She had pulled a few young stalks of the grass, which, as she went, she was endeavouring to arrange in her hat.
The difference of the preceding day hung heavily over both of them.

It was really the first time that anything of the sort had occurred between them.

Perhaps it was that they felt instinctively that they stood on the brink of a precipice.

They therefore took the greatest pains to avoid the subject which really occupied their thoughts.

The conversation was thus carried on in a careless and desultory tone, and in short and broken sentences.