was restless, feverish, and growing
thin in her abiding anxiety.
It was true that her own fortune was safe and in her control. But with
the usual instinct of women who know they have an income not likely to be
ever increased, she began to be economical.
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