And so it was in the full spring-tide of Rachel's heart.

The snow came down upon it.

She discovered at last that though he loved her he did not wish to marry her; that even from the time of that first meeting he had never intended to marry her.

That discovery was a shroud.

She wrapped her dead love in it, and would fain have buried it out of her sight.
But only after a year of conflict was she suffered to bury it--after a year during which the ghost of her dead ever came back, and came back to importune her vainly with its love.