And he was gone.
Agnes sat down for a few moments to recover her composure. Her eyes rested on the red goldfish swimming futilely round and round the glass bowl in the centre of the hall; but at her ear was the joy-killing whisper that the appointment had been a fictitious one.
Nevertheless, she persuaded herself he would come next day. She spent three hours, hidden in the bracken, at a point whence she could overlook the whole bay. When he did not come, she deferred her hopes to the following Saturday, to be again disappointed. He was not to be seen. Neither in the Market Place, nor at the Library, nor yet in Contrée Mansel; for she could not refrain from the poor pleasure of passing along the street in which he lived, of glancing shamefacedly at his house, of envying wildly the servant she saw for an instant at an upper window. She would have thought it a privilege to be allowed to clean his boots.
But when she found herself at home that evening she was seized by an excess of silent despair. There seemed nothing on earth to do: nothing to live for.
Yet the buoyancy of youth is hard to suppress. It takes repeated blows to beat it down, just as the tears shed at eighteen may be bitter indeed, but do not furrow the cheeks.
As the year brought round another spring, Agnes found that her spirits were growing brighter with the days. She loved Jack more than ever. It was impossible to be absolutely unhappy with such a love in her heart; with the knowledge that she lived in the same Island with him; that once a week at least she could walk through the streets he daily trod; that any day she ran the chance of meeting him again, of speaking at least with some one who had just spoken with him.
Against
