But it brought no sense of comfort to her, and she sat drearily back while Eunice dressed her for dinner, and stared blankly into the fire, wondering if her whole life was to go on like this.

Only twenty-one, and life such a hopeless blank already! She could look forward to her future life--a long, long vista of days, and every day like this.
By-and-by the dinner-bell rang, arousing her from her dismal reverie, and she went down stairs, never taking the trouble to look at herself in the glass, or to see how her maid had dressed her.

Yet she looked beautiful--coldly, palely beautiful--in that floating dress of deep blue; and jewelled forget-me-nots in her rich amber hair.

Her face and figure had recovered all their lost roundness and symmetry, but the former, except when she spoke or smiled, was as cold and still as marble.
Father Francis and Doctor Danton were in the dining-room when she entered, but their welcome home was very apathetically met.

She was silent all through dinner, talking was such a tiresome exertion; nothing interested her.