Grieving is such a satisfactory and dramatic thing when you can fling yourself down upon the ground and cry aloud and tear your hair.

But if some great blow must be borne without a sign, then indeed it wrings the heart and saps the forces of life.
When Halcyone got to her room, the housemaids were there beginning to make her bed--so it was no refuge for her--and she was obliged to go down again.

The big drawing-rooms would be untenanted at this moment, so she turned the handle of the door and crept in there.

The modern brightly gilt Louis XVI furniture glared at her, but she sank into a big chair thankful to find any support.
What was this which had fallen upon her ?--The winter, indeed--or, more than that, not only the winter but the end of life, like the flash of lightning which had struck the tree in the park the night before that day which was to have seen her wedding?
And as she sat there in dumb, silent, hideous agony which crushed for the moment belief and hope, a canary from the aviary beyond set up a trilling song.

She listened for a second; it seemed to hurt her more.
The poor bird was in captivity, as was her soul.