Fine lady as she was now, rather serious and proud in her ways, none had refashioned her, and she remained always the same.
After this ball, the past winter had been spent in waiting to see him again, but he had not even come to say good-bye before his departure for Iceland.

Since he was no longer by, nothing else existed in her eyes; slowly time seemed to drag until the return in autumn, when she had made up her mind to put an end to her doubts.
The town-hall clock struck eleven, with that peculiar resonance that bells have during the quiet spring nights.

At Paimpol eleven o'clock is very late; so Gaud closed her window and lit her lamp, to go to bed.
Perhaps it was only shyness in Yann, after all, or was it because, being proud also, he was afraid of a refusal, as she was so rich?
She wanted to ask him this herself straightforwardly, but Sylvestre thought that it would not be the right thing, and it would not look well for her to appear so bold.

In Paimpol already her manners and dress were sufficiently criticised.
She undressed slowly as if in a dream; first her muslin cap, then her town-cut dress, which she threw carelessly on a chair.

The little lamp, alone to burn at this late hour, bathed her shoulders and bosom in its mysterious light, her perfect form, which no eye ever had contemplated, and never could contemplate if Yann did not marry her.