He had set a thousand bulbs for her, and many thousand flowers were to have sprung up in time to welcome her.

But something had gone wrong with them.

They had suffered by his absence.

As Edith looked out of the window he was stooping low, on acutely bended knees, sorrowfully preoccupied with a broken hyacinth.

He had his back to them.
To Edith's mind there was something heart-rending in the expression of that intent, innocent back, so surrendered to their gaze, so unconscious of its own pathetic curve.