Jane had so woven herself into his life that her sudden departure had been like the upwrenching of a plant, tearing out the fibres twisted about his heart, cutting off all his sustenance and strength.

The inconsistencies of her conduct especially troubled him.

If she loved him--and she had told him that she did, and with their cheeks touching--how could she leave him in order to indulge a mere whim of her sister's?
And if she loved him well enough to tell him so, why had she refused to plight him her troth?
Such a course was unnatural, and out of his own and everyone else's experience.

Women who loved men with a great, strong, healthy love, the love he could give her, and the love he knew she could give him, never permitted such trifles to come between them and their life's happiness.

What, he asked himself a thousand times, had brought this change?
As the months went by these doubts and speculations one by one passed out of his mind, and only the image of the woman he adored, with all her qualities--loyalty to her trust, tenderness over Lucy and unquestioned love for himself--rose clear.