for her—she had been delayed—she had missed the turning, and had been compelled to retrace her steps. And, when at length the twilight had come, he would start to assure himself that it was to be to-morrow, and sink into a fitful dozing, recounting waking dreams of her, subtly intoxicating. . . .
*****
In April came a foretaste of summer, and, for an hour or two every day, he was able to hobble downstairs. He perceived the box at once, lying in its accustomed place, and concluded that on learning that he was out of danger, she had sent it back to him. The sight of it cheered him with indefinable hope: it seemed to signify a fresh token of her faith in him: it had travelled with her back to Cockermouth on that wonderful day which had brought them together; and now, in his eyes, it was invested with a new preciousness. He unlocked it, and, somehow, to discover that its contents had not been disturbed, was a keen disappointment. He longed for proof that she had been curious to look into it, that she had thus been able to realise how he had prized every tiny object that had been consecrated for him by her. Then it flashed across him that she herself might have brought the box back, and fearing to disturb him, had gone home again without asking to see him. All that evening he brooded over this supposition; yet shrank from putting any question to Mrs. Parkin. But the following morning, a sudden impulse overcame his repugnance; and the next moment he had learned the truth. Untouched, unmoved, the box had remained all the while—she had never taken it—she had forgotten it. And depression swept through him; for it seemed that his ideal had tottered.
His prolonged isolation and his physical lassitude had quickened his emotions to an abnormal sensibility, and had led him to a constant fingering, as it were, of his successive sentimental phases.And
