Chapter XIX

There are times in life when everything is out
of focus, when events take on the measure, not
of what they really are, but of the mental state of the
people affected by them. Such a time had now come
to the mistress of the Trellis House. For a while
Mrs. Otway saw everything, heard everything, read
everything, through a mist of aching pain and of that
worst misery of all -- the misery of suspense.

The passion of love, so hedged about with curious
and unreal conventions, is a strangely protean thing.
The dear old proverb, "Absence makes the heart grow
fonder," is far truer than those who believe its many
cynical counterparts would have us think, and especially
is this true of an impulsive and imaginative
nature.

It was the sudden, dramatic withdrawal of Major
Guthrie from her life which first made the woman
he had dumbly loved realise all that his constant, helpful
presence had meant to her. And then his worldly
old mother's confidences had added just that touch of
jealousy which often sharpens love. Lastly, his letter,
so simple, so direct, and yet, to one who knew his
quiet, reserved nature, so deeply charged with feeling,
had brought the first small seed to a blossoming which
quickened every pulse of her nature into ardent, sentient
life. This woman, who had always been singularly
selfless, far more interested in the lives of those
about her than in her own, suddenly became self-absorbed.

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v?