A delicacy, which may or may not have been false, restrained him.

And she, respecting what instinctively she knew to be his feelings, never bade him come to her.
In their letters they never spoke of Rotherby; not once did his name pass between them; it was as if he had never lived or never crossed their lives.

Meanwhile she weakened and faded day by day, despite all the care with which she was surrounded.

That winter of cold and want in the Cour des Miracles had sown its seeds, and Death was sharpening his scythe against the harvest.
When the end was come she sent urgently for Everard.

He came at once in answer to her summons; but he came too late.