To have found
herself positively loving one man while she was betrothed to another would
have driven her to terrible extremity; the mere idea of going back to her
mother and to the old life at home with this wild thought forever gnawing
at her heart was intolerable. She might bear it to the end, whatever the
end might be, and in silence, so long as none of her former associations
made the contrast between past and present too strong. Old Miss
Schenectady, with her books and her odd conversation, was as good a
companion as any one, since she could not live alone. Sybil Brandon would
have wearied her by her sympathy, gentle and loving as it would have been;
and besides, Sybil was away from Boston and very happy; it would be
unkind, as well as foolish, to disturb her serenity with useless
confidences. And so the days went by and the hot summer was come, and yet
Joe lingered in Boston, suffering silently and sometimes wondering how it
would all end.
Sybil was staying near Newport with her only surviving relation, an uncle
of her mother.
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