could be
nothing to her. No, nothing! nothing but life, and sun, and air, and
food, and raiment, and hope, and comfort. Nothing but that. Everything
in the world, and nothing more. Unutterable joy, unfathomable loss.
She knew now. The scales had fallen from her eyes. In a blinding flash
of light she saw her own heart, and knew that it held but one thought,
one image, one hope.

How long had she loved him? She recalled their first meeting, when he
had frowned at the sight of her, and she had watched him walk along the
shore by Jean's side with resentment in her heart. Their acquaintance
had begun with prejudice and dislike, yet almost at once her sympathy
had gone out towards him; almost from the first it had distressed her to
see his depression; that nervous twitch of the features had been a
positive pain, she had turned away her head to avoid the sight. Later
on, when Jean was engaged, he had drawn nearer, and looking back on the
day of the wedding, she knew that it had been for his sake that she had
taken an interest in her costume, from a desire to appear fair in his
eyes. At the moment of entering the church it had been his face which
had stood out from all the rest. She had been so thankful to see his
smile. All that afternoon and evening he had been quietly,
unostentatiously attentive, as if divining her sense of loss, and
striving, in so far as might be, to fill the gap. Twice again she had
seen him before leaving town, and then had come the morning when he had
appeared at the Manor House window, and she had seen her own
transfigured face in the glass. That was the day when the last barrier
had broken down, and friendship had finally made place for love.

Nature, which had decreed that she might never marry, had not at the
same time been merciful enough to take away the power of loving; rather
had it bestowed it upon her in a deeper, fuller fashion than is
possessed by nine women out of ten. Every power of her being surged
towards this man in a passion of love and longing. She stretched out
her hands as if to grasp him, and sobbed to feel them empty. Laughter
turned to tears--the slow, difficult tears of a breaking heart. For
ever and ever these hands must remain empty. As if the present were not
sufficiently painful, Vanna then projected herself into the future. In
imagination she saw Piers engaged to this pretty, strange girl; listened
to his mother's endless prattle concerning her beauty,