But then Alaric could not have loved as Norman loved.
And so we will leave them.

In about half an hour, when the short twilight was becoming dusk, Mrs.Woodward returned, and found Norman standing alone on the hearthrug before the fireplace.
Gertrude was away, and he was leaning against the mantelpiece, with his hands behind his back, staring at vacancy; but oh! with such an aspect of dull, speechless agony in his face.
Mrs.Woodward looked up at him, and would have burst into tears, had she not remembered that they would not be long alone; she therefore restrained herself, but gave one involuntary sigh; and then, taking off her bonnet, placed herself where she might sit without staring at him in his sorrow.
Katie came in next.

'Oh! Harry, it's so lucky we didn't start in the punt,' said she, 'for it's going to pour, and we never should have been back from the island in that slow thing.' Norman looked at her and tried to smile, but the attempt was a ghastly failure.

Katie, gazing up into his face, saw that he was unhappy, and slunk away, without further speech, to her distant chair.

There, from time to time, she would look up at him, and her little heart melted with ruth to see the depth of his misery.
'Why, oh why,' thought she, 'should that greedy Alaric have taken away the only prize ?' And then Linda came running in with her bonnet ribbons all moist with the big raindrops.