Her love for Martin slowly grew, a love now independent of
earthly contact and earthly desire, a treasure that would be hers
so long as life lasted, that no one could take from her.
She no longer hated Aunt Anne, but she did not intend to live with
her any more. So soon as she was well enough she would go. That
moment of physical contact when Aunt Anne had held her back made any
more relation between them impossible. There was now a great gulf
fixed.
The loneliness, the sense of desperate loss, above all the agonising
longing for Martin, his step, his voice, his smile--she faced all
these and accepted them as necessary companions now on her life's
journey, but she did not intend to allow them to impede progress.
She wondered now about everybody. Her own experience had shown her
what strange and wonderful things occur to all human beings, and, in
the face of this, how could one hate or grudge or despise? She had a
fellowship now with all humanity.
But she was as ignorant about life as ever. The things that now she
wanted to know! About Aunt Anne, for instance. How had she been
affected by Mr.
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