There was nothing to stop its growth now, and she let it have its way.

What did it matter, so long as he did not come near her--for the present?
Some day he would come; she wondered when, and how long he would keep his promise.

But meanwhile she was not unhappy, and she went about her occupations as before; only sometimes she would go alone at evening to the balcony that faced the higher mountains, and there she would stand for half an hour gazing southward towards the precipitous rocks that caught the red glare of the sinking sun, and she asked herself if he were there, or whether, as report had told her, he were in the far north.
It was but half a day's ride over the hills, he had said.

But strain her sight as she would, she could not pierce the heavy crags nor see into the wooded dells beyond.

He had said he would pass the summer there; had he changed his mind?
But she was not unhappy.